COP30, the 2025 United Nations Climate Change Conference, opens today. The meetings will begin in Belém, a Brazilian port city located on the edge of the Amazon, and will end on November 21. Expectations are high among large sectors of the establishment, lobbies, and environmental movements, but there’s also a strong awareness of the sensitive nature of the moment: “Among other issues, at stake are the emissions cuts envisioned in the Paris Agreement, funding for so-called ‘least developed countries,’ aid to indigenous peoples, and the attempt to establish a fund for forest preservation.” There will be notable absences, starting with the United States.

As this event opens, it is important to take stock of the situation.

Significant changes

In the final months of 2025, we are witnessing a phenomenon that until recently would have been unthinkable: the progressive dismantling of Net Zero policies and the decline of ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) as the guiding light of global finance and industry. What was presented as an essential commitment to saving the planet is proving to be a house of cards, undermined by political pressure, regulatory uncertainty, the discontent of citizens impoverished by sharply rising prices, the complaints of small and medium-sized businesses overwhelmed by green bureaucracy, and, according to some scientists, by a less than solid scientific basis.

ESG in decline: The end of an era

ESG, once considered the inevitable future of investing, is experiencing a profound crisis. Anti-ESG legislation is gaining momentum in the United States, turning public opinion against companies and banks that adhere to ESG guidelines. Since 2021, a growing number of US states have introduced laws penalizing financial institutions involved in ESG. In 2024, West Virginia banned ESG-related banks from doing business with state organizations, while in 2023, Florida Governor DeSantis banned state officials from investing in ESG funds or selling ESG bonds.

The reason for this radical shift? ESG has transformed from a technical reporting tool to a political battleground. Growing opposition to banks divesting from fossil fuels has led states to pass legislation against them, in a political climate increasingly hostile to climate action.

Big banks turn their backs on Green

The most dramatic abandonment of climate commitments came from the banking sector. When the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ) launched to great fanfare at COP26 in 2021, there was optimism that its member coalitions, including the Net Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA), would take a leading role in advancing climate action. The NZBA had over 140 members from 45 countries by early 2024.

However, in the run-up to Donald Trump’s inauguration, some of the largest US and Canadian banks, including JP Morgan, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Citi, and Morgan Stanley, left the alliance, reducing its total assets by 22%. They were followed by five of the group’s six Japanese members and Australian infrastructure lender Macquarie.

The final blow came when the body voted to abandon its 1.5°C target and replaced it with a less onerous commitment: “align with the temperature goals of the Paris Agreement to limit global temperature rise to well below 2°C and aim for 1.5°C.”

The underlying problem is simple: banks’ climate commitments are largely based on assumptions about decarbonizing the entire economy. As JP Morgan stated, without significant progress from clients and the broader economy, their ability to support the transition and make progress toward their goals is limited. The unsaid part is that banks have never been willing to turn down the opportunity to finance high-emissions sectors that remain profitable.

Corporations are backtracking

The withdrawal isn’t limited to the financial sector. Wells Fargo, Bank of America, and Morgan Stanley have already left the Net Zero Banking Alliance, citing political pressure and legal concerns; BP and HSBC have scaled back their net-zero emissions targets. The case of British Petroleum is emblematic. In 2020, then-CEO Bernard Looney promised that the company would increase its investment in renewable energy tenfold, to $5 billion by 2030, and build 50 gigawatts of wind and solar farms. Greenpeace described the promise as “an early Christmas, decades late.” Five years later, in February, under pressure from aggressive activist hedge fund Elliott Management, BP announced a U-turn on Looney’s reforms, including its commitment to achieving net-zero emissions. New CEO Murray Auchincloss declared, “We’ve gone too far, too fast.” BP abandoned its goal of reducing oil production, promised to sell a stake in the solar company Lightsource, and pledged to invest $10 billion annually in oil and gas projects. A clear U-turn.

Even tech giants have backtracked. The day after President Donald Trump retook the White House, leaders of a climate action coalition backed by Apple and hundreds of other major companies released a provocative statement vowing to “fight for the future Americans demand and deserve.” But as the second Trump administration began to take shape, the tone of America Is All In—a bipartisan US climate action coalition, considered the largest ever assembled in the US to advance environmental goals—softened, and the major companies that supported it stepped back:

“When it comes to climate commitments and carbon reduction, companies like Google, Microsoft, and Shell have positioned themselves as sustainability leaders, setting ambitious net-zero emissions targets… However, the rapid rise of artificial intelligence, a major energy consumer, is forcing these companies to reconsider, or even abandon, these commitments.” It’s better to stay on board with artificial intelligence than to be intransigent on climate change. Better to secure profits for shareholders and the competitive advantage that artificial intelligence offers than to take a radical stance on climate change. And this, despite the fact that global electricity demand attributed to artificial intelligence alone, according to IEA estimates, will be equal to the consumption of all of Japan by 2030.

None of the coalition’s major technology, industrial, or retail companies signed the group’s open letter in December reaffirming their commitment to the Paris Agreement. Non-signatories included Walmart, Siemens, and Apple. John Deere and Ford have also scaled back or censored formal diversity goals, programs, and initiatives in response to conservative activists.

The Trump Effect: Climate Change Called a “Scam”

Donald Trump’s election to a second term dealt a devastating blow to green policies. Trump called climate change a “scam,” saying, “It’s one of the greatest scams of all time… people don’t believe it anymore.” The new administration’s actions were immediate and radical. Withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement represents a significant challenge to reversing the global emissions curve, as the United States is one of the world’s largest emitters of greenhouse gases. The new National Energy Supremacy Council established by Trump immediately prioritized domestic oil and gas production and the lifting of the ban on offshore drilling. Trump also revoked Biden’s plan to require 50% of all new vehicles sold in the United States to be electric by 2030, blocking the distribution of funds from a $5 billion program to install charging stations.

Keeping a low profile in the face of regulatory uncertainty

Large corporations are adopting an increasingly cautious stance. In the first half of 2025, publicly traded companies in the United States saw a sharp decline in voluntary sustainability reporting, marking a significant shift in their ESG disclosure strategy. Much of the slowdown can be attributed to the complex and changing global regulatory landscape, particularly the European Union’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and California’s climate disclosure laws. Many companies are delaying voluntary reporting while they evaluate how to comply with these mandatory regulatory frameworks. C-suite executives are afraid to speak out about environmental goals in a conservative-dominated Washington. As one expert put it: “People are quite scared. Being loud and proud could be risky for companies right now.” Some companies are strategically shifting, hiding or renaming previous sustainability commitments to reduce risk. Costco, for example, is maintaining its practices but has renamed them the “People and Community” program.

Europe chooses pragmatism, intimidated by the movements in the latest elections

Even the European Union, traditionally at the forefront of the fight against climate change, is shifting toward a more pragmatic stance. On November 5, 2025, after months of intense negotiations and a marathon all-night meeting in Brussels, the European Union finalized an agreement to reduce net greenhouse gas emissions by 90% by 2040 compared to 1990 levels. However, the agreement faced significant challenges among the 27 member states, with Hungary, Slovakia, and Poland voting against it due to concerns about the pace and scope of climate policy in a context of economic hardship.

The agreement includes significant concessions: greater flexibility for member states to achieve targets, allowing them to claim a larger share of emissions reductions through the purchase of international carbon credits. Critics, such as Thomas Gelin of Greenpeace EU, argue that this amounts to “offshore carbon recycling.” This, despite the grim observation of UN Secretary-General António Guterres: exceeding the 1.5-degree limit of global warming set in the Paris Agreement in the coming years is now “inevitable.”

In Europe, due to an economic slowdown bordering on stagnation, caused on the one hand by green regulations and on the other by the sharp rise in energy costs due to the war in Ukraine, a “pragmatism” is gaining traction, diluting green ambitions. It’s no longer just traditional countries labeled “denialist” by the mainstream, like Poland or Hungary, that argue that the green transition comes at a cost to businesses and consumers. Even the EU’s three largest states (Germany, France, and Italy) have embraced this pragmatism.

Bill Gates’s ‘about-face’

Even Bill Gates, one of the most influential advocates for climate change, has moderated his stance. Shortly before COP30, Bill Gates urged the global community to focus primarily on improving human well-being, health, and agriculture in developing countries. This message represents a significant shift from his previous view, which held that climate change is an urgent and existential threat that requires the global community to focus primarily on massive, immediate investments in emissions reduction technologies. Gates presented “three truths”: climate change is a serious problem, but it will not be the end of civilization; temperature is not the best way to measure climate progress; a better metric is quality of life; and health and prosperity are the best defense against climate change. This marked change of position by the “guru” of climate catastrophism, which many have “welcomed” as a solemn about-face, if not a betrayal, should give pause to those who, with their heads down, continue to be radically intransigent on so-called climate change.

Chicco Testa: ‘Declaring the Green Deal a failure’

In Italy, Chicco Testa, a leading figure in the energy debate,was even more direct. When asked what to expect from COP30, Testa replied: “I would expect these green policies to be declared a failure. Total emissions over the last 30 years have been equal to all those of the last two centuries. There hasn’t been a single year in which they decreased, with the exception of the subprime crisis and the Covid crisis. Last year we set a record.”

Testa harshly criticized the European strategy: “For five years, during Ursula von der Leyen’s first term, from 2019 to 2024, we basically only talked about the Green Deal. Suddenly, we found ourselves with a rearmament problem, a problem of tariffs and trade wars, and with the Draghi report explaining that European industry is losing competitiveness. Was it necessary to wait for Draghi to say so? Where were the gentlemen in Brussels looking during those five years?” His analysis is merciless: “The second goal of the Green Deal, which was to achieve a leading position in the green economy, has been dramatically failed. We are behind on chips, artificial intelligence, and so much more.”

The dissent of scientists: Prodi, Zichichi, Rubbia and Clauser

The rethinking of climate policies also finds support in a segment of the Italian scientific community, often ignored by the mainstream debate. Franco Prodi, physicist and brother of the former prime minister, has questioned the IPCC’s certainties: According to Prodi, the claim that 98% of climate change is human-induced is a hoax: “This percentage cannot be calculated with current knowledge of the physical climate system. I do not deny a human impact. Climate change is inherent; it cannot be avoided because it depends on the sun, astronomy, the gravitational effect of other planets, and the components of the atmosphere, both natural and anthropogenic. The climate system is extremely complex.” Prodi emphasized that during the Roman Warm Period, Hannibal crossed the Alps with elephants, crossing passes that are now frozen. During the Medieval Warm Period, Greenland’s temperature was three degrees higher than today: 3,000 Vikings settled 280 farms there.

Antonino Zichichi, an internationally renowned physicist and former president of the National Institute for Nuclear Physics, has reiterated similar positions. Zichichi argues that global warming depends on our source of energy and heat: the Sun. It is our star’s activity that affects the climate. It is unthinkable that human activity could cause the same effects as the Sun. Zichichi stated that there is no “climate equation,” meaning there is no scientific method to determine the exact impact of human activities on the climate. However, he distinguishes between climate and pollution: “We must fight global pollution severely. But we must not link human activities to climate change.”

Even Carlo Rubbia, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics, has revised his position. Data shows that global average temperatures have remained stable for 17 years, despite the explosive increase in emissions. Rubbia, once convinced of the anthropogenic effect, is now skeptical. Rubbia highlights how incomplete scientific knowledge of the complex climate system has led to “very expensive energy choices” in Europe, and calls for “greater caution and discussion” before adopting drastic measures.

Finally, the 2022 Nobel Prize winner in Physics, John Clauser, who two years ago, speaking at Quantum Korea, said, “I have an elephant in the room that I recently discovered regarding climate change. I believe that climate change is not a crisis. Even the scientific community can sometimes be watered down by pseudoscience. Remember, if you want pseudoscience to be true, you just spin it and it becomes true.” On another occasion, he also said, “In my opinion, there is no real climate crisis. There is, however, a very real problem in ensuring a decent standard of living for the vast world population and a related energy crisis. The latter is being needlessly exacerbated by what, in my opinion, is flawed climate science.”

Citizens and businesses suffer under the weight of bureaucracy and rising prices

The Fondapol report states that “Companies are drowning under a ‘regulatory tsunami,’ accusations of greenwashing are multiplying, and in 2024, for the first time, investors withdrew €30 billion from ‘green’ funds.

At a time when the global economy is becoming increasingly competitive, this complex, sometimes inconsistent, and often costly framework of legislation is not only proving lethal for many European companies, but is also generating a “revulsion” among citizens against environmental issues, fueling votes for radical parties. “Today, it is urgent to abandon ideology.” This environmental bureaucracy must be abandoned.

Europe, which has consistently positioned itself as a global leader in the fight against climate change, advocating ambitious targets and backing green initiatives , is increasingly facing discontent among citizens who, in voting, are increasingly shifting towards conservative parties, perceived as less radical in their climate choices.

Conclusion

What we are witnessing in 2025 is not simply a tactical adjustment or a strategic pause, but a profound rethinking of global climate policies. The decline of ESG, the abandonment of commitments by banks and corporations, the return of Trump and his anti-climate scam rhetoric, regulatory uncertainty, European pragmatism, Bill Gates’s change of direction, the discontent of citizens and the business community, and the critical voices of scientists like Prodi, Zichichi, and Rubbia all represent pieces of a larger puzzle.

It remains to be seen whether this represents a healthy course correction toward more realistic and economically sustainable policies, or whether it marks the beginning of a retreat in the fight against climate change. One thing is certain: the era of unconditional climate optimism is over, and the future of environmental policies will be far more complex and contentious than many imagined just a few years ago.