Last month the 2025 United Nations Climate Change Conference - better known as COP30 - was held in the Amazonian city of Belem in northern Brazil. The conference was widely seen as a disappointment - with a binding agreement for a roadmap for phasing out fossil fuels being blocked by Saudi Arabia, the UAE and other oil producing states.

In the today's episode economist and activist Sabrina Fernandes joins PTO to talk about her thoughts on COP30. We spoke about how the structure of the COP process could conceivably be reformed in order to stop recalcitrant states vetoing action on climate. And we also talked about whether multi-lateral climate negotiations are being rendered irrelevant by developments in the global economy and the rapid expansion of renewable energy.

We went on to talk about Sabrina's recent article in 'The Breakdown', titled Lula's Dilemma. We talked about the contradictory approach of Lula and the Brazilian worker's party towards climate and the environment and what Sabrina sees as a failing politics of "class conciliation" that has disastrous environmental consequences.