• As climate treaty delegates gather in Bonn this week ahead of COP30 in Belém, Brazil, later this year, the world needs to confront a truth usually omitted from such negotiations: the climate crisis is not just a political failure, but the result of unchecked corporate power.
• In this commentary, Ecuadorian lawyer, activist and Goldman Environmental Prize winner Pablo Fajardo — who led one of the world’s largest legal battles against Chevron for its toxic legacy in the Amazon — argues that the climate crisis cannot be solved without confronting the corporate power structures driving it.
• Despite a $9.5 billion ruling against Chevron, the company has used international arbitration as a weapon to evade responsibility, highlighting how international commercial courts and legal loopholes protect companies like them: “At COP30 and beyond, if we are serious about climate justice, we must confront the machinery of impunity and fight united for system change and a future where justice is not the privilege of the powerful, but the right of all.”
• This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

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