COP30 ended the only way it could: with a final plenary that felt less like global diplomacy and more like a family row after too many caipirinhas.
The fossil-fuel phase-out vanished so suddenly it might as well have slipped out through an emergency exit. Delegates spent the morning whispering versions of “you’re joking” in at least four languages.
Then Russia set the place alight. Their delegate accused Latin America of “behaving like children who want all the sweets”, the kind of taunt that can turn a diplomatic room into a schoolyard in seconds.
Argentina came back swinging. Eliana Ester Saissac declared that Latin Americans were not “spoiled children stuffing our mouths with sweets”, earning applause that suggested everyone else had been waiting for someone to say it.
From there, the plenary unravelled into procedural theatre: raised placards, raised voices, and a presidency trying to gavel through a swamp. Eventually, it landed — one day late, with half the room glaring and the other half already mentally packing.
Belém handled its 56,000 visitors with style. The politics, predictably, handled themselves with all the grace of a drunk capybara on roller skates.
See you in Bonn for SB66, where we’ll reopen the same arguments with fresh jet lag and slightly darker under-eye circles.
