Belem, Brazil
UN climate talks came to the brink of collapse on Friday as negotiators released a final text that removed all mention of a fossil fuel phase-out roadmap, exposing a fundamental divide between developed and developing countries over who should bear the burden of emissions cuts and how quickly the world should move away from coal, oil and gas.
In the draft agreement uploaded on the website of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change around 3 am on Friday morning after long marathon talks that lasted till 9 pm on Thursday night – even avoiding a fire in the blue zone of the convention – the words “fossil fuel” or “roadmap” were removed entirely. This was despite Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva publicly supporting such language weeks earlier and personally speaking to build consensus.
This omission divided the nearly 200 countries at COP30 into opposing camps. According to one negotiator who wished to remain anonymous, China, India, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria and Russia rejected any prescriptive fossil fuel roadmap, arguing that developed countries should take the lead in emissions reductions given their historical responsibility. Meanwhile, about 30 countries, led by Colombia, warned they could not accept a deal without it, saying the climate emergency demands urgent action.
“What is on the table now is unacceptable,” EU Climate Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra told reporters. “And given that we are so far from where we should be, it’s unfortunate to say, but we really are facing a no-deal scenario.”
France’s ecological transition minister, Monique Barbut, called the omission “incomprehensible at a time of climate emergency.”
The standoff underlined the challenge of proving that international cooperation can still work in a fragmented world – especially in the absence of President Donald Trump’s United States – and of achieving consensus among countries with very different development needs, energy dependencies and economic realities.
competitive philosophy
The letter from 30 countries, drafted by Colombia, states clearly: “We cannot support an outcome that does not include a roadmap to implement a fair, orderly and equitable transition away from fossil fuels.”
More than 80 countries, including Australia, Austria, Belgium, Cambodia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Denmark, Fiji, Finland, Ireland, Jamaica, Kenya, Luxembourg, Marshall Islands, Mexico, Micronesia, Nepal, Netherlands, Panama, Spain, Slovenia, Vanuatu and Tuvalu, responded by supporting a separate Belem Declaration to transition away from fossil fuels.
After the presidential text was revealed, Colombia – which first proposed the fossil fuel roadmap – held a briefing to promote the alternative declaration. “The declaration is based on the scientific truth that fossil fuels are the primary driver of the climate crisis,” Colombia said. “Maintaining the 1.5 or 1.7 degree objectives requires a fast, fair and fully funded phase-out.”
The “Mutirão” text – named after the Portuguese word for collective action – appeared without the parentheses, indicating the final repetition. Rather than directly addressing fossil fuels, it acknowledges the possibility of a temporary overshoot of the Paris Agreement’s 1.5 °C warming target, while “reiterating its resolve to pursue efforts to limit temperature rise to 1.5 °C, limit both the magnitude and duration of any temperature overshoot, and close the adaptation gap”.
historical accountability
Marking 10 years of the Paris Agreement, the text “strongly reaffirms its commitment to multilateralism and the principles and provisions of the Paris Agreement and resolves to remain united in efforts to achieve the objective and long-term goals of the Agreement with a view to providing climate action and support for people and the planet”.
This reflects the global context of historical emissions, stating that while the carbon budget consistent with achieving the Paris Agreement temperature target is now small and rapidly depleting, historical cumulative net carbon dioxide emissions constitute at least four-fifths of the total carbon budget for a 50% chance of limiting global warming to 1.5°C.
The text states that despite progress, global greenhouse gas emissions trajectories are not yet in line with the Paris targets. It recognizes that limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius requires deep, rapid and sustained cuts in global greenhouse gas emissions of 43% by 2030 and 60% by 2035 relative to 2019 levels, reaching net zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2050.
Crucially, it is a reminder that developed countries failed to achieve the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s previous target of reducing emissions 25-40% below 1990 levels by 2020 – a point developing countries have repeatedly stressed in the argument that rich countries should lead mitigation efforts.
Financial Success with Caveats
In the context of Article 9 as a whole, the package met a key demand of developing countries, particularly India, by establishing a two-year work program on climate finance under Article 9, paragraph 1.
Article 9.1 is a legal obligation that requires developed countries to provide financial resources to developing countries for climate mitigation and adaptation efforts. The text “reaffirms that developed country parties will provide financial resources to developing country parties in connection with both mitigation and adaptation in continuation of their existing obligations under the Convention and also confirms that other parties are encouraged to voluntarily provide or continue to provide such support”. It also reaffirms the long-term goal of harmonizing finance flows towards low greenhouse gas emissions and climate-resilient development.
The text reaffirms the call to increase financing to developing countries from all public and private sources to at least $1.3 trillion per year by 2035, noting the “Baku to Belém Roadmap to 1.3T”. Most importantly, it calls for efforts to triple adaptation finance by 2030 compared to 2025 levels and urges developed countries to increase the trajectory of their collective provision of climate finance for developing countries to adapt.
The proposed high-level Ministerial Roundtable to consider the implementation of the new cumulatively quantified target was welcomed, while recognizing that adaptation must be locally determined.
However, Arunabha Ghosh, chief executive of the Council on Energy, Environment and Water, said the results fell short of what was needed for developing countries to take climate action.
“At COP30, the Global South is not asking for favors – it is demanding the basic foundations needed to deliver a fair and effective global climate response,” Ghosh said. “Climate action must be based on equality, fair rules and credible support. The new texts – at this stage – suggest that further progress and deliberations will be needed in the coming hours to reach an outcome that, most importantly, will protect vulnerable people.”
While welcoming the recognition that adaptation must be locally determined and that alternative pathways to equitable transition exist, Ghosh noted significant shortcomings. “The absence of a new adaptation finance target within GGA discussions, and continued reliance on broad ‘all-actors’ language on finance, may limit the mobility of finance. Furthermore, the two-year work program on climate finance falls short of a focused, dedicated process on how developed countries will meet their obligations.”
“A credible COP outcome should strengthen advocates for climate action for developing countries – not leave them with fewer tools to navigate a more demanding transition,” he said.
Business: A Linguistic Agreement
On trade, another priority for the entire G77+China and like-minded developing countries, the text offers cautious compromise on unilateral measures such as Europe’s carbon border adjustment mechanism, which China and India have jointly opposed as trade-restrictive, unilateral and inconsistent with equity principles.
The text reaffirms that the Parties should cooperate to promote a supportive and open international economic system that can lead to sustainable economic growth and development for all Parties, especially developing countries. It also “reaffirms that steps taken to combat climate change, including unilateral measures, should not become an instrument of arbitrary or unfair discrimination or disguised restrictions on international trade”.
The text requests the Subsidiary Bodies to convene a dialogue at their 64th, 66th and 68th sessions with the participation of Parties and stakeholders, including the WTO, the United Nations Center for Trade and Development and the International Trade Center, to consider opportunities, challenges and obstacles to enhancing international cooperation related to the role of business in climate action.
Vaibhav Chaturvedi, senior fellow at the Council on Energy, Environment and Water, called the language a “smart compromise” that nevertheless represents a defeat for developing countries.
“The developed world has once again thwarted the developing world’s attempt to include ‘unilateral trade measures’ in the cover text,” Chaturvedi said. “The language has been reversed to say that unilateral ‘climate’ measures should not arbitrarily restrict trade. The play on words is a smart agreement. The EU holds this as a red line. Such unilateral trade measures will now be discussed within the framework of an ‘open and supportive’ international economic system, although one is not sure what there is so much support about such unilateral trade measures.”
Implementation and Forest
COP30 decided to launch the “Global Implementation Accelerator” as a cooperative, facilitative and voluntary initiative under the guidance of the Presidents of the Seventh and Eighth Sessions of the Conference of the Parties serving as the Meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement.
This initiative will accelerate implementation, enhance international cooperation among all parties to keep 1.5°C within reach, and assist countries in implementing their Nationally Determined Contributions and national adaptation plans. The accelerator was the demand of small island states for whom breaching 1.5°C is a question of survival. The text also recognized alternative routes to just transitions.
On deforestation, the text reiterated the 2030 targets, stating: “Being conscious of the Amazon being at the heart of and emphasizing the importance of conserving, protecting and restoring nature and ecosystems to achieve the Paris Agreement temperature targets, including increased efforts towards halting and reversing deforestation and forest degradation by 2030 in accordance with Article 5 of the Paris Agreement, and other terrestrial and marine ecosystems greenhouse Act as sinks and reservoirs of gases to conserve biodiversity while ensuring strong social and environmental protection.
