At curtain-raiser for UN conference in Brazil, presidents put focus on forests, financing, adaptation and energy – and call out US denialism.
Over the next two weeks, representatives from nearly 200 governments will try to reach consensus at the 30th edition of the United Nations’ annual climate change conference, COP30.
Hosted by Brazil in its northern city of Belém, this is the first climate conference to be held in the Amazon, a biome that is globally vital for its rich biodiversity, but one threatened by extractive activities.
It is also the tenth anniversary of the Paris Agreement, the global climate treaty agreed in 2015 to prevent the global average temperature from rising more than 2C above pre-industrial levels, and ideally to keep this rise below 1.5C. However, the current trajectory is that by the end of the century, the planet will warm by between 2.3 and 2.5C, even if the plans that countries have set for themselves so far are 100% fulfilled.
“We are dangerously missing the 1.5C limit. We are moving in the right direction, but too slowly,” said Christiana Figueres, former executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), at a press conference the week before the start of the global conference.
COP30 is taking place amid a turbulent geopolitical context and questions about the state of multilateralism. Brazil, as host of the conference, will have the challenge of balancing these tensions.
Unlike previous years, the main objective of this COP is not to reach an agreement or issue a declaration. Rather, the Brazilian government and analysts have sought to define it as “the COP of implementation“.
To this end, countries will present their new national climate plans, although as of the eve of the summit on Sunday, only 81 of 198 had done so. Experts have told Dialogue Earth that progress is expected on various issues, such as financing for developing countries, the energy transition and measures for adapting to the effects of climate change.
Latin America, which is hosting the COP for the first time in 11 years (COP20 was held in Lima, Peru, in 2014) is already experiencing visible and growing impacts of climate change. For example, scientists have said that the recent Hurricane Melissa, which particularly affected Jamaica, was more intense due to the effects of climate change.
“The region comes to COP30 at a turning point,” says Jorge Villareal, director of climate policy at the Mexican NGO Iniciativa Climática. “We are heavily impacted by the climate crisis, debt and inequalities.”
Leaders’ Summit
Days before the start of COP, on Thursday 6 and Friday 7 November, around 60 heads of state arrived in Belém to participate in the Leaders’ Summit. This preliminary segment aimed to build political momentum for the negotiations.
UN secretary-general António Guterres used his address to harshly criticise governments for their inability to limit warming to 1.5C, telling leaders they “remain captive to [the] entrenched interests” of fossil fuel corporations and lobbying.
Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva warned that “the window of opportunity for our action is closing rapidly” and said “there is no greater symbol of the environmental cause than the Amazon rainforest.”
Several Latin American leaders were also present. Colombia’s president Gustavo Petro accused the US leader Donald Trump of “leading humanity into the abyss” for his climate denialism, and questioned the presence of the “fossil fuel lobby” at climate conferences.
Chilean president Gabriel Boric called for science and scientific evidence to be “at the centre of decisions” and for progress in implementation. Guyana’s president Irfaan Ali defended multilateralism: “There is no other forum where every nation can sit as equal to shape the planet’s response.”
Absent from the list of attendees were the leaders of some of the world’s most polluting economies, such as India, Russia and the United States. The latter recently withdrew, for the second time, from the Paris Agreement. China, which now emits more greenhouse gases than any other country, sent its first-ranked vice premier, Ding Xuexiang. He called on developed countries to take the lead in climate action, and to respect the principles of justice and equity.
A focus on forests
Brazil presented the Tropical Forest Forever Fund (TFFF) at the Leaders’ Summit. This is its flagship initiative at COP30. The voluntary mechanism aims to provide long-term financing to countries that protect and sustainably manage their tropical forests. In 2024, 6.7 million hectares of tropical forests were removed globally.
Unlike traditional conservation funds, which rely on temporary or project-based grants, the TFFF intends to run as a permanent, self-financing investment fund. The funds will be placed in a diversified portfolio to reimburse investors and reward countries for conserving their forests.
To this end, Brazil has set a target of USD 125 billion for the TFFF and aims to initially raise USD 10 billion from governments and philanthropic organisations. So far, USD 5.5 billion has been pledged.
The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) estimates that between now and 2030, there will be a shortfall of USD 216 billion per year in forest financing. Public investment currently accounts for the majority of funding, with only one in 10 US dollars coming from private investors.
Mirela Sandrini, interim director of the World Resources Institute Brazil, says that with sufficient funding, the TFFF could make it “more profitable to keep forests standing than to deforest them”.
However, in a statement from ActionAid, its global lead for climate justice Teresa Anderson questioned the allocation of public funds to “complex financial instruments” like the TFFF, rather than granting them directly to communities.
Much of climate finance goes through intermediaries such as NGOs, consultancies and development banks. This has been a long-standing complaint among Indigenous and community organisations.
Nelson Bastos, a fisherman and researcher on Marajó Island in the state of Pará, Brazil, said in a statement: “Who will that money go to? Will it reach the people who are in the territory? It won’t. This is just another way for the government to say it’s in the territory collaborating in the defence, while in reality it’s turning nature into capital for the financial market.”
Climate finance
In 2024, at COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, it was agreed that developed countries would “take the lead” in mobilising USD 300 billion of climate finance annually by 2035. This is triple the previous target of USD 100 billion that was set in the Paris Agreement in 2015 but only achieved in 2022. There is still no data on how the new target is being met.
In addition, it was agreed at COP29 that “all actors” would work together to enable USD 1.3 trillion in financing from all public and private sources, also to be achieved by 2035.
Azerbaijan and Brazil were tasked with developing a roadmap to guide efforts towards reaching the USD 1.3 trillion target. The Baku to Belém Roadmap was published in the context of the Leaders’ Summit, which sets out “five fronts of action” to achieve the financing target: replenishing, rebalancing, redirecting, renewing and reshaping.
Within each front, measures such as international taxes on carbon, and on air and maritime transport, are detailed. Other measures include a reform of the international financial architecture, and the use of debt swaps for climate action.
It is suggested that the USD 1.3 trillion figure would be achieved through: bilateral financing (USD 80 billion); development banks and multilateral funds (USD 300 billion); South-South cooperation, ie direct collaboration between developing countries (USD 40 billion); private finance (USD 650 billion); and “new sources of low-cost finance” (USD 230 billion), an umbrella term covering carbon markets, debt swaps and private philanthropy, among others.
In an initial analysis of the roadmap, Sandra Guzmán, director of the Climate Finance Group for Latin America and the Caribbean (GFLAC), highlighted certain positive aspects, such as the diversity of financial instruments and the inclusion of critical thematic areas, such as adaptation. However, Guzmán also questioned the weak message on the obligations of developed countries and the partial treatment of the debt problem. The roadmap, she said, “limits itself to considering debt sustainability mechanisms, rather than appropriate treatment according to the conditions of each country.”
The energy transition
As a region, Latin America and the Caribbean generated 65% of its electricity from clean sources in 2024, well above the global average of 41%, according to an analysis by Ember. Despite this largely cleaner energy mix, countries such as Brazil, Argentina and Colombia still depend economically on fossil fuel exports.
At COP28 in 2023, held in the United Arab Emirates, countries agreed for the first time to make a gradual transition away from fossil fuels, and to triple global renewable energy capacity by 2030. Since then, the discussion has focused on how to move forward and monitor the implementation of these goals. The issue will be back on the table at COP30.
At an event on energy at the COP30 Leaders’ Summit, UN secretary-general Guterres called for a “fair, fast and final” transition. Brazil’s Lula said the world “can no longer sustain the fossil fuel model” and that “a roadmap is needed to end its dependence”.
Claudio Angelo, international policy coordinator at Brazilian environmental network the Climate Observatory, highlights Lula’s message. “It will be difficult to move forward on fossil fuels, but a COP that does not talk about them fails in its purpose. Words matter, and Lula, as host, gave the Brazilian presidency [at COP30] the mandate it needed.”
Brazil also presented an initiative at the Leaders’ Summit to quadruple the use of “sustainable fuels” by 2035, including hydrogen, biogases and biofuels. In a statement, the deputy director of strategy at the World Resources Institute, Janet Ranganathan, warned this goal could lead to increased deforestation to supply these fuels’ feedstocks.
At COP30, countries also appear likely to discuss the critical minerals that are essential for the energy transition. Prior to the meeting in Belém, the G77 group and China – which currently brings together 134 developing countries – called for a “specific dialogue” on the issue. Meanwhile the Independent Association of Latin America and the Caribbean (AILAC), a negotiating group that includes Colombia, Chile and Peru, warned the expansion of mining could lead to increased deforestation, pollution and consequences for local communities.
The adaptation COP
While the world must rapidly reduce its greenhouse gas emissions, it also needs to increase its resilience to adapt to the already visible effects of climate change. However, progress on adaptation has so far been limited. Brazil hopes to reverse this in Belém, in what it has called “the COP on adaptation”.
In the Paris Agreement, countries included a global goal on adaptation with the purpose of “enhancing adaptive capacity and strengthening resilience”. Currently, half of the global population – about 3.6 billion people – is estimated to live in places highly susceptible to the effects of climate change. The Paris Agreement does not detail exactly what the goal would look like, how it would be achieved and how progress would be tracked.
At COP28, a general framework for the goal was agreed upon, but there are still no quantified and measurable targets, nor measures to mobilise the required finance; in the two years following COP28, countries worked with experts to reduce a potential list of more than 9,000 indicators to just 100. A final decision on these indicators is expected to be adopted at COP30.
“For Latin America, the number one issue is financing for adaptation. The risks are getting higher and higher,” says Isabel Cavelier, director of the NGO Mundo Común. “We are one of the most vulnerable regions in the world and we have to make progress in that regard. We have to secure the means to adapt.”
The need for a methane treaty
During her visit to Belém, Prime Minister of Barbados Mia Mottley (known for her call for reform of the international financial architecture) called for the creation of a legally binding global treaty on methane. This greenhouse gas has a global warming potential 80 times greater than carbon dioxide’s.
The focus of her speech was the need to confront methane emissions: “Scientists advise that this is the main way we can not only stop but reverse the temperature increase we have seen across the planet. The world must pull the emergency brake on methane. It is an emergency brake that can buy us more time.”
Since its launch at COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland, 159 countries and the European Union have signed up to the Global Methane Pledge. It aims to reduce methane emissions by 30% by 2030 compared to 2020 levels. However, methane emissions remain at significantly high levels and are not yet deemed to have peaked.
The future of COPs
After 30 years of climate conferences, there have been extensive discussions on how to reform the COP process to make it more effective. This discussion is expected to be on the agenda in Belém.
Proposals range from introducing new voting rules, to establishing criteria for selecting COP hosts. Voting under the UNFCCC is currently by consensus, requiring all member countries to agree on decisions.
Brazil has created a group with former COP presidents (from COP21 onwards) to seek solutions to the improvement of climate governance. One of the great expectations is the presentation of a report with recommendations.
“Some people lose hope in this process because it is slow or does not produce results in the face of evidence of climate crisis,” says Manuel Pulgar Vidal, the former environment minister of Peru who served as the president of COP20. “But when you look at the details, it is clear that we have made progress. In many Latin American countries, deforestation has declined and the development of renewables is significant. Brazil wants to show progress, and that we are implementing the Paris Agreement.”
COP30 runs from 10-21 November in Belém, Brazil. See more of Dialogue Earth’s coverage of the summit here.
This article is a partnership between Dialogue Earth and Mongabay Latam. It was produced as part of the 2025 Climate Change Media Partnership, a journalism fellowship organised by Internews’ Earth Journalism Network and the Stanley Center for Peace and Security.
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