India, Dec. 18 -- I travelled halfway across the world, from India, to attend the 30th Conference of Parties (COP30) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, held in the Amazonian city of Belem, Brazil. This was my first climate COP, and the scale of it is difficult to convey.

The essence of COP lies in bringing over 190 countries together to address the most pressing issues concerning the climate, and then negotiating a collective response to the crisis within a multilateral framework.

Upon my arrival, I found that more than 40,000 people from governments, civil society organisations, Indigenous communities and businesses had descended upon the city. I had followed the negotiations on issues such as the Just Transi...