By Alan Gould, GSS. Excerpt: The 30th Conference of the Parties (COP) to United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is an international effort to dramatically reduce human caused climate change. The Quaker Youth UN Ambassadors Program has organized a delegation to COP30 from the US, tropical Africa, and the Middle East. Most of the delegation are credentialed remote observers rather than actually on the ground in Belem, Brazil for COP30 which is November 10 through 21. If you are interested in participating in virtually connecting up with these ambassadors, please contact Frank Granshaw.  Here is the portal: A Virtual Observers Guide to COP30 , the 2025 UN Climate Conference https://sites.google.com/view/virtualobserversguidetocop30 . 

By Somini Sengupta ,  Brad Plumer  and  David Gelles , The New York Times.  Excerpt: The international climate summit opened on Thursday in Belém, a Brazilian city on the edge of the imperiled Amazon rainforest, with several of America’s global allies and rivals alike making the case that slowing down global warming is today key to economic growth and energy security. It was a sharp counterpoint to President Trump, who has called climate change a “con job” ...attacked global efforts to transition away from coal, oil and gas ...has launched a full-throated...attack on global efforts to reduce the world’s reliance on fossil fuels. ...no senior American government officials are present at the meeting in Belém. ...extreme weather events, aggravated by the burning of coal, oil and gas, has heightened human suffering. In the last two weeks alone, storms and hurricanes supersized by climate change clobbered Mexico, Jamaica and Haiti. Globally, 2025 is on track to be the sec...

By Ehsan Masood , Nature.  Excerpt: An eleventh-hour deal that rescued the COP29 climate talks in Baku, Azerbaijan, is a “fragile consensus”, researchers who study climate finance have told  Nature . Visibly relieved COP delegates representing rich countries applauded in the early hours of 24 November, following a last-minute pledge in which rich countries will ‘take the lead’ in increasing climate finance for poor countries to at least US$300 billion annually by 2035. Low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), notably China, will also be expected to contribute to international climate funds, a first for a COP agreement. But delegates from some of the largest LMICs, including India, Indonesia and Nigeria, were furious. Some alleged that they had been pressured into a deal, so that the COP meeting did not end in failure. The delegates also did not agree on how much of the $300 billion will be in grants versus loans, nor how much will come from private or public-sector sources. C...