There's nothing Mother Nature fears more than a COP climate conference. Here's some quick back-of-the-envelope/Grok math on the hit she's taking this week thanks to fame-thirsty attendees like Gavin Newsom, Prime Minister Starmer, Prince William, the EU’s Ursula von der Leyen, & Gov. Kathy Hochul:
— Per Flightradar24, approximately 25 private jets are flying into Brazil daily over the course of the 12 day conference. That's 300 flights into Brazil, and presumably 600 round trip.
— An estimated 50-100 military flights for royalty, security, etc.
— Approximately 50,000 people are attending overall, from more than 190 countries.
— The average CO₂ output of each private jet passenger is approx. 12,000 kg per passenger. Assume half the attendees arrive by private jet, that equates to 300,000,000 kg of CO₂.
— Assuming half the attendees fly commercial, and the avg CO₂ emission is 2,000 kg for long-haul flights (10K km or more) x 25,000 = 50,000,000 kg of CO₂
— Brazil clearcut at least 100 acres of rain forest for this "environmental" conference, equating to 100,000 trees.
— Removing those trees equates to an estimated carbon release of 180,000,000 CO₂ (Amazon trees store ~500 tons of c/ha.; clearing 1 hectare releases ~300–500 tons CO₂ immediately through burning & slashing, plus lost future sequestration (~2 t/yr).
— The broader deforestation impact of the conference, including related infrastructure upgrades, equates to 400-500 hectares.
Add it all up — and not even getting into increased traffic, electricity usage, etc. — and the impact of COP30 is an additional 450,000,000 kg of CO₂ added to the atmosphere (not even counting the post-COP reduction in carbon sequestration). This is roughly 8,400 kg CO₂ per attendee, double the average person's total annual CO₂ "footprint." In short, if you believe in anthropogenic climate change, the first order of business should be banning future COP conferences.
At 450,000 metric tons, COP30 will create more carbon emissions than the UK over an entire year (as well as S. Africa, Australia, and many other industrialized nations).