January 28, 2025

COP30 is an important opportunity

In 2016, an article in The Atlantic told us that “the press takes Donald Trump literally, but not seriously; his supporters take him seriously, but not literally”.

The 47^th President’s first few days in office shows a new President Trump who intends to fully implement the policies he has detailed to his supporters and does not want to waste time getting started. He has left the Democratic Party floundering, upturned the Davos World Economic Forum, upset the two countries – Mexico and Canada – with whom he previously had agreed trade agreements and demonstrated that he enjoys being unpredictable while still hitting the hot buttons for his supporters through exquisitely manipulating the attention society.

Disrupting “collaboration in an Intelligent Age”

The impact of this on the leather industry will rightly fuel endless discussion. It has large geopolitical implications: a new age of great power politics, which means competition for territory, resources, trade routes, technology and even the rules of the game, has now arrived. This will definitely interrupt or redirect what McKinsey has been describing as “collaboration in an Intelligent Age”.

Regardless of all this, the two underlying polycrisis elements of a changing climate and biodiversity loss continue apace. Even as the newly elected President cancels electric vehicle subsidies, solar and wind installations on Federal Land and pushes for more, cheaper, fossil fuels, there are housebuilders in many parts of his country struggling to choose locations and construction methods to make them safe from flooding or fire – or both – as they attempt to build in climate resilience.

The industry must start to look to COP30 in Belem

What will this mean for Brazil’s COP30 later this year? After reporting on COP29 in Baku, Dr Kerry Senior, Secretary to the ICT and Director of Leather UK, posted that the industry must start at once to look to COP30, which will be in Belem, Brazil.

He said: “It is essential that policymakers understand the role of leather and other natural materials can play in reducing the climate impact of many consumer products. COP offers an unprecedented opportunity to engage with politicians, policy makers and the press and to make the case for leather. For that to happen, the industry has to start working now.”

The modern narrative of leather, supported by huge investments round the world, is one of circularity and care for our planetary resources. This includes not just water and chemicals but our communities and biodiversity. It is not an approach to be reversed as it has always been a cultural aspect of leather to craft leather articles that are useful and beautiful from the hides and skins of animals.

It would appear likely that despite the U.S. government’s position, most companies will continue with their sustainability plans on the grounds of long-term economic value and resilience. Thus, the policies will not change greatly but the vocabulary will shift instead. It is also highly possible that non-fossil fuel sources of climate change will be put into focus in order to find some common ground with U.S. representatives. Meat eating and leather could become bigger targets and given COP29 is in Belem a linkage with deforestation will be used to escalate the discussion.

It will need close discussion with the Brazilian leather association (CICB) to get a feel for the direction the COP30 Chair will want to take and help build the precise approach.

It is also clear that funding for the transition in poorer nations will become even harder, after a tough battle for less than expected in Baku. How much the U.S. objective of pulling the price of oil and gas towards US$40 a barrel can be achieved will soon become apparent. If successful, it will slow the energy transformation and quite a number of countries could well reverse their positions.

Most analysts seem to think the current price of oil will not attract new drilling to the U.S., and production expansion will be limited. In that case, renewable energy is now looking cheaper, and countries such as China who are well on with their associated distribution infrastructure will establish themselves as the global champions.

The demands of new technologies such as AI, desalination and ever more air conditioning will mean the global demand for energy will continue to rise, hence we are already seeing a return to nuclear power in various forms. This is likely to lead to even stronger lobbying from those fossil fuel producers who want to join President Trump and continue pumping indefinitely.

It is clear that in the absence of strong government action some activists and environmental organisations may double down on targeting livestock farming as the main contributor to methane emissions, as they seek alternative ways to achieve global climate goals. But the work on livestock methane reduction in California, the science around using GWPx rather than GWP100 as a measure, and the clear evidence of major anthropogenic methane escapes from fracking, coal mines and all other fossil fuel sources means that there are many good counter arguments.

Collaboration has been good for leather

With the globe fragmenting on geopolitics and climate politics the future for collaboration will diminish. But at COP29 there was more support than ever for the Leather Manifesto and it would be outstanding if this could grow further, so that not just leather delegates, but among the main country delegations there can be a good number of fully briefed participants. Collaboration has been good for leather and should remain high on the agenda for the future.

Michael Redwood

Leather chemist, writer, and advisor on responsible leather manufacturing and material strategy. This article was originally written for ILM.