Outcomes of COP30 Negotiations: A Collective Reflection Piece 

10–22 November 2025 in Belém, Brazil

Summary – Outcomes of COP30 Negotiations

COP30 is also called the ‘Peoples’ COP’ or ‘COP of Truth’ as shared by Brazil’s President, reflecting the expectations that all Parties will meet their commitments for emissions reduction under the Paris Agreement. However, it continued its legacy of climate colonialism by allowing around 1600 fossil fuel lobbyists, agribusiness corporations and intermediary multi-development banks to dominate negotiations, while women, indigenous peoples and local communities in the Global South deal with loss and damage, and bear the severe brunt of climate impacts which they did not create. So long as the Global North countries evade their obligations for historical and ongoing emissions under the principle of Common but Differentiated Responsibilities and Respective Capacities (CBDR-RC) and fail to address the structural and systemic causes of climate crisis, COP will remain a mere annual tradition rather than a mechanism for climate justice.

This COP ended with the adoption of the Belém Political Package, featuring a key text called the Global Mutirao decision meaning ‘collective efforts’ in Portuguese. While the package reaffirms the public grant-based finance flow from Global North countries, it failed to establish any concrete steps, mechanisms, or commitments that would make these obligations real or deliverable. There was a huge push from the CSOs for greater action on the public finance as an obligation from developed countries (Article 9.1) but it watered down to launching a two year programme on Article 9 without a prioritised focus on the provision. The outcome contains no reference to the international financial architecture reform, no recognition of the role of debt or systemic imbalances in blocking climate finance. This was aimed to help to track the finance goal and ensure the amount of public finance going into the climate action since the Paris agreement, as the Global North keeps pushing for mobilising finance using private sectors while avoiding their obligation to “provide” public grant-based finance. Similarly, there was a commitment of tripling adaptation finance by 2035 and scaling up the emission reductions which remain highly debated since the Global North countries have failed to meet even their Glasgow pledges of doubling adaptation finance by 2025.

“Adaptation measures are very important for the communities to survive from the impacts of climate change that we didn’t cause. We need direct access to adaptation funds with proper technology transfer. So during this COP30, we demanded the global north to urgently pay us the adaptation fund for their historical and ongoing emissions.”
– Mandkhaitsetsen Urantulkhuur, CHRD, Mongolia

COP30 failed to articulate the roadmap for phasing out fossil fuel whereas the emissions reduction plans relied heavily on false solutions. The fossil fuel phase-out discussions led to political tensions as Colombia, strongly supported by the EU, pushed for the agenda without addressing the CBDR-RC principle and right to development of the developing countries in the Global South. Due to this framing, some developing countries were forced into defensive positions, thus creating the misleading perceptions that they are obstructing the phase-out. For instance, Sudan shared that even though they favour the idea of a phase-out, it would be economically devastating without adequate, needs-based, grants-based finance and transition pathways being guaranteed by the big polluters. The agreement to convene a Colombia fossil fuel conference in 2026 signals that many developing countries are gearing up for phasing out of fossil fuel plans.

An important outcome of COP30 is the Belém Action Mechanism (BAM) under the just transition work programme proposed through the G77+China group. BAM is expected to push the countries to close the implementation gap by removing structural barriers such as debt, unfair trade rules and limited technology transfer that keep developing countries at the bottom of renewable supply chains. Also BAM recognises inclusion of informal workers transition and care work which has been welcomed by the cross-constituencies. However, Global North countries are framing BAM as a voluntary platform for knowledge exchange and participation without offering concrete pathways for just transition. Due to opposition from China and Global North countries, BAM remains weak on critical minerals extraction and unfair trade measures done in the name of energy transition. While the Global North faced pushback from developing countries for unilateral trade measures (UTM), these too were not fully blocked but instead integrated into the Global Mutirao.

“Just Transition Work Programme outcome weakly mentions the critical minerals for renewable energy but it lacks the strong language and specific regulations regarding the women’s human rights and environmental impacts of the critical minerals extraction, despite mounting evidence that the rush for minerals is driving land grabs, displacement, militarisation and gender-based violence in mining-affected communities.”
– Ana Celestial, Kalikasan Peoples Environment Network, Philippines

Climate finance discussions in COP30 have continued to prioritise false solutions, including blended finance initiatives, debt swaps, and the expanded use of multilateral development bank (MDB) finance. For instance, this COP launched Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF) which is a mere rebranding of the carbon market scheme under a conservation narrative. It also promoted other false solutions such as nature based solutions, blue economy frameworks and many more that perpetuate social injustices for marginalised groups while concentrating profit among private actors.

“COP30 only focused on promoting and expanding blue carbon deals, conservation offsets, and ocean-based carbon markets without proper and strong safeguards, transparency, gender justice frameworks, and community consent. These mechanisms are only a ‘blue washing’ tool coming from the private sectors and global government to commodify coastal and ocean resources. One thing that should be noted is that our coastal and ocean ecosystems are not commodities. The government should be more concerned about people over profit. It should be climate justice not climate business.”
– Nibras, KIARA, Indonesia

Similarly, this COP outcome has intentionally sidelined effective agroecological practices that give due importance to climate smart agriculture, artificial intelligence and techno-centric climate solutions for food and agriculture. This completely violates the communities’ right to self-determination and food sovereignty, while ignoring traditional knowledge, community-led and gender-just, people-powered solutions which have been proven sustainable for generations.