Climate science, which has been warning us since the end of the 80s of the last century, no longer leaves room for doubt. To avoid catastrophic global warming, the world will have to cut emissions by almost half by 2030. Each year of delay makes the challenge more difficult and the damage deeper. The clock of physics does not wait for the slow times of politics.
Politics, however, lives in another time zone. Governments and democracies balance long-term promises with everyday urgencies. Decisions that should transform fossil economies into sustainable societies clash with long-standing inequalities, vulnerable jobs and cost-of-living pressures. It is at this intersection that the future is decided: the dilemma between the end of the month and the end of the world.
For many citizens, the climate transition is seen as an immediate risk to jobs, energy prices or the family budget. When politics calls for sacrifices today for global benefits in the future, it requires careful pedagogy and a notion of social justice that does not always exist. Without a fair and properly financed transition, the change risks deepening inequalities that already weaken trust in institutions.
This fertile ground is quickly occupied by populist speeches that promise easy solutions: deny science, halt the transition, revoke environmental goals. These are politically profitable responses, but technically useless. By postponing inevitable decisions, they push even greater costs into the future and make the climate impact more violent for those who can least defend themselves.
It is in this context that COP30 is taking place in Belém do Pará. Few places symbolize climate urgency as well as the Amazon, one of the last great stabilizers of the global climate. The choice of Brazil could translate into a rapprochement between science and politics. However, the signals remain insufficient. Several targets are being made more flexible, commitments remain below what is necessary and the elimination of fossil fuels is progressing at a pace far removed from what global warming requires.
Science is clear on the diagnosis and consequences. It shows a world where extreme phenomena are becoming more frequent, where droughts and floods destroy crops, where entire communities are forced to move and where geopolitical tensions worsen. None of this is in the distant future. It is an expanding gift that reaches the most vulnerable first, but will eventually reach everyone in every country.
The climate challenge is not just technological or economic. It is moral and political. It requires vision to think beyond an electoral cycle, courage to face vested interests and equity to ensure that the transition also protects those who live on the edge of the end of the month. There is no contradiction between caring for the present and protecting the future. Yes, there is a high price in not doing either.
Leaders who today hesitate due to electoral calculations will inevitably be remembered for what they did not do. They have all the scientific evidence before them and, even so, they choose to postpone the inevitable. In Belém, politics has another opportunity to demonstrate that it is still capable of leading in the name of the common good. Science has already told the world what is at stake. The time left is not technical. It’s political. And history is rarely kind to those who abdicate collective responsibility for immediate convenience.
Guest Professor UCP/UNL/UÉ