I admit it, going into COP30 in Belem in November I was fairly optimistic for good results despite the extremely divided state of the world, the rising threats to democracy and multilateralism, the doubling down of entrenched fossil fuel interests, and the surge in climate disinformation.
After all, this COP carried so many compelling elements – its location at the mouth of the Amazon (i.e. the “Amazon COP”), the focus on indigenous peoples, biodiversity, deforestation, implementation, the due date for updated Nationally Determined Contribution plans (NDCs), and its significant timing – ten years on from the historic Paris Agreement where 195 Parties adopted a legally binding international treaty on climate change at COP21.
As Clare Shakya of The Nature Conservancy expressed to The Guardian, “Nature is back in the heart of talks, from deforestation and finance to indigenous rights and adaptation, making this the most wide-ranging COP agenda since Paris.”
COP 30 was also billed as the Implementation COP and the Truth COP.
The Brazilian Presidency set a bold vision for COP30 with an Action Agenda built around six pillars including transitioning energy, industry and transport, stewarding forests, oceans and biodiversity, transforming agriculture and food systems, building resilience for cities, infrastructure and water, fostering human and social development, and cross-cutting enablers and accelerators.
And the Presidency laid out its intention of building coalitions to advance global efforts such as “halting and reversing deforestation and forest degradation by 2030, while also supporting the acceleration of the global energy transition, including tripling renewable energy capacity globally, doubling the global average annual rate of energy efficiency improvements by 2030, and transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems, in a just, orderly, and equitable manner.
The goals for COP30 were bold, as they should be.
Further, the Brazilian presidency elevated the ambitious vision for COP30 with the phrase “Global Mutirao” (which translates to global collective action) – noting that this event is a “firm and inspiring call to join forces in a coordinated, diverse, and transformative mobilization” and that “Governments, social movements, youth, indigenous peoples, traditional communities, the private sector, academia, and civil society all play an essential role in this collective movement that transcends borders and connects territories.”
The Presidency noted that Mutirao is “a continuous method of mobilization that begins before, extends through, and continues beyond COP30” and called for the conference to be a “true milestone of civilizational turn” while creating “a new form of climate governance: more participatory, fairer, and more supportive.”
I found the global collaboration framing to be inspirational (and still do).
Looking Back for Lessons
In addition, prior to departing for Brazil I was reflecting back on my experiences at prior COPs, particularly COP27 in Egypt and a compelling session in which Al Gore introduced his Climate Trace initiative – which provides precise data on the sources of greenhouse gas emissions around the world in order to set actionable goals to reduce them (and track progress along the way).
In his 2021 presentation, Gore cited the importance of working toward a common goal – “increased transparency, collaboration, and accountability for climate action.” He effectively quantified the scope and impact of human-generated GHGs, noting that the world is spewing 162 million tons of global warming pollutants into the atmosphere on a daily basis, thereby trapping the energy equivalent of exploding 600,000 Hiroshima-class atomic bombs every day 365 days a year.
He also pointed to the negative impacts of our emissions – record temperatures, colossal floods, severe droughts, rising ocean temperatures, melting sea ice, saltwater intrusion, intensification of storms (rain bombs), the increased cost of weather-related disasters, biodiversity loss, and more – adding that human-generated warming was the top threat to the global economy.
Gore then turned to the positive side, noting that the world has the technology solutions at hand in the form of expanding and increasingly inexpensive renewable energy (chiefly solar and wind) to halve global emissions by 2030, along with the proven policies to deploy them.
Last, Gore cited the poet Wallace Stevens, who wrote “After the final no, there comes a yes, and on that yes the future world depends.”
Significantly, Gore suggested that “we are now getting to the final “no’s” and moving to the final “yes” that will accelerate the transition to sharp emissions reduction and save our future.
This was another powerful point of framing for me as I entered COP30.
As always, while at COP I sought to engage with as many individuals, pavilions, and sessions as possible in both the Green and Blue Zones, and I came across another source of inspiration in a publication from the Public Defender’s office in the state of Para, which noted:
“The 30th United Nation Climate Change Conference (COP30)…represents a unique opportunity for Brazil to highlight the specific challenges faced by the Amazon region caused by climate change. It is undeniable that the Amazon plays a fundamental role in regulating the global climate and preserving biodiversity. It is vital to global environmental sustainability. In this sense, COP30 offers a space for reflection and to present measures and policies aimed at the protection and sustainability of this crucial ecosystem.”
One critical takeaway as I navigated the pavilions and daily schedules was that one couldn’t be at this COP without feeling the importance of the Amazon to the world, and without feeling a connection to the indigenous people of the region. And encouragingly, I did see signs of a generational shift; younger individuals are poised to take on a greater role, which is critical for accelerating the pace of change.
Signals for Transformational Change
And of course, heading into this COP I was primed for big change commitments based on the continuous stream of visible signals of the impact of human-induced warming, including record temperatures, devastating storms and floods, droughts in Europe, and the 2025 Swiss glacier collapse, to name a few.
For example, just prior to COP30, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) noted that 2025 will be the second or third warmest year on record, and that the 11-year period from 2015 to 2025 (notably, the decade following the signing of the Paris Agreement) will individually be the 11 warmest years in the observational record. Further, the WMO noted that ocean heat continued to rise in 2025 over the prior record level in 2024, annual global mean sea level reached a record high in 2024, sea ice and glacier mass declined, and critically, concentrations of the three main greenhouse gases reached record levels in 2024 and will likely be even higher in 2025 (see the short video here).
In addition, the release of the Global Tipping Points Report 2025 in October provided another strong prompt for bold action at COP30. The report stated that Earth’s climate and nature (ex. warm water coral reefs, polar ice sheets) are already passing tipping points and that overshooting “puts the world in a danger zone where further tipping points pose catastrophic risk.”
The report also pointed out that every fraction of a degree and every year beyond 1.5°C matters, and that the window for preventing irreversible tipping points is closing rapidly. And it called for policy mandates to speed the transition away from fossil fuels while also enabling finance to the Global South, promoting justice initiatives, shifting to more sustainable food consumption and production, and advancing Nature regeneration in order to drive positive tipping points (See the associated video noting that this is the first COP in which we know that we will pass tipping points, and that we will pass the 1.5°C mark shortly, while calling for immediate action to harness positive tipping points – “taking us from breakdown to breakthrough.”
The report called for three objectives from COP30: reinforcing multilateralism, connecting climate action to people’s lives, and accelerating the implementation of the Paris Agreement.
Another key signal for change is September’s Planetary Health Check 2025 report, which indicated that we have now breached seven of the nine planetary boundaries that regulate the life-support functions of the Planet. Some of the findings included that greenhouse gas concentrations are at record levels, extinctions and loss of natural productivity are well above safe levels, forests are shrinking, human impact on rivers is making water systems more unstable, fertilizer use continues to cause pollution and dead zones, and ocean acidification continues to increase.
Last, Johan Rockstrom of the Potsdam Institute made an incredibly compelling case for action at COP30 in a brilliant post entitled What science tells every negotiator at COP. In it, he warned that the world is running out of time, and in fact has failed, to rein in global emissions (which continue to rise by about one percent per year), and that “the rate of warming shows signs of accelerating” – adding that the 1.5°C limit will likely be breached in the next 5 to 10 years.
Rockstrom noted that “holding on to 1.5°C is not a goal or target – it is a limit, a planetary boundary.” He reminded us (per IPCC reporting) that every tenth of a degree of warming matters, and, very worryingly, that we may be underestimating the risk of tipping points.
Significantly, Rockstrom added that failure is not inevitable, but is a choice, and he reiterated the need for urgent action by noting that “we are seriously running out of time.” He also advised policymakers that the only way to bring the planet back from overshoot is to:
- Phase out fossil-fuels
- Massively start scaling carbon dioxide removal technologies
- Transform the global food system from being the largest emitter of GHGs to become a net sink
- Invest in nature to bolster global resistance to warming
- Bring non-CO2 gases back to lowest possible levels by 2050
Rockstrom’s guidance was well-aligned with the COP30 Action Agenda.
Some Positives, Insufficient Progress
And with all of these drivers for bold action, there were some positive outcomes from COP30.
Specific to the food system, the Planeatry Alliance covered several wins in this post, including the launch of RAIZ (Resilient Agriculture for net Zero Land Degradation) – a global initiative to map and mobilize funding for the restoration of degraded farmland, additional funding pledged by several countries to advance CGIAR’s research work on climate-smart agricultural innovation, UNEP’s launch of the Food Waste Breakthrough initiative to elevate focus on halving global food waste by 2030 (in accordance with SDG Target 12.3) and reduce high-impact methane emissions by seven percent, and the expansion of the Alliance of Champions for Food Systems Transformation (ACF), an initiative launched at COP28 in Dubai focused on advancing government-level action for food system transformation across five pillars – food nutrition and security, adaptation and resilience, equity and livelihoods, nature and biodiversity, and climate mitigation (which I covered in this post following COP28).
In addition, more than 40 countries endorsed the Belem Declaration on Hunger, Poverty and Human-Centered Climate Action which focuses on addressing the unequal impact of climate change on poor and vulnerable communities. With philanthropic support of $300 million USD, Brazil launched the Belem Health Action Plan to support the health sector’s adaptation to the climate crisis. Brazil also launched the Bioeconomy Challenge, a three-year initiative that “translates the G20 Bioeconomy High-Level Principles into real outcomes by addressing key gaps in metrics, financing mechanisms, and market development.”
Also at COP30, more than 35 stakeholders (countries and organizations) backed the launch of the Belem Declaration for Green Industrialization which recognizes the need to achieve deep reductions in emissions from heavy industries and advance clean technology industries in a just and sustainable manner.
With support from more than 50 countries, Brazil launched the Tropical Forests Forever Facility (TFFF) – an innovative funding model “designed to finance the permanent conservation of tropical and subtropical broadleaf moist rainforests by directly compensating countries and forest stewards for their efforts to maintain or increase their forest cover.” See the descriptive video of the TFFF here.
In addition, the COP29 and COP30 Presidents released the Baku to Belem Roadmap to activate $1.3 trillion USD in climate finance annually for developing countries by 2035 with a focus on five action fronts (see the Executive Summary document here).
Further, countries agreed to increase adaptation finance, and the Belem Action Mechanism for a global just transition (BAM) was also adopted.
Importantly, several countries collaborated to combat climate misinformation by launching the Global Initiative for Information Integrity on Climate Change.
Last, in my mind, given our current world of deep geopolitical tension and ongoing armed conflict, this COP did demonstrate that multilateralism is still alive to some degree.
Incremental is Woefully Inadequate
But overall, my assessment is one of disappointment – COP30 came up well short of expectations, and certainly well short of where humanity needed it to finish. Climate obstruction efforts (as outlined in this CSSN Briefing) were quite evident, resulting in yet another COP that yielded incremental gains despite the clear need for transformational progress.
COP30 will almost certainly be remembered for the intense conflict in the remaining hours over the call for a “roadmap” to transition away from fossil fuels, leading several nations to protest the omission and forcing the conference into overtime. In fact, late on the last day, I had a real fear that this COP would collapse amid the conflict.
Fiona Harvey of The Guardian captured the moment well with the headline, “‘Fossil fuel giants finally in the crosshairs’: COP30 avoids total failure with last-ditch deal,” succinctly noting: “With the “Belém political package,” the world took another small step towards the phaseout of fossil fuels – a faltering, inadequate step, and one that will barely interrupt the climate’s steady march towards catastrophe. But a significant departure from total inaction nonetheless.”
Similarly, The Economist noted that “COP30 ends with a whimper.”
And while some take comfort in the final negotiated result as positive for many of the reasons noted above, given the scope, scale, and urgency of the world’s climate and related SDG challenges, it is clear that COP30 failed to deliver according to its inspirational mandate.
Reverting back to Al Gore’s call-out in 2021, we may be crawling through the final “no’s,” but we are not getting to the final transformational “yes” with nearly enough speed and collaboration. We simply must raise expectations of government and business leaders and battle through the resistance of entrenched fossil fuel interests (and the associated disinformation) with a roadmap to phase out fossil fuels while ensuring a just transition.
In his closing speech, UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell acknowledged that this COP took place in “stormy political waters” and that “denial, division and geopolitics” dealt some heavy blows to international cooperation in 2025.
But multilateralism isn’t completely dead, and so we move on, with the knowledge that we must move bigger, faster, and bolder in collaborative fashion on climate change and the broader SDG agenda.
One final point, I am sure that there will be many future references to the serious fire that disrupted the final hours of COP30 (forcing the closure of the pavilions on the final day) and the clear symbolism: a fire breaking out in the very facility in which world leaders were gathered to address the record heat driven by our current systems.
I won’t dwell on the symbolism of the fire but I did find it to be an eerie and apt signal for action.
We’ll do this all over again at COP31 in 2026; let’s commit to doing much better and moving from faltering inadequate steps to giant effective steps, because every day of delay and every fraction of a degree matters.
food for thoughtful action 