The outcome of COP30 in Belém: finance, adaptation and fossil fuels

The thirtieth Conference of the Parties closed in Belém on Saturday 22 November at 8.44 pm local time, about 27 hours late[1]. The closing plenary adopted a decision that the Brazilian presidency named "Global Mutirão: Uniting humanity in a global mobilization against climate change", together with seventeen other decisions[2]. António Guterres said afterwards that he "cannot pretend that COP30 has delivered everything that is needed"[3]. We agree with him.

What the decision provides

On finance, the decision "calls for efforts to at least triple adaptation finance by 2035" and reaffirms the Glasgow commitment of developed countries to double it[2]. An earlier draft had set 2030 as the date and a 2025 baseline; both disappeared. The least developed countries had asked for a tripling to 120 billion dollars by 2030, and the Union and the Environmental Integrity Group opposed that figure[1]. The decision takes note of the Baku to Belém Roadmap and decides to advance action to scale up climate finance to 1.3 trillion dollars a year by 2035 from all sources. It also establishes a two-year work programme on climate finance that covers Article 9.1 of the Paris Agreement, the provision under which developed countries provide finance[1][2].

On adaptation, the Parties adopted 59 indicators under the Global Goal on Adaptation, cut down from about 100 candidates, with an annex stating that the indicators create no new financial obligations. A two-year process will refine them[1]. Panama called the text a rough draft, and the Union said at the closing plenary that it could not accept the decision because the indicators do not align with the Paris Agreement; the President gavelled it through[2]. On temperature, the decision says that the remaining carbon budget is now small, acknowledges for the first time a likely overshoot of 1.5 degrees, and launches a Global Implementation Accelerator and a Belém Mission to 1.5C[1]. On trade, it asks for three annual dialogues at the Bonn sessions of 2026, 2027 and 2028 and reaffirms that climate measures, including unilateral ones, should not be arbitrary or disguised restrictions on trade[1][2]. The decision on the just transition work programme establishes a new mechanism, which civil society had sought under the name of a Belém action mechanism[1].

Outside the negotiations, the presidency's Action Agenda collected pledges. The Tropical Forests Forever Facility raised 5.5 billion dollars from 53 participating countries, with at least 20 per cent reserved for Indigenous Peoples and local communities, and the Union endorsed the declaration launching it[3][4]. More than 100 new nationally determined contributions were submitted, and they project a 12 per cent fall in emissions by 2035 against 2019[1].

The roadmap that was not written

President Lula asked the conference for roadmaps away from fossil fuels and deforestation. More than 80 countries backed the request[3]. The draft released before dawn on Friday 21 November dropped all fossil fuel language. The Arab Group said that its energy industries were off limits, and Saudi Arabia warned that targeting them would collapse the talks[5]. China, India, the African Group and Türkiye also spoke against fossil fuel language in the just transition decision[6]. The adopted text refers only to the UAE Consensus of COP28 and does not mention fossil fuels[1][3].

The Union fought this to the last night. Wopke Hoekstra, the Commissioner for Climate, Net Zero and Clean Growth, said of the Friday draft: "Under no circumstances are we going to accept this." Some European negotiators said that the bloc was considering walking away, and the Union offered to move beyond its comfort zone on adaptation finance if the mitigation sections were strengthened[5]. Twenty-nine countries from Europe, Latin America and the small island states wrote a joint letter expressing deep concern at a take-it-or-leave-it proposal[6]. The Union then accepted the Mutirão without objection, and it called the outcome a missed opportunity in the plenary[1]. The Commission's release of 22 November presents the result as an agreement "to keep the 1.5C limit within reach" and records that the Union and its Member States provided 31.7 billion euros of public climate finance in 2024[4]. The Parliament's delegation, led by Lídia Pereira, was blunter: its vice-chair Mohammed Chahim called the result a very minimal basis for global action[7].

The presidency salvaged a process. André Corrêa do Lago announced that he would prepare two roadmaps, one on the transition away from fossil fuels and one on halting deforestation by 2030, and report on them at COP31. The fossil fuel roadmap will be shaped by a conference in Colombia in April 2026, outside the UNFCCC[2]. COP31 will be held in Türkiye, and Australia will hold the presidency of the negotiations[2].

The Union arrived in Belém with a position that was weaker than the one it had defended for a decade. On 5 November the Council approved a nationally determined contribution with an indicative 2035 range of 66.25 to 72.5 per cent below 1990, and it agreed a general approach on a 2040 target of 90 per cent that allows international credits to cover up to five percentage points from 2036[8][9]. Our generation will live with the 2040 target as adults, and we noticed that the Union asked others for a roadmap in the same month that it loosened its own.

What we ask

The Union should join the Colombian conference of April 2026 as a full participant and should bring to it a dated European timetable for ending fossil fuel subsidies, so that the roadmap it asked of others begins at home[2].

The Council and the Parliament should close the 2040 climate law in trilogue with the 90 per cent target intact and should write the five per cent of international credits as a ceiling that cannot rise under the review clause[9].

The Commission should publish, before the Bonn session in June 2026, how the Union will contribute to the tripling of adaptation finance by 2035 from the 31.7 billion euros it reported for 2024, with a year-by-year path[4].

The Union should use the three trade dialogues to explain the carbon border adjustment mechanism to the countries that contested it in Belém, with data on revenue use, and it should not let the dialogues become a forum for suspending the mechanism[1].