Belem: United Nations climate talks in Brazil reached a subdued agreement Saturday that pledged more funding for countries to adapt to extreme weather.
But the catch-all agreement doesn’t include explicit details to phase out fossil fuels or strengthen countries’ inadequate emissions-cutting plans, which dozens of nations demanded.
The Brazilian hosts of the conference said they’d eventually come up with a road map to get away from fossil fuels, working with hard-line Colombia, but it won’t have the same force as something approved at the United Nations conference called COP30. Colombia responded angrily to the deal after it was approved, citing the absence of wording on fossil fuels.
The deal, which was approved after negotiators blew past a Friday deadline to wrap up, was crafted after more than 12 hours of late-night and early morning meetings in COP30 President André Corrêa do Lago’s office.
Do Lago said the tough discussions started in Belem will continue under Brazil’s leadership until the next annual conference, “even if they are not reflected in this text we just approved.” Do Lago has said a fossil fuel transition plan will be in a separate proposal issued later by his team.
Deal gets mix of lukewarm praise and complaints
Many gave the overall deal lukewarm praise as the best that could be achieved in trying times, while others complained about the package or the process that led to its approval.
“Given the circumstances of geopolitics today, we’re actually quite pleased with the bounds of the package that came out,” said Palau Ambassador Ilana Seid, who chaired the coalition of small island nations. “The alternative is that we don’t get a decision, and that would have been a worse alternative.”
“This deal isn’t perfect and is far from what science requires,” said former Ireland President Mary Robinson, a fierce climate advocate for the ex-leaders group The Elders. “But at a time when multilateralism is being tested, it is significant that countries continue to move forward together.”
Some countries said they got enough out of the deal.
“COP30 has not delivered everything Africa asked for, but it has moved the needle,” said Jiwoh Abdulai, Sierra Leone’s environment minister. What really matters, he said, is “how quickly these words turn into real projects that protect lives and livelihoods.”
UK Energy Minister Ed Miliband said the agreement was “an important step forward,” but that he would have preferred it to be “more ambitious.” He added: “These are difficult, strenuous, tiring, frustrating negotiations.”
Swift final push prompts complaints
The deal was approved minutes into a plenary meeting open to all nations that were present.
After the main package was approved and gaveled in by do Lago, to applause by many delegates, angry nation after angry nation took the floor to complain about other parts of the package and about being ignored as do Lago moved quickly toward approval. The objections were so strong and uniform that do Lago temporarily halted the session for more talk to try to calm things down.
Colombia’s Daniela Duran Gonzalez objected to sections on helping nations cut emissions and reaching worldwide temperature limits that were previously agreed upon. She blasted the conference’s president for ignoring her, saying: “The COP of the truth cannot support an outcome that ignores science.”
One of the areas that usually gets less attention became a big point of contention after a text was approved. The deal established 59 indicators for the world to judge how well nations are adapting to future climate change. Before the Belem conference, experts crafted 100 precisely worded indicators, but negotiators changed the wording and cut the total.
Country after country, including Panama, Uruguay, and Canada, said they had severe problems with it, calling it unclear and unworkable. They complained that they tried to object, raising flags to be noticed so they could speak, but were ignored.
Do Lago said he was sorry he didn’t see the flags.
How major issues were handled
A handful of major issues dominated the talk. Those included coming up with a road map to wean the world from fossil fuels, telling countries that their national plans to curb emissions were inadequate, tripling financial aid for developing nations to adapt to extreme weather and reducing climate restrictions on trade.
“COP30 gave us some baby steps in the right direction, but considering the scale of the climate crisis, it has failed to rise to the occasion,” said Mohamed Adow, director of Power Shift Africa.
Even though most nations proclaimed themselves somewhat but not wholly satisfied with the major package, critics complained that there was not much to the deal.
“It’s a weak outcome,” said former Philippine negotiator Jasper Inventor, now at Greenpeace International. “Strip away the outcome text and you see it plainly: the emperor has no clothes.”
Panama negotiator Juan Carlos Monterrey Gomez railed against the deal.
“A climate decision that cannot even say fossil fuels’ is not neutrality, it is complicity. And what is happening here transcends incompetence,” Monterrey Gomez said. “Science has been deleted from COP30 because it offends the polluters.”
Many nations and advocates wanted something stronger because the world will not come close to limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) since the mid-1800s, which was the goal the 2015 Paris agreement set.
The financial aid for adapting to climate change was tripled to a goal of USD 120 billion a year, but the goal was pushed back five years. It was one of several tough issues to dominated the late stage of talks. Vulnerable nations have pressed the wealthier countries most responsible for climate change to help out with money to rebuild from damaging extreme weather and to adapt to more of it in the future.
“COP30 was a failure for the communities on the front lines of the climate crisis,” said the disaster charity Mercy Corps’ policy lead Debbie Hillier. “While the COP30 outcome includes a new commitment on adaptation finance, it is deeply disappointing. It includes no baseline year, no clarity on the actual target, and no mechanism defining who is responsible for delivering the tripling.”
Pushing back the goal leaves “vulnerable countries without support to match the escalating needs,” Adow said.
PTI
