COP30: incomplete package for climate

From November 10 to 22, 2025, the 30th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was held in Belém, Brazil.

This COP faced the challenge of deliberating on a package of decisions on issues such as adaptation, loss and damage, mitigation, financing, and transparency. This package was to be based on existing processes on the working agenda. However, at the start of the COP, a series of new agenda items were proposed by the parties, creating a parallel discussion process that changed the pace of the negotiations.

Photo:COP30 Amazônia (Flickr oficial

This new package of decisions was called the Mutirao package, an indigenous name for the spirit of collaboration that Brazil said it would bring to this process.

This package included some of the most complex issues, as many of them involved significant differences between the parties: unilateral trade measures, which grew in interest following the creation of measures in the European Union imposing standards on emissions reduction and deforestation on imports of products from developing countries; consideration of the Nationally Determined Contributions report to keep the temperature below 1.5°C; and in terms of financing, the proposal to tripling adaptation finance and create a work plan to address Article 9.1 related to the financial obligations of developed countries.

This package took up most of the time in the negotiation process during the first and second weeks of the COP. And although the other issues were discussed in parallel, their outcome was conditioned by what was discussed in this Mutirao package.

What did the Mutirao package leave us with? 

Photo:COP30 Amazônia (Flickr oficial)

The package concluded with four main points:

1. ⁠⁠ A decision to hold a high-level ministerial dialogue to reflect on the implementation of the new quantifiable collective goal for climate finance (NCQG), without integrating a specific outcome to accelerate its implementation.

2. ⁠⁠ A decision to triple adaptation financing by 2035, without clarifying what the baseline is. In addition, this goal is set in the context of the NCQG, i.e., financing from public sources in developed countries, but also mobilization of other sources, such as private ones. This decision was expected to triple by 2030 and be based solely on public resources. In other words, this decision does not respond to the urgency, much less the need to cover adaptation with non-debt-generating resources.

3. ⁠⁠ A decision to establish dialogues on trade and climate in upcoming meetings, without a specific outcome, other than to create a space to discuss the issue, for which it is hoped that the dialogues will determine whether it is an issue that should be addressed in the Convention.

4. A two-year work plan to discuss Article 9.1, within the framework of Article 9 on financing, without prejudice to what is discussed within the framework of the NCQG. Developing countries wanted this to be separate from the NCQG, although some argued that it was better to have clarity on aspects related to Article 9.1 and the obligations of developed countries also within the NCQG. The point is that there was no agreement, and the decision is rather ambiguous. 

In conclusion, the agreements reached in the Mutirao package, which were more declaratory in nature, such as the letters from the presidency, were not very ambitious. However, this conditioned other areas, two of which were the global adaptation goal and issues related to mitigation, specifically, references to transition away fossil fuels.   

What happened to the global adaptation goal?

It was well known that one of the most important aspects to be worked on at the COP was the issue of the global adaptation goal, for which a series of indicators had to be agreed upon. However, in addition to agreeing on fewer indicators than had been discussed (from 100 to 59), it was established that their implementation would not generate further financial implications, meaning that developing countries would have to do so with their own resources. Although it is assumed that the goal of tripling adaptation financing would be to achieve this implementation, this goal is only set for 2035, with no clarity on its progress.  

Photo: Marisol Marín, GFLAC.

This, in general, highlights that the most important issue of the COP was left with the weakest results, without failing to point out the lack of clarity in the process, which I will refer to later. 

What happened to the aim to transitioning away from fossil fuels?

During COP there was a demand to be more vocal in areas that are extremely important to reduce emissions, such as the reduction of deforestation and transitioning away from fossil fuels. Initially countries discussed about the possibility to include this in the Mutirao package, which did not happen. So other idea was to include this as part of the mitigation work program, at least to include a dialogue about it. Although these issues were promoted by President Lula and emphasized during his presence at the COP in the middle of the second week, and there was even a statement supported by more than 80 countries, including several Latin American countries such as Colombia, Chile, and Panama, according to the Presidency, many other parties did not agree to include these issues. In short, the Arab countries blocked any progress in this area.

Fotografía: Marisol Marín, GFLAC.

However, the Just Transition Work Program does consider the need to make progress in energy efficiency and renewable energy generation, with a comprehensive approach that is both environmental and social, but it does not fully consider a transition away from fossil fuels. Once again, the result is limited in its ambition.

 What happened to the Roadmap from Baku to Belém to mobilize $1.3 trillion?

Photo: Marisol Marín, GFLAC.

Although we spent a year hoping for a Roadmap to mobilize at least $1.3 trillion, the document presented by the Brazilian presidency a few days before the COP went unnoticed. It was presented at a side event, with limited opportunity to comment on or discuss the document. As a result, the final text of the Mutirao welcomes the efforts of the Brazilian and Azerbaijani presidencies but takes “note” of the document without any kind of follow-up process, other than the naive hope that the actors mentioned will see it as a working guideline for the years to come.

The truth is that no country felt inclined to support it, both because of a lack of enthusiasm and a lack of transparency in its design. Even the President of the COP, said in a press conference, that this topic was not part of the priorities. This means that the Roadmap remained just another document presented by the presidencies, whose fate is completely uncertain. In conclusion, a missed opportunity.  

Procedural and transparency issues 

While the content of many decisions fell short of ambition, the other problem, equally or more serious, was a matter of procedure. Brazil decided to make all the decisions and approve them in an integrated package, even though the nature of the Mutirao package was different from the rest. The problem is that many of the decisions not agreed upon in the negotiating room, were not discussed at the ministerial level either. In other words, Brazil's proposal was to focus ministerial discussions on three elements of the Mutirao package and, with them, approve the entire package. However, this was not clear for all the country parties.

Fotografía:COP30 Amazônia (Flickr oficial)

Thus, from Friday at noon until 8 a.m. on Saturday, the ministers focused mainly on two issues: the proposal to tripling finance for adaptation and the NDCs report, agreeing the launch of a "Global Implementation Accelerator," which no one is clear about today.

Therefore, when the plenary session began, the procedure was unclear as there had been no discussion on the other issues, besides the Mutirao text. And when the president began to adopt decisions that had NOT been agreed upon, countries such as Uruguay, Panama, the environmental integrity group, and others opposed them. This was particularly true regarding the global adaptation goal, which was the focus of the conversation and for which there were no major agreements. 

However, the presidency decided only to "take note" of the objections and did not stop the approval, pointing out that the objections came after the gavel was struck, when in fact the objections came before, but the presidency ignored them. 

An important aspect that few people know is that, in the negotiating room during the night, only two countries per group were invited to participate. While the negotiating groups have similar ideas, this does not mean that they have the same positions and interests, so limiting the space to two countries per group is not the best method for multilateralism. 

This procedural flaw led to the presidency being considered one of the least transparent in its method and, therefore, one of the most questioned. Although the conclusion of the decisions was celebrated, several countries opposed the outcome. This was not like COP29, where only India opposed the resolution on the NCQG. At COP30, many countries opposed the outcome, and this must be said.

The geopolitics of the COP 

The announcement of Brazil's presidency for COP30 was widely celebrated around the world, both by developed and developing countries. Among other things, this was because Brazil had a diplomatic track record of managing processes such as BRICS, G20, and others. The truth is that the UNFCCC is nothing like these other processes. It is a space that requires a deep understanding of the diversity of views and interests, and above all, it requires the ability to articulate to achieve the best possible balance.

Photo: COP30 Amazônia (Flickr oficial)

In this context, Brazil made two major mistakes. The first was that, for much of the time, it put a lot of effort into agendas that were not part of the negotiations, such as the launch of the Tropical Forest Forever Fund (TFFF), which, although innovative, was not part of the "official" package to be agreed at the COP, nor was the action agenda. And although it was good to promote these initiatives, they should have been complementary to the negotiation process.

The second is that Brazil forgot that the COP was a Latin American COP and took it upon itself to forge ties and agreements with groups such as the BRICS, and even with the African group and like-minded countries, including the Arab countries and India, which in return supported its efforts at all times. However, it forgot about its own negotiating group and the groups in its region, thereby preventing the establishment of a regional agenda.

This worked against Brazil at the end of the COP, as some Latin American countries in their various groups, manifested dissatisfaction with the management and lack of transparency, expressing their opposition to the process and the content of the agreements. This resulted in Brazil's leaving from the South group. But is important to say, that the complaints were not only from LAC countries.

Conclusion: is the glass half full or half empty?

No one can deny that Brazil is a country with a great diplomatic career, but this process got out of hand when they tried to operate it like the G20 and forgot about the necessary consensus. In addition, unfortunate events such as the fire, the heat in the rooms, the limited food supply, and others worked against them.

Despite the approval of a diverse package, it is important to understand that there are significant objections to it, and above all, it is important to understand this in view of the next COP, which will be hosted by Turkey but led in negotiations by Australia. If these countries could not agree for a year on who would host the COP, how do they expect to shape a process that was left with a glass half empty? This will be a topic for analysis in another edition.

For now, it is important to celebrate what Brazil did well, which was to welcome a huge mobilization of indigenous communities, although many of them were dissatisfied because they feel they were used because they were not given the spaces they were promised. However, various references to them appear in texts, and it is hoped that this issue will continue to gain momentum in future conversations.

COP30 leaves us with an incomplete but important package. Multilateralism remains in question, and there are fears that these limited advances will give way to the rise of more conservative forces that do not believe in international cooperation. The example of the United States today invades the narrative in Europe, Latin America, and other spaces, which I will discuss shortly. The truth is that we must let the COPs deliberate on pending international climate issues and reduce their burden and pressure. This means, we have to downsize COPs in the future.

It is not sustainable to continue to have so many parallel events and spaces that do not contribute to the results of the negotiations, but rather generate a significant distraction, especially those financed by large corporations.

The presidency will want to see the glass as half full, while others see it as half empty. The important thing is that the glass already has many elements that establish where to move forward in implementation. In other words, it is no longer acceptable to blame the COPs alone for failures in climate action; the necessary agreements are already on the table. The COPs are now only there to fine-tune these decisions, but the larger package already exists, it is called the Paris Agreement, so those detractors of the climate system should not wait any longer and should speed up action, as time is running out...