COP30: Financing, transition, adaptation at the heart of negotiations
Starting this Monday (Nov. 10), Belém will become Brazil’s temporary capital, serving primarily as the global center for negotiations on mitigation and adaptation to climate change, as well as on the investments needed to achieve the objectives of the 30th Conference of the Parties (COP30) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which runs until November 21.
Held for the first time in the Amazon - a biome with the greatest biodiversity on the planet and a key regulator of the global climate - COP30 faces the major challenge of putting climate change back at the center of international priorities.
Delegations from 194 countries, along with the European Union (EU), have registered to participate, according to the COP30 presidency. The capital of Pará expects to receive more than 50,000 visitors, including diplomatic negotiators, observers, scientists, government representatives, civil society organizations, and social movements.
The event gained momentum in recent days with the Climate Summit, also held in Belém, which brought together heads of state, government officials, and high-level representatives from around 70 countries. Host President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva sought to build consensus among nations on practical actions to curb the imminent risk of global warming exceeding 1.5°C - a commitment made by the signatories of the Paris Agreement.
“COP30 is the COP of truth,” emphasized President Lula, who reiterated on several occasions the urgent need for financing for adaptation and the energy transition, in order to move away, in a planned and accelerated manner, from dependence on fossil fuels.
“The leaders’ summit was very positive because it addressed a fundamental issue in the climate debate: ending the use of fossil fuels. President Lula said he wants to see, at the end of the conference, countries agreeing on a roadmap - a kind of plan for how we are going to carry out the transition, since it won’t happen overnight. How will this transition take place? Which countries will start first? What is the timeline, the scale of the effort, and how much funding will be required? This message was fundamental,” said Márcio Astrini, executive secretary of the Climate Observatory - a Brazilian civil society network with more than 130 members, including environmental organizations, research institutes, and social movements - in an interview with Agência Brasil. The network works to promote debate and advocate for actions to mitigate and adapt to the climate crisis.
The use of fossil fuels, such as oil and coal, accounts for 75 percent of the greenhouse gas emissions that increase the planet’s temperature, according to data from the Climate Watch platform. It is followed by agriculture (11.7%), industrial processes (4%), waste (3.4%), and deforestation and changes in land use and forests (2.7%).
Challenging situation
Despite this scenario, the urgency of the climate agenda has never been so questioned, amid ongoing armed conflicts, the withdrawal of the United States from the Paris Agreement and its return to a denialist stance on the issue, as well as a spike in greenhouse gas emissions last year, driven mainly by CO₂ - the main atmospheric pollutant.
To date, fewer than 80 countries have updated their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). These are mitigation targets - commitments adopted by countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions - implemented since the Paris Agreement, exactly ten years ago. Countries accounting for more than one-third of global emissions, including India, have yet to update their commitments.
“We don’t know what the countries promised to do because they didn’t deliver on those promises. We expected them to present at least some of them during the summit, but the promises never came - and that was a very bad sign,” criticized Márcio Astrini.
In his tenth and final letter to the international community, released on Saturday (9), the president-designate of COP30, Brazilian ambassador André Corrêa do Lago, urged countries to make Belém “a cycle of action” in addressing the climate crisis. According to the ambassador, this is the moment to implement an agenda for change based on unity and cooperation.
Adaptation and transition
According to negotiators, three themes are expected to guide the conference discussions: climate adaptation, just transition, and the implementation of the Global Stocktake (GST) under the Paris Agreement.
Adaptation refers to how cities and territories should prepare to deal with extreme weather events, such as the tornado that destroyed the city of Rio Novo do Iguaçu, in the southern Brazilian state of Paraná. In this context, COP30 is expected to define indicators for the Global Goal on Adaptation - a framework to measure countries’ progress.
The theme of just transition should gain an official work program within the COP structure, with guidelines for implementing policies that address the needs of people affected by the shift to low-carbon economies. In this context, combined with the theme of energy transition, the goal is to create conditions for workers impacted by changes in polluting sectors to find opportunities in new areas of the economy.
The other priority is the implementation of the Global Stocktake (GST) under the Paris Agreement. The first assessment was carried out two years ago, at COP28 in Dubai, and presented a series of recommendations to guide countries in overcoming the challenges of climate change and combating global warming.
Funding
Beyond all the practical issues lies the bottleneck of funding, without which the necessary shift for the planet to consolidate a low-carbon economy will be unattainable. This is the main pitfall in the COP30 negotiations, according to Astrini.
“Rich countries have long promised to put money on the table. They are the ones who owe the most on this climate bill and pledged to finance a path that would allow countries to develop without harming their economies, without creating poverty, and by implementing new technologies. But the promised funds to enable this transition never actually materialized. This has generated a crisis of confidence, which deepened at the last climate conference [COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan],” he added.
To help resolve this issue, a strategic plan was presented with the goal of securing USD 1.3 trillion per year in climate finance. Prepared by the presidencies of COP29 and COP30, the document - titled “Baku to Bethlehem Roadmap” - was presented last week to provide more concrete guidance on how to mobilize these resources.
In Brazil’s action agenda, one of the priority financial instruments is the Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF). Launched last Thursday (6) during the Climate Summit, the initiative has already received pledges totaling more than USD 5.5 billion to finance the preservation and protection of tropical forests in about 70 countries. At least 20 percent of these resources will be allocated to traditional communities and Indigenous peoples.
Civil society
While the outcome of the COP30 negotiations remains uncertain, the conference will undoubtedly be marked by the vibrant participation of Brazilian and international civil society. Beyond the Blue Zone - where official events will take place and access is restricted to negotiators and accredited personnel - a series of activities throughout the city will seek to draw attention to various aspects of the climate agenda. The epicenter will be the Green Zone, the public area of COP30, which will have free admission and is also located in Belém’s City Park.
The space is managed by the Brazilian government, but civil society, public and private institutions, traditional communities, youth, and other non-governmental actors will be able to connect, exchange ideas, and present technology and innovation projects offering solutions to the climate crisis. It will also serve as a free space for social interaction and leisure for the public. In the Peoples’ Circle Pavilion, for instance, indigenous peoples, traditional communities, small farmers, and other groups considered essential to the protection of biomes will have an extensive agenda. COP30 is expected to host the largest indigenous mobilization in the history of the conference, with more than 3,000 participants.
“Climate is not just a topic for environmentalists or diplomats. It’s connected to our everyday lives. When the price of coffee rises, for example, it’s because the harvests and planting in countries like Brazil, Indonesia, and Vietnam have suffered losses due to climate impacts. When we see the red tariff on our electricity bills, it’s because it didn’t rain properly in the right places - the hydroelectric plants weren’t supplied, and energy became more expensive. Climate has everything to do with the food on our plates and with our daily lives,” says Márcio Astrini, welcoming the broad social participation expected at this COP.
Another major highlight in Belém will be the People’s Summit, an autonomous gathering of social movements that begins on Wednesday (12) at the Federal University of Pará (UFPA). A boat parade on the Guamá River, which flows through the host city of the conference, will mark the start of the mobilization. The event will bring together social, indigenous, quilombola, and riverside movements from more than 62 countries to discuss a just climate transition. On Saturday (15), a large march of the peoples through the streets of Belém is also planned.
“At every COP, agreements have been reached but not fully implemented. What we need now is for these commitments to be truly carried out and fulfilled - and for those who actually work on territorial protection, preservation, and conservation to be brought to the negotiating table, on equal footing,” says Dinamam Tuxá, executive coordinator of the Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (Apib).
