Crypto News: The COP30 climate roadshow

Today's newsletter looks at key takeaways from an event marking the official start to the run-up to annual United Nations climate talks. For unlimited access to climate and energy news, please subscribe.

On the road to COP30

By John Ainger

Climate ministers, delegates and think tank analysts arrived at Germany's foreign ministry in Berlin this week for the first stop on the COP30 climate roadshow.

The Petersberg Climate Dialogue takes place in the German capital every year and marks the first official event where ministers from around the world present their ideas for what the next United Nations' convened climate summits — or COPs — need to deliver. The German conference was forged by then-Chancellor Angela Merkel after COP talks collapsed in Copenhagen in 2009.

COP30, which will be held in the Brazilian city of Belem, is still eight months away, but those pushing back on climate ambition are currently in the ascendancy. "We are slightly losing this game," Andre Correa do Lago, COP30 president-designate, told the assembled delegates in Berlin, voicing what few people wanted to acknowledge.

Officials from around 40 countries turned up this year and did their best to assure one another that they remained committed to the 1.5C goal outlined by the landmark Paris Agreement, even after US President Donald Trump decided to leave the pact in one of his first acts in office this January. Yet other geopolitical distractions — namely Ukraine's war against Russia — have caused climate change to fall down the priority list for countries.

The weighty matters of the day were discussed under glittering chandeliers in a complex originally built by Adolf Hitler to house the Nazi government's Reichsbank.

Here are some of the key takeaways from this week:

There are fears of a new COP antagonist

In public, few people criticized the new Trump administration for retreating on climate. Jennifer Morgan, Germany's special envoy on climate, only went as far as calling the US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement "regrettable."

Indeed, the US won't have officially left the Paris accord by the time of COP30. There was concern that Washington's recent unpredictability in international diplomacy could mean they would try and disrupt climate progress at the conference, according to people familiar with the matter, who agreed to speak on condition of anonymity.

Saudi Arabia wants a seat at the table

The country, which has long acted as a break on more climate ambition, was at the Berlin conference this week. There were other COP regulars in attendance, including the European Union's climate chief Wopke Hoekstra and his UK counterpart Ed Miliband. China sent Li Gao, the country's vice minister for ecology and environment, and small island states showed up in force. But there were notable absentees too: India did not send a delegation, even though they were invited.

The EU got a scolding from the UN

Relatively few countries met a February deadline to submit updated emissions cutting plans, known as Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), for the next decade.

The head of the UN's climate change wing, Simon Stiell, who was at the Petersberg Climate Dialogue, called out the European Union in particular for having not yet delivered its NDC at a separate event in Berlin this week. "This is Europe's moment; I urge you seize it," Stiell said in a speech at the Europe 2025 conference. "You have the technology, you have the resources; what is needed now is leadership."

The holdup on the EU plan can be partially explained by the bloc's internal debate over climate ambition going as far as 2040.

China, the world's biggest emitter, hasn't delivered its updated climate plan either.

Quirky finance ideas are still welcome

At COP29 last year, country leaders were pitching all sorts of new ways to raise funds — from taxing business class flights to bond trades — to plug a multi-trillion-dollar gap in climate finance.

This year Brazil said it would come forward with a report on how the world can scale up private finance to $1.3 trillion, saying it will likely need the heavy involvement of development banks and innovative sources of finance, such as levies on plane tickets.

The Dubai pledge seems more like a desert mirage

Even as the world surpassed 1.5C of global warming for the first time on an annual basis last year, there doesn't seem to be much appetite from countries to strengthen commitments made at COP28 in Dubai to transition away from fossil fuels.

Countries are "not ready to go beyond that," said Yalchin Rafiyev, who was lead negotiator for Azerbaijan during its hosting of COP29 last year, in an interview in Berlin. "Now we are living in such a challenging environment, we should think about the process itself rather than going beyond."

One big goal

$125 billion

This is how much Brazil is looking to raise for a fund to preserve the world's tropical forests.

Staying strong

"A race toward lowering environmental standards globally will not benefit anyone."

Steffi Lemke

Minister for the Green party and outgoing environment minister

Lemke said on Thursday that the European Union must resist pressure to weaken climate targets in order to aid carmakers after US President Donald Trump said he would slap a 25% tariff on auto imports.

More from Green

The Arctic Ocean likely had the smallest winter ice cover in 47 years of satellite records this season, with just 5.53 million square miles of sea ice covering the region at its peak on March 22.

That's 510,000 square miles less than the median coverage at other March peaks between 1981 and 2010, according to the National Snow & Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado at Boulder — a reduction equivalent to an area larger than Peru.

Last year was the hottest year on record and the loss of Arctic ice threatens to accelerate feedback loops involved in climate change. Warmer, darker, more open ocean waters absorb solar energy that would otherwise be reflected by ice, trapping more heat. "Every year we're increasing the amount of heat that is stored in the Arctic Ocean," said Penny Vlahos, a climate scientist at the University of Connecticut.

Explorer seeks Trump's nod to mine metals on the seabed. The Metals Company has requested a pre-application consultation with the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to harvest the ocean floor for critical metals in international waters. Executives have also met with White House officials, the firm said Thursday in a statement.

The EPA may give out air-pollution exemptions by e-mail. Polluters that email requests for exemptions to emissions rules ranging from coal-burning power plants to copper smelters by the end the month may be granted them, according to guidance the Environmental Protection Agency posted on its website.

Having trouble keeping up with Trump's climate action wipeout? You're not alone. Bloomberg Opinion has a helpful timeline showing the Trump administration's climate rollbacks over his first 52 days in office. Also, check out this quick explainer on what else Trump plans to overturn.

Photo finish

As delegates arrived at the Petersberg Climate Dialogue on Wednesday morning they were greeted by billowing smoke and a team of firefighters. On top of a big red truck parked outside, a banner unfurled from a crane: "Leaders Unite! Save the Planet!"

It was a Greenpeace stunt — with no actual flames on site — designed to re-ignite, as it were, political will behind the landmark Paris Agreement. The demonstration follows a major blow against the climate charity, which was found liable in a US court for a $660 million settlement over oil protests last week. The ruling sent chills across the world of activism.--John Ainger