Much ground to cover as COP30 enters second week
ISLAMABAD: One week into negotiations, COP30 in Belem or the ‘Implementation COP’ has much ground to cover — the first week of talks did not yield anything substantial, besides the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage’s (FRLD) call for proposals and the Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF).
Though the COP presidency managed to adopt an agenda on its first day without the ‘agenda fights’ by starting presidency consultations on four key areas — trade, finance, 1.5°C, and emission reporting. On Saturday, after the stocktaking plenary, COP30 president André Corrêa do Lago said the “presidency consultations” on four key issues had been “rich with ideas and important perspectives”, according to Carbon Brief.
Harjeet Singh, strategic advisor at the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative, however, said these issues, including Article 9.1 of the Paris Agreement that pertains to finance, would have likely held up the agenda adoption so that the presidency started discussions on these.
Climate summit sees some progress on Global Goal on Adaptation; North-South divide mars talks despite early agenda adoption
“…so all these contentious issues which could delay the adoption of agenda, the presidency started these consultations. I can tell you there’s hardly any progress on all these issues,” he said.
Speaking about the Article 9.1 under which developed nations are supposed to fund adaptation and mitigation efforts in the developing countries, Mr Singh said, “Ministers are arriving at a procedural nightmare because the Global North refuses to negotiate its legal Article 9.1 finance obligations. The entire fight is public grants versus private loans. The failure on finance is the failure on ambition. 75 per cent of developing country NDCs are conditional on finance they haven’t received.”
Just transition
“The Global South is proposing real, funded solutions like the Belém Action Mechanism (BAM) on just transition away from fossil fuels, while the Global North is blocking them. The EU offered a weak ‘Action Plan’ with no money to kill the G77’s funded proposal,” he added.
According to the Climate Action Network, a group of civil society organisations, “BAM brings to the table is something genuinely new” and a feat given how diverse the G-77 bloc is with its 134 members. “A Belém Action Mechanism would provide a well-funded, permanent hub of expertise to gather knowledge, guide policy direction, and support countries in designing and implementing people-centred transitions,” CAN said in a statement posted on its website.
Meanwhile, Harjeet Singh blamed the Global North for the adaptation talks, saying they were in crisis because the North was using “accounting tricks” to avoid paying.
Science freelance reporter Renata Fontanetto, based in Brazil, told Dawn that this conference has been termed ‘implementation COP’ to accelerate the mechanisms of the 2015 Paris Agreement and not to create any more mechanisms. “Just to implement the ones we already have, for example, the Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA),” she said.
The Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA) is also on the COP30 agenda.
Speaking to Dawn, Sustainable Development Policy Institute Executive Director Dr Abid Suleri said the Global Goal on Adaptation was one of the more promising developments, with negotiators nearing an agreement on a framework. “This will be a structural shift as it will turn resilience into a core metric of climate ambition rather than an afterthought,” he said.
Dr Suleri said at COP30, Pakistan could secure money from the loss and damage fund, seek support of its NDCs and RSF-linked reforms, and back the G-77 just transition framework.
Fossil fuels
One of the major demands by civil society at COP30 is the phase-out of fossil fuel but ironically more than 1600 delegates from the fossil fuel companies are present at the venue. “This COP is on a knife-edge, and it’s being completely undermined by corporate capture. We have over 1,600 fossil fuel lobbyists here—one for every 25 people—walking the halls and telling the firefighters how to do their jobs,” said Mr Singh.
Interestingly, the PR firm Edelman, the international media adviser to Brazil’s COP30 team, relies on its work with fossil fuel companies for its revenues.
Despite these setbacks, the voice for fossil fuel phaseout is strong at Belem. “…Colombia’s leadership in putting forth a declaration at COP30 and announcing a 2026 conference to phase out fossil fuels is inspiring, and we hope to get an outcome to help us build a new Fossil Fuel Treaty to complement the Paris Agreement,” Mr Singh added.
Renata Fontanetto agreed. From Belem, she told Dawn that there was hope for at least some mention of a roadmap to end fossil fuels. She said a Brazilian mathematician who was previously associated with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change seemed “optimistic about a tiny mention” of the phasing down or phasing out of fossil fuels in the final text in some form. However, there is another week of negotiations ahead, she said, referring to the uncertainty that is the hallmark of these talks.
Tropical Forest Forever Facility
The Brazil-led TFFF praised by some for its focus on protecting forests and allocating 20pc of the raised money towards indigenous groups, also garnered criticism.
Teresa Anderson, Global Lead on climate justice, ActionAid International, said it was far better to use the grant-based money to help the communities instead of putting money in a complex financial mechanism that represents a real gamble on whether or not they are going to raise money that would actually reach the communities.
She said big industrial agriculture, which was the biggest driver of deforestation, needed to be at the centre of Brazil’s efforts to prevent deforestation, but right “now we don’t see them talking about it even though it elephant in the room…”.
However, what constitutes success is difficult to tell at this COP, unlike the previous one in Baku, where the finance goal was clear.
Published in Dawn, November 17th, 2025
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