TORONTO, Canada, Dec 22 (IPS) – Our traditional ‘year-end’ typically begins with a grim litany of global disasters and crises from the past twelve months, highlights IPS partners and contributors and culminates in a more positive-sounding finale. This time I want to start on a more personal note, also intended as a metaphor.
On November 20, as the UN climate talks COP30 in Belem, Brazil, appeared to run into extra time as delegates harassed by fossil fuel lobbyists negotiated a final text, a fire broke out in the conference center. Cue flames and panic.
As thousands searched for the nearest exit, a young diplomat from Bangladesh spotted me and instead of joining the mass melee, bravely led me through the crowd to safety. Thank you Aminul Islam Zisan for demonstrating when people in crisis can come together in unique ways.
Fortunately, no one died in the fire; talks resumed and the Conference of Parties process survived in the form of a final document that could be interpreted as a small step forward in the global struggle to curb the climate crisis, even if only one step forward was taken. oblique reference to the fossil fuels that largely cause this.
The COP’s survival was not assured given the US boycott ordered by President Donald Trump, who dismissed climate change as “the biggest scam” in his speech to the UN General Assembly in September.
The US absence in Belem has actually done more damage to the US in terms of its global standing, just as Trump’s decision to avoid the parallel G20 talks in Johannesburg has only increased its reputational damage. Salt was rubbed diplomatically into the self-inflicted wounds by the dignity of G20 host President Cyril Ramaphosa, who ignored US opposition from afar and steered the adoption of a declaration addressing global challenges, especially the climate crisis.
Looking back, perhaps this was the week that quietly brought down the curtain on America’s era. Unpredictability, chaos, violence and institutionalized brutality are the first symptoms of the dramatic shift in 2025 towards unilateralism and protectionism.
Hundreds of Palestinians, including dozens of children, have been killed since the US-brokered ‘truce’ between Israel and Hamas began on October 11. Russian airstrikes on Ukrainian civilian targets have also regularly underscored Trump’s failed attempts to end a war he said he could end on the first day of his presidency.
The sharp cuts in US aid ordered by Trump in January have “fueled a global humanitarian catastrophe,” according to a July 31 statement from the UN Human Rights Council. Citing two independent experts on poverty, food and human rights, the Council said: “It is estimated that more than 350,000 deaths have already occurred as a result of aid cuts, including more than 200,000 children.”
The conflict in Western Sudan is spreading famine, and the lack of funding has also led to cuts in vital UN aid to South Sudan. Lifesaving support for more than a million people trapped in Myanmar’s largely forgotten civil war was cut by the UN World Food Program due to funding shortfalls.
Civicus, a global alliance of civil society organizations and activists working to strengthen citizen action, says these multiple and interrelated crises – conflict, climate crisis and democratic backsliding – are overwhelming the international institutions designed to address the problems that states cannot or will not solve. The US withdrawal from global bodies threatens to worsen this crisis in international cooperation.
But like CIVICUS’s State of Civil Society Report 2025 Broadly speaking, civil society has ideas about how to save the UN by putting people at the center: a theme embraced at COP30 by Binaifer Nowrojee, president of the Open Society Foundations, who endorsed Brazil’s democratic leadership for elevating the voices of indigenous and Afro-descendants and returning human rights to the center of climate action.
In this rapidly changing world order, Nowrojee sees the Global South stepping forward with new ideas and a new vision, rooted in dignity, fairness and protection of the planet.
Perhaps the most important agreement to emerge from COP30 was the Just Transition Mechanism, which aims to ensure fair development of a global green economy, protecting the rights of all people, including workers, women and indigenous peoples.
Coral Pasisi, Director of Climate Change and Sustainability for the Pacific Community (SPC), highlighted at COP30 how critical the situation has become for island states experiencing accelerating climate impacts and hoping for meaningful breakthroughs in Belem. She raised the need for stronger support from developed countries for loss and damage.
The Gen Z protesters who have shaken regimes in South Asia and Africa are certainly ramping up their vision for a fairer future for all, with their protests targeting cronyism and corruption among entrenched elites. They faced bullets last year in Bangladesh, and in Nepal – where the government was forced to resign in September – as well as in Tanzania, where hundreds were reportedly killed. Protests by Generation Z also rocked Indonesia, the Philippines and Morocco this year.
As Jan Lundius, a Swedish researcher, wrote in IPS”While specific incidents caused these upheavals, they were all due to long-standing, shared grievances rooted in large wealth gaps, rampant nepotism, and unchecked corruption. Above all, young people protested against members of powerful dynasties, favoring a wealthy and discredited political elite.”
A combination of conflict and climate disasters could have disastrous long-term consequences, especially for… upbringing of children. Initiatives supported by IPS such as Education can’t wait (ECW) and the Safe schools statement focus on providing high-quality, inclusive education to crisis-affected children to prevent long-lasting cycles of poverty and instability.
Hurricane Melissa, which tore through the Caribbean in October, was a stark reminder that 5.9 million children and adolescents in Latin America and the Caribbean could be pushed into poverty by 2030 due to educational loss due to climate change if governments do not act quickly, UNICEF said.
The World Bank estimated the physical damage caused by Hurricane Melissa in Jamaica at approximately US$8.8 billion, or 41% of the country’s GDP in 2024.
However, the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) has also warned governments against underestimating or ignoring the inextricable links between climate change, nature loss and food security. The latest assessment, adopted by almost 150 countries meeting in Windhoek, Namibia, warned that biodiversity is declining everywhere, largely due to human activity.
CGIAR, a global research partnership focused on food security, faces a very different world than when it was founded nearly 50 years ago when it comes to tackling climate change, biodiversity loss and new conflicts, according to CGIAR Chief Scientist Dr. Sandra Milach. A key focus is on equipping 500 million small-scale producers for climate resilience to protect their livelihoods and increase stable incomes.
No year-end event would be complete in the run-up to festive celebrations without at least a mention of the key religious figures dominating the news.
Pope Francis, one of the most outspoken popes of modern times, died on Easter Monday. Chicago native Robert Francis Prevost, 69, became his successor, the first North American chosen for the role. He chose to be known as Pope Leo XIV and called for an end to the “barbarism” of the Gaza war. He also targeted climate skeptics and called for urgent action from world leaders at COP30.
The Dalai Lama, spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism, turned ninety in exile in India and also called for peace in the world. To the delight of his followers, he made it clear that he would be reincarnated and that only his trusted inner circle of monks would have the “sole authority” to locate his successor. China quickly dismissed his statement, saying his successor must be approved by Beijing.
In 2025, the world will mark 80 years since the end of World War II. Minoru Haradaa Buddhist monk and head of the Soka Gakkai, recalled his childhood experiences with the firebombing of Tokyo and pledged his organization’s determination that no one should have to endure the horrors of war.
Farhana Haque Rahman is Senior Vice President of IPS Inter Press Service and Executive Director of IPS Noram; from 2015 to 2019, she was elected Director General of IPS. She is a journalist and communications expert and a former senior official of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the International Fund for Agricultural Development.
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