Dr. Shannon Gibson 🌍 🕊️ ⚖️

The U.S. exit from the UNFCCC and IPCC isn’t just symbolic.

Climate governance doesn’t collapse—but it does fragment. Trust erodes, coordination slows, and justice gets harder to secure.

🧵⬇️

#ClimateGovernance #ClimateJustice #UNFCCC #IPCC

Fellow professors, amirite!?! #gradinghumor #finalsweek #professorlife

🚨New 'Take Five' from Director/CEO @julietdryden.bsky.social & Comms Intern Eve Harrison-Taylor 🚨

📚 Top 5 readings/podcasts on #internationalstudies from the last fortnight!
inc: Jennifer Lind Simon Shuster Dr. Shannon Gibson 🌍 🕊️ ⚖️ The Conversation U.S. & more 🎉

👉 https://ow.ly/o9JW50XyVkO

“Inviting the Arsonists”: Climate Activist Slams Fossil Fuel Lobbyists at U.N. Talks Nations are struggling to reach a final text agreement at the COP30 U.N. climate summit in Belém, Brazil. Decisions are made by consensus at COPs, requiring consent among 192 countries, and the bigges...

Referring to the roughly 1,600 fossil fuel lobbyists who attended the COP30 talks in Brazil, climate activist Harjeet Singh says "it's like inviting arsonists to tell us how to put out the fire."

Cop30’s watered-down agreements will do little for an ecosystem at tipping point Delegates made minimal headway on timetable for replacing oil and gas or on firm commitments to reducing carbon emissions

What if a COP Presidency started from maximum ambition instead of the weakest text?

What if, instead of forcing vulnerable countries to beg for scraps, the blockers had to publicly object to ambition?

Wouldn’t that be a process we could be proud of? #COP30 #UNFCCC #ClimateJustice 🌍

surl.li/dmjmeq

COP30 TEXT ANALYSIS: One way to read dense COP text is to focus on the verbs. These are helpfully italicised – and for good reason.

MOSTLY INACTIVE: Carbon Brief analysis of the “global mutirão” text finds 69 inactive verbs, requiring no action, against 32 active verbs.
1/4

Further tense exchanges between Panama, India and others…and then noting no objections (even though there have literally been objections), Presidency moves forward.

Plenary resumes and Russia (speaking in Spanish) calls out Latin American countries and says there was time for dissent and (condescendingly) tells these countries to “stop behaving like children.”

if anyone still believed that climate diplomacy is a smooth, orderly ritual, #COP30 delivered a sharp reality check.The final plenary was suspended because one delegation - a courageous and razor-sharp Colombian negotiator -refused to let the “Truth COP” end with a procedural sweep-under-the-carpet

🚨 Breaking: Colombia, echoing objections from Panama and Uruguay, has blocked consensus on the Mitigation Work Programme. With key concerns unresolved, the #COP30 closing plenary is now suspended until further notice. Frontline priorities are on the table. #climatejustice

Colombia has entered the chat at #COP30!!! Reemphasizes many procedural issues at plenary and ignoring of countries wishing to speak. Officially objects to the mitigation work program unless just transition away from fossil fuels is included. #climatejustice

Sierra Leone lament that the 78 experts working on adaptation indicators were ignored. The GGA list does not tell their story. We leave COP30 with indicators that are unclear, unmeasurable and unusable.

Panama expresses "extreme disappointment" at their flag and request to be recognized went ignored. The process lacked due process.

TL;DR so far: weak decisions gaveled through with no discussion. Brazilian Presidency announces 2 new roadmaps - 1.) phaseout of fossil fuels - conference in Colombia 2026 2.) end of deforestation.

🔴 COP30: Closing Ceremony | UN Climate Change YouTube video by UN Climate Change

🎥 Live now: The closing plenary at #COP30 is underway 🌍
This is the moment when global climate justice must be front and centre — not sidelined.
🔗 www.youtube.com/live/Poxx7Vs...

#ClimateJustice #JustTransition #GlobalSouth #1Point5Degrees

🌍 IN SUM: Multilateral ambition is weaker than the situation demands. The absence of a fossil-fuel phase-out roadmap, the weakened adaptation timeline, and the voluntary rather than binding implementation mechanism combine to signal a retreat from the urgency required to meet the 1.5 °C goal.

🔍 Finance structure remains vague and minimal - the draft reiterates the need to ramp up support for adaptation and implementation, but lacks clarity on numbers, sources (public vs private), timelines, and conditionality tied to just transition or fossil-fuel reduction.

🚀 New “Global Implementation Accelerator” created in lieu of stronger commitments...but without a robust mechanism for sharply scaling down fossil-fuel production or removing subsidies.

📆 Adaptation finance goal pushed back. While the draft “calls for” tripling adaptation finance compared to 2025 levels, the timeline has been stretched to 2035 rather than 2030

🚨 #COP30 “Mutirão” text drops — and we've got serious #climatejustice concerns:

❌ No mention of fossil fuels or a phase-out roadmap. The draft omits any explicit reference to fossil fuels, despite earlier language and expectations for a pathway away from oil, gas and coal

Colombia and The Netherlands Announce First International Conference for Fossil Fuel Phase Out — The Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative

🌍 Big news: the governments of Colombia and the Netherlands are co-hosting the First International Conference on the Just Transition Away from Fossil Fuels, 28-29 April 2026 in Santa Marta, Colombia — a major coal-export port.
fossilfueltreaty.org/first-intern... #fossilfueltreaty #COP30

How climate finance to help poor countries became a global shell game – donors have counted fossil fuel projects, airports and even ice cream shops Wealthy countries promised billions of dollars to help developing nations adapt to climate change, but the result rests on a shaky foundation of fuzzy accounting.

My latest with @theconversation.com looks at how weak definitions + creative accounting have distorted global climate finance into a global shell game — and what it means for the countries that need it most. #COP30 #climatejustice #GCJLab #climateaction
🔗 theconversation.com/how-climate-...

If you're looking for more interviewees, let me know! Been following COPs since 2009 - run a CJ lab with a group of students following it live now (@gibsonclimatejusticelab on IG)

The COPOut Podcast Politics Podcast · During each episode, CECE Director Dana R. Fisher will host a panel of guest experts who will share their unique perspectives on the state of climate action, the path towards more e...

If you’re following #COP30 like we are, I highly recommend The COP Out podcast with @fisherdanar.bsky.social — especially the latest episode with my friend and once upon a time COP15 fellow PhD researcher @laurengifford.bsky.social — podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/t...

Newsom brings California to the heart of the Amazon — and the U.N. climate conference U.N. negotiations among nations over curbing climate change don't include California, but Gavin Newsom sees a chance for leadership anyway.

Check out this great piece by @calmatters.org with some of my perspective on @governor.ca.gov presence at #COP30 #climateaction #climatejustice calmatters.org/environment/...

Trump’s words aren’t stopping China, Brazil and many other countries from setting higher climate goals, but progress is slow A review of countries’ new climate pledges shows who is leading efforts to protect the climate their economies were built on and who is sliding.

As we make our way into Day 2 of #COP30 here's a look at our assessment of climate ambition in @theconversation.com. Just a few weeks later, much remains the same. #climateaction #climatejustice theconversation.com/trumps-words...

The Gibson Climate Justice Lab is back for our 5th year viewing the UN climate talks! At our presentation last week USC we said #COP30 need a rebranding from the "implementation COP"....and it got one! We are now the "COP of TRUTH!" according to President Lula of Brazil.

Meet the early-career scientists planning to leave the United States Decreased funding, reduced opportunities and growing uncertainty has made life tough for international postdocs living in the US.

“Meet the early-career scientists planning to leave the United States”

“Funding to start a laboratory is generally lower in those countries than it is in the United States, but the career prospects seem more stable”

#academia #postdocs 🧪

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

US government may be abandoning the global climate fight, but new leaders are filling the void – including China Trump’s efforts haven’t sunk global efforts to fight climate change – instead, new leaders are stepping up and working together, even within the US.

As the U.S. withdraws from the Paris Agreement (again), China and the E.U. step up, vowing to strengthen climate targets. theconversation.com/us-governmen... By Shannon Gibson @dornsife.usc.edu 🌎#climatesky

US government may be abandoning the global climate fight, but new leaders are filling the void – including China Trump’s efforts haven’t sunk global efforts to fight climate change – instead, new leaders are stepping up and working together, even within the US.

My latest in @theconversation.com — as the U.S. abandons climate leadership, who’s stepping into fill the gaps?

(Spoiler alert: It’s China.)

theconversation.com/us-governmen...