As thousands of foreign delegates descend on the city of Belem in the Brazilian Amazon for Cop30 this week, questions are being asked about the usefulness of the UN climate conference. It is 10 years since the Paris Agreement was adopted at Cop21, a landmark moment that was meant to establish a set of global rules to cut emissions and tackle the climate crisis once and for all.
The decade since that summit in 2015 has seen mixed progress. Expected global warming by 2100 has fallen by nearly one degree, from 3.6C pre-Paris to 2.7C under current policies, though even this level of global warming would have a catastrophic impact, scientists have warned.
