Europe has been experiencing a record heatwave in intensity, duration, and geographic coverage in June, not July or August. The Caribbean, specifically Jamaica, was struck by the strongest Atlantic hurricane on record, Hurricane Melissa, at the end of October 2025, not in August or September. The scientific community is unequivocal. These two phenomena are the result of climate change driven by human action- a deliberate failure to keep mean global temperatures below 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels.

There was another historic event in October 2025. The Conference of the Parties (COP 30), in Belém, Brazil, took the unprecedented decision to remove the words “transition away from fossil fuels” from its final Declaration. Those words were the headline from COP28 in Dubai, 2023. That declaration stated: “Nearly every country in the world has agreed to “transition away from fossil fuels” – the main driver of climate change”.

CARICOM countries were advised, after COP 29 failed to secure commitments to programmes and plans to reduce global warming, to insist that COP 30 be a single-focused agenda conference. On the contrary, they were charmed by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva into accepting the most sweeping agenda of any COP. No focused discussion on the programmes to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. On the contrary, there were robust discussions about the words “transition away from fossil fuels”. 80-plus high-carbon-emitting countries mounted an obviously coordinated attack on the two-year-old, almost unanimous decision. Unprecedented in the United Nations’ practice.  A slightly higher number of the endangered argued vehemently for the retention. In the United Nations’ practice, the Chairman would have ended the debate.