COP30 in Brazil: “We have to get all the stakeholders around the table” – Pres Ali on global climate action

President Irfaan Ali has stressed the need for all stakeholders, including big emitters, to have a seat at the table for there to be collective and effective global action to tackle climate change.

The Head of State was at the time speaking on the British political podcast, The Rest Is Politics: Leading. He is the first sitting president from the Americas to appear on the podcast hosted by award-winning British political commentator Alastair Campbell, which was aired Friday.
Asked about the impact of the “climate change denial movement” by some far-right leaders, President Ali said while this is alarming, it highlights the imbalanced structure of key meetings like the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
COP30 is slated to be held in Brazil from November 10 to 21, 2025. Set for the city of Belém, in the Brazilian State of Pará, this will be the first time the global climate change summit is held in the Amazon region.
“We have not been able to bring all the stakeholders around the same table. So, we can’t say we want to address these climate issues, but the major emitters, or those we consider to be the major emitters, are not part of the conversation. When are we going to be mature enough to bring everyone around the table, bring in those who are deniers, bring in the extremists, bring in the oil and gas company and let us work out a roadmap?”
“Let us work out an agenda in which we will have more resources spent on research and development, technological advancement, adaptation, and mitigation. Let those [oil] companies play a greater role in climate financing, in climate financing access, so that…the entire ecosystem is part of the conversation,” the Guyanese leader posited.

Beyond fossil fuels
With many countries still experiencing energy insecurity and energy poverty, President Ali pointed out that a world without fossil fuel cannot happen by 2050 – an objective set out in the Paris Agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net zero.
“As the science tells us, climate change is real. The science, and also the numbers, tells us that we can’t achieve a non-fossil fuel world by 2050 or the next hundred years. Fossil fuel will continue to play a role. The question is, how do we find this balance?” Ali noted.
This, he went on to explain, is where stakeholders such as oil-dependent countries and major oil companies must be brought on board to be part of the conversation and decision-making process.
“How do we get the oil companies and their shareholders to understand that they too have a future that is sustainable in transitioning their investment, in moving towards renewable; letting them know that in this move to renewable, they will not lose market share but find a mechanism in which they too can maintain their market share so that they see a viable future… [and not] a future in this transition in which their businesses will be wiped out, their economies will be wiped out – countries that are completely dependent on oil and gas,” the Head of State said.
According to Ali, already many countries in the Middle East with economies driven by oil production are now transitioning and investing in other sectors like tourism and agriculture to sustain their economies.
“You’re seeing countries that you never thought would have built out a tourism sector, the way they’re building out that… You’re seeing countries that have absolutely no natural assets for food production now investing in putting those assets in place to produce their own food. To say there is no action or there is inaction is also stretching the argument.”
“Many countries are taking great steps forward. The problem, though, is that all the stakeholders are not around the table, and we continue to make the same mistake year after year – make this a debate between two extremisms and not a debate on what the plan should be and how everyone can be involved in that plan,” the Guyanese leader contended.
Another issue that hinders the success of COP, Ali further outlined, is the heavy reliance on the developed world. He noted that when these large economies have strained relationships, then it dampens the ability to get a compromise or a negotiated outcome at COP.
“COP is really a forum that tries as far as possible to have a negotiated outcome. And the structure of the negotiation is that if one major partner opts out, the entire process falls. So, it is important that the international community find a mechanism through which we intervene to ensure that there is stability in all the relationships heading into COP and ensure that the temperatures are brought down so that we can have an effective COP. For us to sit and pretend that this type of relationship would not have an impact on COP, I think, would be doing an injustice to what we want to achieve at COP. The worst thing we want now is to have a conflict or destabilisation of the COP agenda,” the Head of State noted.

Global leader in conservation
President Ali, who spearheaded the recently concluded, highly praised inaugural Global Biodiversity Alliance Summit in Georgetown, will be presenting a comprehensive paper capturing the summit’s key outcomes, findings, and international agreements at COP30 in Brazil as well as the United Nations General Assembly in September with the aim of placing biodiversity at the top of the global agenda.
Already, Guyana is leading the world when it comes to forest conservation and preservation. With a tropical forest that takes up 86 per cent of its landmass, Guyana has the second-highest percentage of forest cover on earth and one of the lowest deforestation rates. The forest stores 19.5 gigatonnes of carbon and sequesters more than 153 million tonnes annually and is now earning massively for the country.
In December 2022, the Guyana Government signed a historic contract with US-based Hess Corporation for the sale of 33.7 million of the country’s high-quality certified carbon credits – a deal that saw the nation earning US$750 million for just 30 per cent of its forest carbon, with a portion of these revenues going towards Amerindian development.