COP30 in Brazil’s Belém concluded with a diluted agreement, which failed to address fossil fuel phase-out or deforestation, amid US federal absence, China’s leadership, and calls for equitable transitions outside UN consensus
After two weeks of contentious negotiations in Brazil’s Belém, the gateway to the Amazon, the final agreement at the annual UN climate summit (COP30) went into overtime. The parleys concluded on November 22 with a diluted agreement that did not even mention the primary contributors to the climate crisis—fossil fuels—let alone a roadmap to phase them out. The agreement made no new pledges to halt deforestation. It did not address global meat consumption, another significant source of global warming.
There was no significant breakthrough at COP30 towards the goal of keeping global warming at a reasonably safe level of 1.5 °C, as the world approaches tipping points, including about the Amazon rainforest, where deforestation and the expansion of industrial agriculture have worsened air pollution. Studies show that Amazon’s capacity as a carbon sink may be disappearing. The Amazon, one of the terrestrial carbon reserves, is estimated to contain about 123 billion tons of carbon above and below ground. It has absorbed CO2 from the atmosphere, helping to moderate the global climate, as global fossil fuel burning rose.
The rich and developed countries of the Global North continued to shift the burden of the crisis, which they have caused, onto the poor nations. Making matters worse, the United States (US) boycotted COP30 at the federal level after withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement, which was signed in 2015 as a legally binding international treaty to combat climate change by limiting global warming through five-year cycles of national plans for emission cuts, adaptation, finance, and technology.
China’s Climate Leadership
The US, the world’s biggest historical emitter and the richest country, withdrew from the agreement for the second time when President Donald Trump returned to office in January 2025 in line with his hostility to the multilateral global environmental governance system. For the first time in the 30-year history of the UN climate talks, the US had no federal delegation at COP30, removing one of the traditional power centres of climate diplomacy. Delegations of US governors, mayors, legislators, and activists attended COP30, and many of them organised through coalitions such as the US Climate Alliance.
China stepped in as a leader in the fight against global warming. Its national pavilion at the COP30 venue entrance showcased electric vehicles, solar technology, and other clean-energy applications. English-language events there highlighted China’s achievements in renewable deployment and green industry. Beyond optics, China brokered procedural compromises and helped smooth early adoption of the COP30 agenda. China, which previously chose to stay largely in the background, was seen as a guarantor of the climate regime at COP30.
China’s clean-energy leadership is reflected in its innovation and manufacturing capacity. Other countries are buying low-carbon Chinese technology at competitive prices as China has emerged as the world’s largest producer of solar panels, wind turbines, and batteries, reinforcing its climate diplomacy.
Climate Divide: Adaptation without Mitigation
The European Union (EU), which is part of the so-called high ambition coalition pushing a fossil fuel roadmap, remained nowhere near on track to phase them out. Ten years after the Paris Agreement, the Global North should have been closer to near-zero emissions. Activists say their push for a fossil fuel roadmap was a bit hypocritical. A fossil fuel phaseout needs to begin in the Global North, and it has to finance the Global South to follow suit.
A coalition of over 80 nations, from Latin America, Asia, Africa, the Pacific, Europe, and the UK, supported a just transition away from fossil fuels. But petrostates and over 1,600 fossil fuel lobbyists derailed the efforts. Much of Africa, Saudi Arabia, and Russia opposed the fossil fuel roadmap in Belém in the absence of assurance that the Global North would move first and provide support for them to have a transition.
The oil-producing countries focused on adaptation even as critics argued that it was meaningless if mitigation did not follow. Adaptation and the finances for it are insufficient if the root cause of the problem—fossil fuels—is not dealt with. Over 80% of the emissions generating climate change are linked to fossil fuels.
Adaptation is about supporting communities to be resilient to climate impacts, which are happening now, particularly in the most vulnerable countries in the Global South, many of whom have had zero contribution to the crisis but are facing the brunt of its effects. They need support with resources to adapt to those impacts. That is what adaptation finance is about. The wealthy countries of the Global North, which have caused this crisis, should be responsible for providing that support.
Indigenous Resistance at COP30
The process, however, lived to fight another day. Civil society was out in force for the first time in four years. There were flotillas in the bay, tens of thousands of people in the streets, and more Indigenous people in the conference than ever before. Thousands of Indigenous leaders attended COP30 and demanded a fossil fuel phaseout. Nearly a thousand of them were accredited for COP30, and the rest were outside. Indigenous leaders shut down the COP for a few hours. Indigenous leaders were in the Blue Zone, the main negotiating area, but were not there for the final talks. Jonathan Watts, Amazon-based global environment writer at The Guardian, noted this needs to change, so that the people on the frontline, who know the forest and other biomes best, are represented, and their voices are heard.
A coalition of around two dozen nations went on the offensive by deciding to go it alone and creating a parallel series of conferences for a just transition away from fossil fuels. Colombia and the Netherlands announced that they will co-host the first international conference on the just transition in the Colombian port city of Santa Marta in April 2026.
Coalition of the Willing as COP Consensus Blocks Action
The Belém Declaration was essentially a coalition of countries seeking to move on from fossil fuels. The UN climate negotiations are a consensus-based process, and individual countries can block progress. Some countries want to take the process outside of this process and move forward on phasing out fossil fuels, with a sort of coalition of the willing. For ActionAid USA’s Brandon Wu, this is an exciting development:
This is the kind of energy that we need. You know, we need all the initiatives we can get to phase out fossil fuels and, I might add, to stop deforestation. That’s sort of the second part of this…a lot of people forget about — phase out fossil fuels and stop deforestation. And we need all the initiatives they can get — we can get. And so, the fact that they’ve started something outside the COP, you know, that is an exciting development.
Climate Finance as Political Choice, Not Scarcity
None of this is going to achieve much unless there is more ambition and more finance from the big Global North countries, including the US. Rich countries have maintained that they do not have the money for the Global South for a worldwide transition away from fossil fuels. The original goal of $100 billion annually from Global North to Global South is now $300 billion, which is still far too little.
Brandon Wu cited the Trump administration’s proposed nearly $200 billion budget increase for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection, money for Israel, a military budget nearing a trillion dollars, and subsidies worth tens of billions of dollars on fossil fuels. He argued that it is untrue that the US does not have the money for climate. Wu called on movements, especially in wealthy developed countries, to lean on governments to show how the money is there.
There was also the beginning of a new just transition mechanism, with a tripling of adaptation funds for developing countries, even as the actual text remained ambiguous. It was supposed to be an adaptation tripling from 2025 levels by 2030, but the EU-led developed countries took out the baseline, and now it does not reference 2025 levels. There was confusion over where the tripling is from. The deadline for phasing out fossil fuels and meeting climate targets was pushed from 2030 to 2035, 10 years from now, which is an interminable time for communities already bearing the brunt of climate impacts.
