The Cop30 climate conference in Brazil ended on Saturday without an agreement for the world to commit to phasing out fossil fuels.
More than 80 nations had been pushing for the gathering in the city of Belem to strengthen efforts to move away from fossil fuels, but some oil-producing nations were said to have been strongly opposed.
Speaking to the media after the final plenary session was concluded, the Cop30 president, Andre Correa do Lago, acknowledged that “some of you had higher ambitions” for the final agreement.
The agreement instead calls on nations to undertake measures to limit carbon emissions while “taking into account” decisions such as the UAE Consensus, the historic agreement at Cop28 in Dubai that was the first Cop text to signal a move away from fossil fuels.
Instead of including a push to phase out fossil fuels in the final text – which must be agreed by all 194 participating nations – Mr Do Lago said that two road maps focused on transitioning away from fossil fuels and ending deforestation would be created, with slightly fewer than half the nations signed up.
The final text includes a call for finance for adaptation – measures to cope with the effects of climate change – to be tripled by 2035, an outcome likely to disappoint many developing nations, as earlier versions of the text had a 2030 target date.
After the final deal was gavelled through, several nations and blocs made public criticisms, with the EU and Switzerland unhappy about the global goal on adaptation, which was part of the text.
In comments on the final draft deal, which was later approved, Tom Picken, forests and finance director of Rainforest Action Network, said that Cop30 had highlighted “constrained ambition” and “a global financial system still built on extraction”.
“If governments can’t even agree to phase out fossil fuels – the root cause of the crisis – then the trillions still flowing into coal, oil, gas, deforestation and mining will continue unchecked, and developing countries will still be denied the predictable public finance needed for a just and equitable transition,” he said.
Bob Ward, of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, part of the London School of Economics, said that while the negotiations in Brazil had “proved to be largely disappointing, like at previous summits”, there had been positive developments.
He said that the “Baku to Belem road map”, which aims to ensure that by 2035 developing nations will receive $1.3 trillion a year in external finance to support climate goals “has laid out a feasible pathway to significantly increasing support from public and private sources”.
“The Tropical Forest Forever Facility, launched just before the summit, is an innovative way of increasing investment in the Amazon and the other rainforests of the world,” he said, speaking from Belem.
“However, there is no escaping the fact that the current collection of national plans submitted for this summit for cutting emissions are still not consistent with the ambition of preventing warming from exceeding 1.5°C, leading to loss, damage and suffering all over the world.”
Dr Injy Johnstone, a research associate at the University of Oxford’s Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, said that, with the United States absent from the event, the presence of state-level officials took on greater significance. The governor of California, Gavin Newsom, and Josh Becker, a member of the California state senate, both attended.
“There’s been a co-ordinated effort to bring in sub-state actors,” she said from Belem. “California’s leadership has been putting forward some groundbreaking [proposals]. They’ve been seen as leaders in that space. People were very excited to see them on the ground.”
While Cop30 is the first Cop to have a pavilion dedicated to carbon removal, the subject has not been a focus of the negotiations. Dr Johnstone indicated that this might change at subsequent events.
“We have a lot of new technologies. It’s not just about planting trees,” she said. “A greater concentration on the science is something the Australian negotiating team could bring to the table.”
Amid a stand-off over who would host Cop31, it was agreed this week that the event will be held in Turkey but that an Australian minister will chair the talks.
Dr Johnstone said the choice of Turkey over Australia as the host indicated that scaling down the size of the event was unlikely.
“To what extent do we still need 80,000 or 70,000 people attending? The nod to Turkey [means] that we’ll continue with a very significant Cop presence even though there’s much less technical negotiating happening now,” she said.
A notable absentee at Cop30 was the US, which is pulling out of the Paris Agreement, finalised at Cop20 in the French capital in 2015. That agreement set the aim of limiting temperature rises to no more than 1.5°C.
Despite the US under President Donald Trump rolling back on climate action, the EU said during Cop30 that it would continue to prioritise the issue.
Wopke Hoekstra, the European Commissioner for Climate, Net Zero and Clean Growth, said the EU remains committed to transitioning to renewable energy, although questions were asked about the speed at which this was happening.
Europe also came under fire over its coming carbon tariff scheme, the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, due to come into effect at the beginning of next year. Critics have branded the mechanism as protectionist.
