By KRISHAN GOPAL SHARMA
The next round of climate talks might well begin with a prayer and end with a shrug. Not because the planet has given up — but because its leaders already did. Long before negotiators gather under the fluorescent lights of COP30 in Belém, cynicism has signed the closing note.
The US President Donald Trump set the tone years ago when he declared, “I don’t believe it. No, I don’t believe it. I don’t think science knows, actually,” dismissing climate change during a 2020 California wildfire briefing. Months earlier, he had laughed off the need for sustainable alternatives: “They’re banning plastic straws — can you believe it? I’ve got thousands of straws. We’ve got a stockpile.” (Florida rally, July 2019).
In India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi offered his own brand of denial at an event in 2014: “Pehle hum soch lete the ki climate badal gaya hai, lekin asal mein hum badle hain — hamari aadatein, hamari tolerance badli hai.” (“We think the climate has changed, but in truth, we have — our habits, our tolerance.”) It was meant as an appeal to human adaptability, but it became a convenient political metaphor — climate as perception, not crisis. When the tone is set by disbelief, what chance does urgency have?
Chorus of Cynics
From Brasília to Washington, cynicism has found bipartisan believers. Brazil’s former president Jair Bolsonaro mocked rainforest concerns, saying, “The Amazon is ours, not yours,” as fires consumed nearly 10,000 square kilometres in 2019. In Australia, Tony Abbott called climate science “absolute crap” (Sydney radio, 2009), while Scott Morrison, his successor, waved a lump of coal in parliament, grinning, “Don’t be afraid! It won’t hurt you!” (Canberra, 2017).
These aren’t just stray remarks. They’re the DNA of a global shrug. Even business magnates joined the choir: Elon Musk once tweeted, “We don’t need carbon taxes — just innovation,” while oil lobbyists in the US quietly ensured “innovation” meant “new drilling efficiency.” The world doesn’t suffer from lack of intelligence; it suffers from excess of irony.
False Dawn in Delhi
Closer home, Delhi’s skies turned into a symbol of performative climate policy. In October 2025, officials proudly announced “artificial rain” through cloud-seeding to combat air pollution. But the “rain” barely touched 10 square kilometres, and only two air-quality stations showed marginal improvement. For the rest of the city, the Air Quality Index stubbornly stayed in the “severe” zone. Critics pointed out that the “improvement data” came not from the city’s industrial belts but from a patch cleaned by sprinklers. Delhi’s environmental emergency was thus reduced to a public-relations drizzle — an illusion of rain washing away an illusion of action. It was the perfect metaphor for our times: we seed clouds instead of conscience.
Fossil Fire and Faith Healing
While governments parade their renewable targets, fossil fuels remain the altar of real investment. India recently cleared a 2.4 GW coal-based power plant by Adani Power in Bihar — the largest privately funded project of its kind in a decade. Across the ocean, the US greenlit new oil and gas leases even as its climate envoy promised “ambitious leadership.” The irony is seamless: nations pledge to exit coal while building pipelines to its future. Each new summit becomes a kind of faith healing — “We believe,” they chant, as emissions rise and glaciers vanish. At this rate, the only net-zero we’ll achieve is net-zero accountability.
Belém: The Theatre of Hope
As COP30 approaches, hosted fittingly in Belém — gateway to the Amazon — preparations are mired in both symbolism and disarray. Infrastructure delays, unaffordable hotels, and fractured pre-summit consensus all suggest that the bridge to agreement may remain unfinished. Belém’s choice was poetic — the Amazon as both host and hostage. But poetry doesn’t clean the air. For all the talk of “mutirão” — Brazil’s spirit of collective effort — what we’re witnessing is its opposite: fragmentation dressed as cooperation. UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned recently, “The science demands action. The law commands it. The economics compel it. And people are calling for it.” Yet none of these imperatives have moved politics faster than profit.
The Illusion of Progress
Each summit claims to be the turning point. Each concludes with a photograph of unity and a document of division. Targets are pushed to future decades like debts no one intends to pay.
China has declared its updated 2035 goals and reaffirmed carbon neutrality by 2060 — yet its domestic coal use continues to rise. India’s updated NDCs, expected to emphasise renewable energy, are still hostage to global finance. The US, meanwhile, attends without top-level representation — a gesture of presence without participation. The choreography is perfect: applause for ambition, silence for execution.
Epitaph of Action
Satire, perhaps, is the only honest language left for climate politics.
Because how else to describe a world where melting glaciers are “business opportunities,” cloud seeding replaces clean air, and billionaires debate carbon capture from private jets? Perhaps the leaders are sincere in their confusion. Perhaps they truly believe that a cleaner coal, a smarter straw, or a greener press release will save the day. But sincerity without substance is still surrender. Hope may not be dead, but it’s been outsourced to NGOs and schoolchildren. The rest of us have summits.
Postscript: The World Still Turns
Despite everything, the earth continues to spin, the forests whisper, and the young still march. Somewhere in the Amazon, an Indigenous community is rebuilding a bridge washed away by last season’s flood — not waiting for permission, not needing a declaration. That is mutirão in its truest form — collective action born of necessity, not applause. When politics falter, people still build. And perhaps, in that fragile persistence, there lies the last hope that cynicism has not yet stolen.
-The writer is a freelance journalist retired from the Indian Information Service.(Views are personal.)
