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The most high-stakes United Nations climate change conference in years is taking place this November in Belém, Brazil. It’s the 10th anniversary of the landmark Paris agreement, which committed nearly every country on Earth to working together to limit global warming.
They’re off track, making this an important moment to show the world whether world leaders can keep making progress despite serious headwinds. One of the planet’s biggest polluters, the US, has turned its back on the negotiations as President Donald Trump works to stymy renewable energy projects and promote fossil fuels. Generative AI is also making the transition to cleaner energy more difficult as data centers demand more energy. The Verge is tracking key developments and demonstrations at the climate talks as delegates grapple with all of these challenges.
UN climate talks are getting weird
One of the most consequential rounds of global climate negotiations has kicked off in Belém, Brazil. Leaders from nearly every country in the world — but notably, not the US — are gathering to try to ramp up action on climate change during a time of tremendous transformation when it comes to both energy systems and international cooperation.
Whatever happens over the course of talks at the United Nations climate conference, known as COP30 this year, will be a peek into what the shuffling world order means for the climate we live in now and for generations to come.
Disinformation comes to the forefront of UN climate negotiations.
Data centers are already influencing the global forecast for clean energy.
Growing electricity demand for AI and the Trump administration’s love of natural gas have influenced the International Energy Agency’s latest World Energy Outlook, Heatmap reports.
Indigenous protesters forced their way into UN climate negotiations.
Why is Bill Gates tone policing on climate change?
Bill Gates wants us all to be more upbeat about climate change. He argues that we’ve made great progress on the problem, aided in large part by technological advances. So it’s time to focus more on improving people’s lives, particularly by fighting hunger and disease, he writes in a memo published Tuesday. Of course, he says AI can help.
It’s supposed to be a hopeful message released ahead of high-stakes UN climate negotiations taking place next month. But it gave me whiplash reading it. Gates is a high-profile climate philanthropist, having invested billions of dollars into new technologies that are supposed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
English (US) ·