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COP30 and Just Transition in the South: Who Will Pay the Social Price?

By Jiayi Wang and Mengjie Xu

When COP30 ended in the Amazonian city of Belém, much of the global media focus stayed locked on a familiar question: would the final agreement clearly call for the “phasing out of fossil fuels”? The newly created Belém Action Mechanism (BAM) — the first formal attempt to place workers, communities and unions inside climate governance — looked like a breakthrough. Yet behind the scenes, many negotiators shared the same concern: without new funding, clear responsibility and binding rules, BAM may become more symbol than protection.

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Why We Need Empathy to Tackle Poverty

By Keetie Roelen

“You need a new vacuum cleaner? Can you prove that your current one is really broken?”

This was the response Hanny received from the welfare office in the Dutch city of Tilburg when she asked them for support with replacing her broken appliance. More precisely, it was the response following her second request, after her first appeal was met with the suggestion that she could use a broom to sweep her floors.

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Decolonial Journey: #RhodesMustFall and ‘Decolonising Development Studies’ in Ghana and Nigeria

By Luqman Muraina / part of our “Share your Decolonising Story” project

I completed my B.Sc. Sociology in Nigeria with little or no knowledge about alternative epistemologies, coloniality, and politics of knowledge. Like many young graduates fed by modernity’s shine, I was just determined to be successful and contribute positively to societal development and transformation.

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What Would it Take to Build a Post-Extractivist Agriculture?

By Will LaFleur

What is the relationship between extractivism, agriculture, and a sustainable future? As I started the fieldwork for my doctoral studies, this question sat at the heart of my inquiry. Developing a critical response started with renewing an analytical and theoretical conception of extractivism before I even began the fieldwork. That meant, first of all, framing extractivism historically.

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Against all Odds: How Local Communities Achieve Forest Conservation in Colombia

By Sara Vélez Zapata and Gonzalo A. Vargas

In early November, Indigenous communities in the Brazilian Amazon raised their voices, reminding us that without forests there is no future: “sem floresta, não há futuro”. During the UN Climate Change Conference (COP 30), global leaders discussed how to protect tropical forests as a collective effort. However, it ended without a binding agreement to stop deforestation. Given that tropical forests are often found in countries with fragile institutional contexts, what can we learn from communities’ achievements over the last few years?

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