2025-11-19
26 分钟The big annual climate conference known as COP is happening in Brazil right now.
And what you might not know about these talks is that everybody has to agree to everything.
They run on complete consensus,
which frankly does not seem that simple when I think of how my family can't even agree on what to eat for dinner.
But what happens if someone around the table doesn't want there to be an agreement at all?
Someone who's at the table precisely to be a spoiler.
That's what happened right at the beginning of these climate meetings back in the 90s.
And it set the tone for the summits that followed.
It's why you might roll your eyes when you hear about a climate summit these days and assume that nothing will be agreed.
From the BBC, I'm Tristan Redmond in London.
And I'm Asma Khalid in Washington, DC.
And today on The Global Story,
how an American oil lobbyist invented the playbook that would be used at these talks for decades to come.
Our colleague Jordan Dunbar hosts this BBC podcast called The Climate Question.
And that is the BBC's global climate change programme,
where a weekly programme that goes around the world looking at all of the people trying to deal with climate change on the front lines,
wherever they are.
We wanted to speak to you because in Brazil right now, There's the COP 30 climate summit.
Now, COP stands for the rather unglamorous conference of the parties.
And it's the decision-making body of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change,