The world’s nations have unhappily agreed on what small island nation Palau called a “difficult compromise”, after two weeks of late nights and fractious closing plenary at the United Nations’ COP30 climate conference in Belém, Brazil.
As countries failed to agree on including mentions of fossil fuels and deforestation in the official agreement, the Brazilian COP30 presidency pledged to spend the next one year working on roadmaps for both subjects.
Colombia, which together with the Netherlands will host the first Fossil Fuels Non-proliferation Treaty conference in April 2026, was among the countries which bitterly objected to the text – to the point of debating the procedural validity of the COP30 presidency’s closing plenary.
Countries and blocs including Panama, Sierra Leone, Canada and the European Union also voiced frustration at the final indicators included in the Global Goal on Adaptation and the lack of funding to help countries meet the goals.
The atmosphere was so tense in the second hour of the closing plenary that COP30 president André Corrêa do Lago decided to suspend the meeting, though after gavelling through most of the key finance-related matters.
Prior to the suspension of the session, a European Union representative said the bloc “cannot accept the draft of the GGA in its current form”, while Sierra Leone said it was “unclear, unmeasurable, and in many cases, unusable”.
All countries agreed that the indicators would be improved on going forward, making it a priority for Bonn next year.
Although there was a call to triple adaptation finance, the deadline was delayed by five years to 2035. There was also no commitment made to ensure that this amount of funding is additional to the annual US$300 billion target to be raised by developed countries to help developing ones with climate action, known as the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) agreed last year.
Amid the highly divisive and fractious talks, one win that civil society is celebrating as a “historic victory” is the extension of the just transition work programme.
“No COP decision has ever carried such ambitious and comprehensive language on rights and inclusion: human rights; labour rights; the rights of Indigenous Peoples, Afro-decendants; and strong references to gender equality, women’s empowerment, education, youth development, and more, said the Climate Action Network International.
The non profit’s executive director Tasneem Essop added: “We came here to get the Belém Action Mechanism – for families, for workers, for communities. The adoption of a Just Transition mechanism was a win shaped by years of pressure from civil society. This outcome didn’t fall from the sky; it was carved out through struggle, persistence, and the moral clarity of those living on the frontlines of climate breakdown. Governments must now honour this just transition mechanism with real action.”
From critical minerals to carbon markets
One other focal point of the talks was the inclusion of reference to critical minerals – but this had been excluded from the final agreement at the insistance of China and Russia.
Countries also made minor progress on operationalising the loss and damage fund. The Mutirão decision sets a path for developing countries to mobilize US$1.3 trillion annually by 2035, calling for a major increase in overall support and tripling of adaptation finance.
The Belém political package also launches a two-year work programme on climate finance and a high-level ministerial round table. Guidance to major funds like the Social Climate Fund, Green Climate Fund, Global Environment Facility, Adaptation Fund, and Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD) emphasises faster, simpler access, more direct channels, and stronger focus on adaptation and locally led action.
In the case of the FRLD, the board had launched a call for applications for countries affected by climate-related disasters to begin applying for financial support, an early win at the beginning of COP30.
The Local Governments and Municipal Authorities Constituency (LGMA) noted that alongside initiatives such as the Veredas Dialogue and Xingu Finance Talks, COP30 created a lasting political platform to align all financial flows with climate goals while maintaining support obligations and recognizing the role of cities and regions.
However, the climate conference still provides only limited recognition of subnational governments, leaving mechanisms for predictable, place-based finance incomplete. Between COP30 and COP31, the LGMA Constituency aims to build an operational architecture that enables cities and regions to access climate finance more systematically—through urban-inclusive country platforms, territorial investment plans, and stronger links between national and subnational development banks—to move from fragmented projects to stable, programmatic funding, it said.
Carbon markets also featured prominently, with civil society observers saying many concerted efforts were made to water down Article 6 rules, which govern international cooperation and carbon markets under the Paris Agreement.
“Governments averted disaster by fending off numerous financial interests that sought to weaken carbon market rules in Article 6.4. At the same time, they leave Belém with a lot of unfinished business if this carbon crediting mechanism is to fulfill an exemplary function for carbon markets globally,” said Isa Mulder, Carbon Market Watch global carbon market expert, from Belém.
Reactions from across the world
As COP30 finale concluded with exhausted delegates leaving to catch planes amid a tropical storm, the wide consensus was that the last two weeks had been a highly challenging summit, with many countries saying opinions are more divided now than for a long time, as global leaders including US President Donald Trump challenge the global consensus on tackling climate change.
Manuel Pulgar-Vidal, WWF Global Climate and Energy Lead and COP20 President lamented that as COP30 ended, “the reality is clear: bold titles and grand promises have not translated into meaningful action. The so-called ‘COP of Truth’ delivered neither a roadmap nor real solutions for the urgent challenges we face. Instead, we were taken for a ride on a carousel of illusions - distracted by colourful promises but left with a document that is weak and lacking in substance due to games played by the forces against climate ambition and implementation.”
UK Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change Ed Miliband – while acknowledging that he would have “preferred a more ambitious agreement” – insisted the meeting is a “step forward”.
“At a time of great political challenge… when you’ve got America for example that has left the Paris Agreement, I think this is a significant moment that 190 countries plus have recommitted to the Paris Agreement, recommitted to tackling the climate crisis,” he told journalists during a break in the closing plenary.
United Nations Environment Programme executive director Inger Andersen acknowledged in a statement on the closing of COP30 that amid rising geopolitical tensions, “achieving progress in such uncertain and challenging times is never guaranteed”.
“Yet the talks in Belém have shown that the Paris Agreement is working and delivering results,” she said, citing as examples the target to triple adaptation finance by 2035, a Just Transition Mechanism, and “new dialogues on how trade can support climate-resilient economic transformation and how to integrate the protection of mountains into climate policy.”
This story was produced as part of the 2025 Climate Change Media Partnership, a journalism fellowship organized by Internews’ Earth Journalism Network and the Stanley Center for Peace and Security.
