It’s hard to imagine a more fitting start to a global climate conference than the lights going out. But that is what happened during the opening ceremony of the United Nations COP30 talks in Brazil. The event sank further into chaos when indigenous protesters broke through the security perimeter and U.N. staff had to be evacuated before order could be restored. The cherry on top of this fiasco was Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) flying in to push California’s failed energy policies as a model for the rest of the world.

The protests are particularly significant because California played a role in causing them. Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva talks a good game when it comes to reducing carbon emissions, but he also recently approved new oil and gas leases in the Amazon rainforest just miles from the conference location in Belem.