COP30 in 10 Points
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Amidst increasingly-evident international climate consequences, COP30 came to a muted end on November 22, 2025 in Belém, Brazil.
It’s difficult to say much was achieved during the conference’s 12 days of negotiations, with fossil and agrobusiness interests for the most part succeeding (yet again) in quashing any mention of a compulsory transition away from their unsustainable business models. Nevertheless, a few modest environmental wins emerged both from the final “Global Mutirão” deal and the talks that led to it.
Below, our firm has summarized the 5 greatest wins and 5 biggest failures of this year’s conference.
SUCCESSES
1. New Just Transition Mechanism
The new mechanism for transition toward a low-carbon economy under the Just Transition Work Programme was likely COP30’s most important achievement.
Energetically championed by climate justice advocates both before and during the negotiations, the Belém Action Mechanism (BAM) is a platform for countries to coordinate their efforts in creating decent work opportunities, reducing inequality, and ensuring greater prosperity for frontline workers and communities most affected by the economic transition away from polluting industries.
BAM aims to keep track of global transition efforts; help governments, funders and other actors share knowledge, technology and best practices; and support low-income countries implementing just transition policies. However, it remains to be seen how successfully these ambitions can be realized, particularly in light of wealthy nations’ ongoing refusal to supply necessary funding.
2. Tropical Forests Forever Facility Launch
Brazil’s flagship initiative, the Tropical Forests Forever Facility (TFFF), aims to raise $125 billion to pay communities to keep their forests standing. The goal is to reduce deforestation by financially rewarding conservation.
Payments will come from interest earned on capital invested mainly in sustainable bonds from developing countries, with at least 20% directed to Indigenous Peoples and local communities.
However, the fund is off to a slow start. Pledges totalled only $6.7 billion by the conference’s conclusion, well short of its initial $25 billion goal. Nevertheless, the fund aims to attract private investors to supply the majority of its capital, and officials are optimistic that compensation to forest countries will commence in 2028.
3. The Gender Action Plan, 2026-2034
A new nine-year framework for “sustained, long-term gender-responsive climate policy and action” was adopted. The plan identifies five priority areas, including capacity-building and knowledge, women’s participation and leadership, and gender-responsive implementation, proposing 27 recommended actions for governments.
The plan’s text explicitly acknowledges climate change’s differential impact on Indigenous women, and women from remote and rural communities; recognizes (for the first time) the contribution of women and girls of African descent to climate action; and urges governments to develop measures to safeguard female environmental defenders, who are known to face a heightened risk of violence at the frontlines of the climate crisis.
4. Finance for Climate Adaptation
COP30’s final agreement established a target for tripling adaptation finance by 2035, with the text calling for “mobilising at least $1.3 trillion per year” by the agreed-upon date.
Adaptation finance is urgently needed to, among other things, allow developing countries to upgrade their infrastructure to cope with the effects of climate change. However, the final amount falls well short of what developing countries asked for – a binding commitment to triple adaptation funding by 2030, rather than a voluntary roadmap.
Still, the funding committed will serve as a starting point, allowing advocates to keep encouraging wealthy nations to fulfil their commitments and give frontline communities the support and resources needed to address the escalating demands of the climate crisis.
5. Transition Away from Fossil Fuels Normalized
COP30 did not formally plan to discuss pledges to move away from fossil fuels. However, frustration with petrostates and fossil fuel interests appears to have boiled over at this year’s conference, with over 80 countries calling for a clear roadmap to fossil fuel phase-out.
As COP30 failed to meet this demand, Colombia and the Netherlands – the countries leading the charge – will jointly host the world’s first conference on phasing out fossil fuels in April 2026, uniting “governments, scientists, civil society and investors to chart a coordinated pathway for winding down coal, oil and gas production.”
The ultimate success of this initiative remains uncertain, but the increasing and outspoken calls for action on this important subject are encouraging.
FAILURES
1. No Fossil Fuel Phase-Out in the Final Agreement – Again
COP28 managed to conclude with a historic commitment to phase out fossil fuels – the obvious and necessary step climate science roundly endorses to address the root cause of the climate crisis.
But oil, gas, and coal-producing nations have been desperately pedalling away from that pledge ever since. As a result of their efforts, this year’s conference (again) ended with a deal that contains no mention of it – let alone any plans for achieving the transition to sustainable energy.
2. Deforestation Sidelined
Conspicuously absent from the Global Mutirão’s final text was any hint of a mandatory roadmap for halting deforestation.
It appears the fate of both the fossil fuel transition and deforestation roadmaps were tied together in negotiations, and when the first failed to make the core agreement, the second went down with it.
The Guardian suggests this could either have been “an awful diplomatic blunder” or deliberate “sabotage by the Brazilian foreign ministry, which has long had a focus on selling the country’s oil abroad.”
3. Fossil Fuel Lobbyists Everywhere
Industry interests hostile to climate protection have been a part of COP since its inception, doing their bests to derail any action that would negatively affect their profits. But the call to ban lobbyists from COP has so far mostly fallen on deaf ears, with this year’s conference rolling out the red carpet to representatives of big polluters; the equivalent of inviting a flood of arsonists to a firefighter’s convention.
The number of polluting industries’ lobbyists outnumbered “all COP30 delegations except Brazil,” with 1,600 fossil fuel lobbyists present, as well as more than 300 from the industrial agriculture sector.
4. The (Massive) Funding Gap
If there was a running theme to this year’s conference, it was the visible aversion of wealthy countries to providing sufficient finance to help clean up the climate mess they are responsible for creating.
In the final agreement, rich countries were not required, but merely “urged” to deliver the finance promised.
5. A Climateworse Orange
For the first time in 30 years, the US sent no official representation to COP. Though given the Trump administration’s deliberate and ongoing decimation of domestic environmental protections, the alternative would perhaps be more surprising.
Absent or not, the White House incumbent’s hostility towards climate action could not help but cast a shadow over the negotiations, according to representatives of US climate advocacy organizations who attended; including, perhaps, by influencing other developed countries to “avoid robust financial commitments.” However, some diplomats felt relieved by the American absence, as they had been concerned about potential bullying and sabotage efforts.
Approximately 100 non-administration officials, including governors and members of Congress, were in any event present to demonstrate ongoing commitment within the US to addressing the climate crisis.
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