COP30 should be the last COP. I say that without hesitation because Brazil has just proven the whole circus has lost the plot.

Millions get spent on these summits yet emissions keep rising and political will keeps shrinking. We fly tens of thousands of people into a climate conference that can’t even agree to mention fossil fuels.

Belém showed the farce in full colour.

The host city bulldozed chunks of rainforest to rush through transport links then told the world it was leading on nature.

Then came the protest chaos. Indigenous groups stormed secure zones, clashed with police and exposed the huge gap between glossy promises and lived reality for the people who guard the forest every day.

As the ‘talks’ began, a fire ripped through a COP30 venue area and forced evacuations. So the world’s premier climate gathering couldn’t even keep its infrastructure safe on the ground.

Add the staggering cost laid out in Brazil’s official COP30 spending plans – new roads, new buildings, new logistics hubs, hotels and spiralling security budgets piled onto a bill that will run into the hundreds of millions.

And what did the world get in return for this champagne environmentalism.

A final agreement that dodged the central issue yet again and avoided a commitment to phase out fossil fuels.

Every year leaders preach urgency then protect the very industries driving the crisis.

Every year we are told this platform is essential yet the same leaders fly home leaving us with a document that reads like diplomatic fog.

I’ve had enough of watching countries use climate summits as showcase tourism and PR. The UN talks have become sprawling trade fairs for green tech while the real decisions are pushed to another year.

We don’t need more pavilions and soft-focus speeches!

We need a plan that actually aligns power, money and engineering around cutting pollution without wrecking economies.

Here is what I want to see instead

Scrap the annual COP mega-summit model and replace it with a global business and science conference focused purely on implementation.

Bring in the companies that actually shape emissions. Tech giants, food producers, retailers, steelmakers, miners, shipping groups, airlines and the energy supermajors should be at the centre of this.

Put them in the same room as climate scientists and engineers who know what works.

Then force a blunt conversation on how to pollute less while still delivering profit because money drives every real-world decision.

Strip out the diplomatic showmanship and the theatre of national positioning. Replace it with binding sector-by-sector commitments that show the tonnes of CO₂ avoided and the gigawatts delivered.

Force disclosure

Hold companies to financial disclosure rules that punish greenwash. If a business promises a reduction pathway then missing it should hit its share price and its boardroom credibility.

The governments still have a role but it should be regulatory not theatrical. Set the standards, set the penalties, fund the science and stop hosting stadium-sized gatherings that dodge the very questions they claim to solve.

COP30 showed the model has collapsed under its own weight.

No fossil-fuel deal, no unity, no urgency and no honesty from the world’s biggest emitters.

This should be the moment we admit it and rebuild something that works.

The planet doesn’t need another COP. It needs decisions that cut emissions rather than more conferences that create them.