The UN climate chief, Simon Stiell, closed the Cop30 summit on Saturday with the reflection that the world was not winning the climate fight but “undeniably still in it”.
So what? He’s right and it’s not good enough. There was relief that a deal was agreed given it could have completely fallen apart a day earlier. Important decisions have been made on boosting climate adaptation funds and protecting rights in a green economy. But limiting global warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels is increasingly unlikely when
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delegates failed to come up with a roadmap on ending deforestation;
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there was no mention of fossil fuels in the final summit text; and
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the US elected not to send a delegation.
Cut to the chase. Brazil, which hosted the fractious summit in the city of Belém, published a draft text on Tuesday that referred to a roadmap to phasing out fossil fuels. It was designed to build on Cop28, location of the first agreement to explicitly mention a transition away from oil, gas and coal. That text wasn’t binding, but in climate negotiations language matters.
Cutting room floor. By Friday the Cop30 draft had removed any mention of fossil fuels, even though its inclusion was supported by the UK and dozens of other countries. The final agreement followed all-night talks and merely nodded to the “United Arab Emirates consensus”. It did, at least, reiterate that the 1.5C target requires “deep, rapid and sustained” emission cuts.
Good luck with that. Ani Dasgupta from the World Resources Institute said that “intense lobbying from a few petrostates weakened the deal”.
Not naming names. Leading the charge were Russia, China and Saudi Arabia. They were arguably emboldened by the absence of the US, the top oil producer and consumer.
For the record. Donald Trump has withdrawn from the Paris Agreement and recently called climate change the “greatest con job” in history.
Woodchucked. Also excised from the final text was a roadmap to the end of deforestation, which was a major goal of Cop30. The summit had been deliberately hosted in the Amazon to focus minds on the role of trees in tackling climate change.
Scant comfort. Brazil softened the blow by unilaterally announcing the creation of the roadmap and launching an investment fund to compensate nations that preserve tropical forests. Both were taken outside the UN process. It also committed to a fossil fuel roadmap, which will
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similarly sit outside the UN;
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proceed under the leadership of Colombia and the Pacific Islands; and
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report back to Cop after dialogue that includes an international conference in April.
The problem is that the US would probably block any global agreement that follows.
Take a bow. There were some things to celebrate. Countries agreed to a so-called just transition mechanism, a plan to protect human rights when moving to a green economy. This is the result of hard-fought campaigning by the Global South, including Indigenous groups.
Progress of sorts. The final text also trebles adaptation finance to help poorer nations deal with a warmer world, another good thing. But the 2035 deadline was initially 2030, and the goal of roughly $120 billion a year is well short of the $300 billion target set at Cop29.
Unvarnished truth. Many countries were also unhappy at the indicators adopted to measure progress on adaptation. Sierra Leone’s climate minister said the list was not the one “crafted by experts”. He dismissed its contents as “unclear, unmeasurable, and in many cases, unusable”.
Beyond Cop. For all the small wins and sinewy multilateralism, countries have still not come up with national climate plans that will come close to keeping the world within 1.5C of warming.
What’s more… One word that made it into the final text was “overshoot”, which was used to refer to this threshold and specifically to the world that lies beyond. It draws closer by the day.
Photograph by Mauro Ujetto/NurPhoto via Getty Images.