Participants arriving at the 30th Conference of the Parties (COP30) in Belém/Brazil.
Photo: © Aline Massuca/COP30
COP30 – high hopes, limited outcomes
“We must move much, much, faster on both reductions of emissions and strengthening resilience,” said UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell at the opening plenary of COP30, which took place from 10th–21th November in Belém/Brazil. “Lamenting is not a strategy. We need solutions.”
The good news is that the updated key findings of the UN Climate Change Conference's 2025 NDC Synthesis Report show that the global emissions curve is gradually trending downward. Based on the new nationally determined contributions (NDCs) from 113 parties to the Paris Agreement, global greenhouse gas emissions are projected to fall by 12 per cent in 2035 compared to 2019 levels, which is a step in the right direction, albeit a slow one.
Declaration on Information Integrity on Climate Change
To combat misinformation about climate change and promote accurate, evidence-based information on climate issues, the Global Initiative for Climate Change Information Integrity launched the Declaration on Climate Change Information Integrity at COP30.
The Declaration commits signatories to promote the integrity of information related to climate change at international, national and local levels, in line with international human rights law and the principles of the Paris Agreement.
Drafted in collaboration with civil society members of the Global Initiative Advisory Group, the Declaration has been endorsed by Brazil, Canada, Chile, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Spain, Sweden, Uruguay, Belgium, Canada, Finland and Germany.
The Declaration calls on governments, the private sector, civil society, academia and funders to take concrete action to counter the growing impact of disinformation, misinformation, denialism and deliberate attacks on environmental journalists, defenders, scientists and researchers that undermine climate action and threaten societal stability.
Tropical Forest Forever Facility
A new initiative aims to promote the protection of tropical forests and has the potential to support the protection of over one billion hectares of tropical forest in more than 70 developing countries.
The Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF) was officially launched on the 7th November 2025 at the COP30 summit in Belém/Brazil. Norway has pledged to provide three billion USD over the next ten years under certain conditions, while Germany will contribute a total of one billion euros to the TFFF over the next ten years. This was announced by the country’s Federal Development Minister Alabali Radovan and Federal Environment Minister Carsten Schneider at the COP30 World Climate Conference in Brazil.
Brazil and Indonesia reaffirmed their commitments of one billion USD, while Portugal pledged that amount and France declared its intention to provide up to 500 million euros by 2030 under certain conditions, and the Netherlands pledged five million USD for the secretariat. A total of 34 tropical forest countries have signed the TFFF Declaration, covering over 90 per cent of tropical forests in developing countries, including Indonesia, the Democratic Republic of Congo and China.
The initiative aims to invest 125 billion USD in the Tropical Forest Investment Fund (TFIF) on the capital stock market in a sustainable and profit-oriented manner. The surpluses are to be paid out to the tropical forest countries, annually and on the basis of satellite data. The World Bank is to run the TIFF Secretariat for an initial three years.
Twenty per cent of the payments will directly benefit the Indigenous and local communities, which are of particular importance in conserving the forests. One key objective of the initiative is to mobilise a broad donor base also comprising non-traditional members.
In response to the climate urgency, COP30 adopted a series of measures to accelerate implementation and international cooperation:
- Launch of a Global Implementation Accelerator: The Accelerator will prioritize actions with the best potential for scale and speed in the climate struggle, including for methane emission reduction and carbon removal through nature-based solutions. Concurrently, it will prioritise interventions that can leverage positive tipping points, such as renewables, batteries, reducing the cost of capital, digitalisation and multilateral bank reform, for exponential and cascading transformations. The Accelerator will work synergistically with the Action Agenda, which reached a new level of actor mobilization, resources, processes and solutions at COP30.
- Tripling of Adaptation Finance: A landmark to support the most vulnerable populations – those least responsible for climate change but most affected by its impacts.
- Creation of the Belém Mechanism for Just Global Transition: A new instrument to support countries in ensuring that the transition to sustainable economies is just and inclusive.
- Adoption of Voluntary Indicators to measure progress in building resilience, within the framework of the Global Goal on Adaptation.
- Launch of the Technology Implementation Program (TIP), with a timeline and components to strengthen the implementation of technology priorities in developing countries.
- Adoption of the new Gender and Climate Action Plan, with activities to increase the influence of women in combating climate change.
- Launch of a sequence of dialogues on international trade and climate.
- Launch of a two-year work programme on climate finance, focusing on the predictability of public resources from developed to developing countries.
Conference results cause disillusionment
Johan Rockström, earth system scientist and Director of Germany’s Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) draws a sobering conclusion. "Ten years after Paris, COP30 was declared to be the COP of 'truth and implementation'. Scientifically, this was an appropriate label. But leaders gathered in Belém failed to fulfil this promise,” Rockström maintains. “The 'truth' is that our only chance of 'keeping 1.5°C within reach' is to bend the global curve of emissions downward in 2026 and then reduce emissions by at least 5 per cent per year. 'Implementation' requires concrete roadmaps to accelerate the phase out of fossil fuels and the protection of nature. We got neither. And this happened despite a committed, science-aligned and astute Brasilian Presidency of the COP.”
The environmental and development organisation Germanwatch comments that the World Climate Conference (COP30) has virtually put the ongoing tug-of-war over climate policy under a magnifying glass. “Despite the dramatically intensifying climate crisis, a small group of major nations are ready to do anything to stick to the fossil fuel model. Moreover, the rich nations are not providing the money needed. Despite the initially favourable dynamics at the conference, it was therefore not possible to agree on urgently required results,” says Christoph Bals, Chief Policy Officer of Germanwatch. “In the adaptation area and with regard to socially just transformation, important progress has been made – albeit not of sufficient magnitude. In many other areas, it was at least possible to prevent retrograde developments.”
Ines Lechner, Rural 21
Visit the COP30 website
Visit the Website of TFFF
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