Bitter rows, implacably opposed delegations, threatened walkouts and then, hours after the planned deadline with fear of failure stalking the delegates, a statement towards which recalcitrant countries have been nudged into agreeing is produced. Cop30, which concluded last Saturday in Belém, Brazil, was little different from its recent predecessors, despite the growing urgency of needing to find a solution to our ever hotter planet. For this week’s big story, environment editor Fiona Harvey details how weak consensus was forged between states on the frontline of climate change and the petrostates that sought a rollback from the need to “transition away from fossil” fuels agreed two years ago in Dubai.
And Jonathan Watts pinpoints the geopolitical headwinds that made this Cop especially difficult, although there is cause for some celebration over the flawed deal. In the face of a US president wedded to oil and coal who pursues idiosyncratic policy goals, the growth of rightwing populism, conflict in Ukraine and Gaza and worldwide economic uncertainty, it was unlikely Cop30 could have made a major step forward. But it did show that international co-operation remains an effective and necessary tool.
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Five essential reads in this week’s edition
Spotlight | Is Ukraine edging closer to a peace deal?
A whirl of international diplomacy was sparked by a US-Russian authored ‘peace plan’ to end the Ukraine war. Luke Harding and Pjotr Sauer cast a critical eye over the prospects for an agreement.
Spotlight | Trump, Saudi Arabia and shifting Middle Eastern sands
Pageantry and trillion-dollar promises reveal how Washington’s regional loyalties may be tilting away from Israel and towards the Gulf, writes Julian Borger
Feature | Is Alex Karp the world’s scariest CEO?
His company, Palantir, is potentially creating the ultimate state surveillance tool. Now, Alex Karp’s biographer reveals what makes him tick. By Steve Rose
Opinion | An improbable new adversary for Trump – the Catholic church
Inequality, immigration and civil rights are the battlegrounds on which the church – and some other Christian denominations – are fighting the Trump administration, writes Simon Tisdall
Culture | Edmund de Waal’s loose ends
The celebrated ceramicist explains to Charlotte Higgins why he turned his decades-long f ixation with Axel Salto – the maker of unsettling stoneware full of tentacle sproutings and knotty growths – into a new show
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What else we’ve been reading
• This year-long investigation by Sirin Kale and Lucy Osborne into the Free Birth Society reveals how mothers lost children after being radicalised by uplifting podcast tales of births without midwives or doctors. It’s a deep dive into a multimillion-dollar business that works by subverting basic medicinal childbirth practice. Graham Snowdon, editor
• I read with great interest Helena Horton’s feature on an ambitious proposal to build a pedestrianised, affordable ‘forest city’ in the middle of an English nature reserve. Perhaps its vision of healthier, happier communities, enriched by nature is a bit too utopian to ever become a reality – but wouldn’t it be great if it happened? Emily Elnusairi, deputy production editor
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Other highlights from the Guardian website
• Audio | ‘Enshittification’: how we got the internet no one asked for
• Video | ‘War on drugs’ or political agitation? Assessing Trump’s actions in Venezuela
• Gallery | Jimmy Cliff: a life in pictures
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