COP30, Belém: A Potpourri of Limited Achievements, Major Failures, and Lingering Discord
Representatives from 193 countries and the European Union recently converged on the northern Brazilian port city of Belém for a climate extravaganza. The 30th annual Conference of the Parties (COP) of the United Nations Framework Conference on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was held between 10 and 22 November 2025, attracting a total of 56, 118 registered delegates. The UNFCCC, a multilateral treaty, had been adopted at the Earth Summit (United Nations Conference on Environment and Development) in Rio de Janeiro in 1992.
COP30 attracted the usual mix of politicians; officials from the United Nations, NGOs (non-governmental organisation), intergovernmental organisations, and specialised agencies; philanthropists; fossil fuel lobbyists; climate activists; and a media circus-many of them with high carbon footprints. Virtual online attendees, on the other hand, did not add further to global warming. The event was preceded by coordination meetings between 4 and 9 November and a high-level Leaders’ Summit on 6 and 7 November. Among the leaders who attended were the Chancellor of Germany, the President of France, the President of the European Commission, and the Prime Minister of the UK. For the first time in the history of COP climate summits, the US did not send an official delegation, having already opted out of the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement under Trump 2.0. Afghanistan, Myanmar, and San Marino also chose not to attend.
Belém, the capital of Pará State, is the gateway to Brazil’s lower Amazon region. The location was chosen deliberately by the host nation because of the importance of the Amazon rainforest in relation to global climate change. Some criticised the environmental degradation caused by Avenida Liberdade, a four-lane and 8-mile-long highway cut through tens of thousands of acres of Amazon rainforest. Construction began in June 2024 and was meant to improve access to the conference. The event attracted Indigenous protesters, gender action activists, anti-capitalists, and other disaffected groups of people. According to UN News, around 90 Indigenous people from the Munduruku Indigenous group staged a peaceful protest early on 14 November, blocking the main entrance to the Blue Zone – the restricted area set aside for negotiators. They were demanding an end to projects and extractive activities that threaten Indigenous territories, particularly in the Tapajós and Xingu River basins.
COP30 marks 20 years since the coming into force of the Kyoto Protocol and 10 years since the adoption of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. The main purpose of COP30 was to chase the target set at Paris in 2015 to limit global warming to under 1.50 C from “pre-industrial levels” by the end of this century. Achieving this target requires mitigation by actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, adaptation to extreme weather events linked to climate change, and climate financing for poorer countries in the form of investments, subsidies and loans. But many remain unconvinced about the need for such actions, including many key and high-profile political leaders. At a time of pervasive and growing climate misinformation, twelve nations – including Brazil, Canada, France, Germany and Spain-thus signed the first-ever Declaration on Information Integrity on Climate Change on 12 November, as part of the Global Initiative for Information Integrity on Climate Change.
Achieving a consensus at COP30 has proved impossible, as the participants are at differing stages of greening their economies, depending on the respective impacts of climate change on their countries. The green transition is threatened by increased and uncontrolled production and consumption in the Global North, at a time when climate-related changes (droughts, floods, crop failures, heat-related deaths, etc) disproportionately affect the Global South. Protecting national economies and facilitating domestic economic growth have been prioritised over global climate change action, and this is something that is easier to justify to voters back home, wherever that might be.
The outcomes of COP30 seem somewhat underwhelming. The summit overran by more than 18 hours into Saturday 22 November to reach some form of agreement. Following overnight negotiations, the Brazilian presidency of the summit released the “global mutirão” (“collective efforts” in the local Tupi-Guarani language). The final version called for a tripling of adaptation financial support to developing nations to $120 billion annually, without a clear baseline year and with a target date of 2035, five years later than was pledged at COP26 in 2021. An overarching roadmap to transition away from fossil fuels, much desired by 82 participating nations, led by Colombia, failed to appear. It was left to individual states to determine the pace of change within their own territories and through their own voluntary roadmaps. The issue of fossil fuels could not be addressed, as the stakes were too high for the oil-producing nations, which include some members of the Arab Group of 22 nations, as well as for some high-emitting countries. In the hope of making further progress in this matter, Colombia will now host the world’s first International Conference on the Just Transition Away from Fossil Fuels in April 2026. A global deforestation action plan also failed to feature in the final agreement.
Climate action continues to be a contentious and divisive issue, even where there is overwhelming scientific consensus, although by no means unanimous, that anthropogenic global warming needs to be slowed down. In some quarters, the enthusiasm for acting on climate change seems to have dampened somewhat in the face of the perceived high economic costs and disruptive nature of Net-Zero transitions. Overall, it can be concluded that COP30, although on the right trajectory, has failed to live up to expectations. It is now up to COP31 to take matters forward in Türkiye next year. Given the state of play, no positive outcomes can be guaranteed.
Ashis Banerjee