Cop30 Climate Experts Assess Progress In Brazil And Beyond

Three CFR experts analyze major themes from this year’s UN climate summit in Belém, Brazil. Article by Alice C. Hill, Daniel B. Poneman, David M. Hart, and Lindsay Iversen The 2025 UN Climate Summit, known as COP30, is wrapping up its final week, with little evident progress on critical issues.

Underscoring the rising costs of climate impacts and the lack of results to the assembled delegations on Thursday morning, UN Secretary-General António Guterres pleaded, “How much more must we suffer?” Brazil, the host country for this year’s talks, attempted to goose the process forward on Tuesday night by issuing a draft negotiating text [PDF] of almost herculean scope. Covering finance, trade, national transparency requirements on climate progress, and ways to close the gap between countries’ emissions-reductions plans and their agreed goal of limiting overall warming to 2°C above preindustrial levels, the draft... Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has begun meeting one-on-one with delegations seen to be crucial to a successful summit, including BRICS allies such as China, India, and Indonesia. So far, however, countries appear to remain far apart. The buzz surrounding Brazil’s dramatic new text has also obscured the ongoing discussions about the issues that were meant to define this COP—adaptation and biodiversity.

And, outside the conference center confines in Belém, innovation in clean energy technology is making strides with or without a UN agreement. The Warrick Power Plant, a coal-powered generating station, operates April 8, 2025, in Newburgh, Ind. (AP Photo/Joshua A. Bickel, File) Activists participate in a demonstration outside where negotiations are taking place at the COP30 U.N. Climate Summit, Friday, Nov.

21, 2025, in Belem, Brazil. (AP Photo/Joshua A. Bickel) Simon Stiell, United Nations climate chief, speaks during a news conference at the COP30 U.N. Climate Summit, Saturday, Nov. 22, 2025, in Belem, Brazil.

(AP Photo/Andre Penner) Trees surround the area of a quilombola, an Afro-descendant community called Menino Jesus in Acara, Brazil, Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano) André Corrêa do Lago, COP30 president, center, and Simon Stiell, United Nations climate chief, front left, speak with staff during a plenary session at the COP30 U.N. Climate Summit, Saturday, Nov.

22, 2025, in Belem, Brazil. (AP Photo/Andre Penner) A voluntary plan to curb fossil fuels, a goal to triple adaptation finance and new efforts to “strengthen” climate targets have been launched at the COP30 climate summit in Brazil. After all-night negotiations in the Amazonian city of Belém, the Brazilian presidency released a final package termed the “global mutirão” – a name meaning “collective efforts”. It was an attempt to draw together controversial issues that had divided the fortnight of talks, including finance, trade policies and meeting the Paris Agreement’s 1.5C temperature goal. A “mechanism” to help ensure a “just transition” globally and a set of measures to track climate-adaptation efforts were also among COP30’s notable outcomes.

Scores of nations that had backed plans to “transition away” from fossil fuels and “reverse deforestation” instead accepted COP30 president André Corrêa do Lago’s compromise proposal of “roadmaps” outside the formal UN regime. The 2025 UN climate talks wrapped on Saturday, Nov. 22 after negotiations pushed into overtime. The resulting decision secured some important wins, both inside and outside the negotiations. But it omitted some of the big-ticket items many hoped to see. With efforts to halt temperature rise severely off track and climate disasters becoming ever-more destructive, the summit (COP30) aimed to establish clear pathways to deliver past pledges and put the world on a safer...

A key question was how countries would address lagging ambition in their new climate commitments (NDCs). Hopes that countries would commit to roadmaps to end fossil fuel use and halt deforestation were ultimately dashed after opposition from petrostates. The final decision only included new voluntary initiatives to accelerate national climate action, though the Brazilian Presidency intends to move forward with fossil fuel and deforestation roadmaps outside of the formal COP talks. Building resilience to climate impacts took center stage, with COP30 securing a new target to triple finance for climate adaptation. The COP also laid out practical solutions to increase finance for the low-carbon transition. In an era of trade wars and tariffs, negotiators also agreed for the first time to hold discussions on how trade policies can help — or hinder — climate action.

Against the backdrop of the Amazon, nature also saw advances, including a new fund for tropical forest conservation. Indigenous Peoples and other local communities were recognized like never before. And outside the formal negotiations, the summit saw a raft of new pledges and action plans from cities, states, countries and the private sector. It is clear that we are moving from negotiations to implementation, and from wrangling over what to do to how to do it. These victories matter. It shows that international cooperation can still deliver, despite deepening divides on climate action and a difficult geopolitical context.

The smooth progress of negotiations at COP30, which begins Monday (10) in Belém, is crucial for Brazil, not only because it is hosting the summit. Experts told Valor that both the official agenda and the broader context of the conference could determine Brazil’s role in driving the global energy transition and shaping today’s geopolitical landscape. A failed summit could jeopardize the government’s climate agenda, even domestically. “If COP30 fails to deliver results, there’s a risk of discrediting the climate agenda in Brazil, associating it with political failure and weakening momentum for domestic initiatives such as the Climate Plan and the... Ms. Netto said Brazil’s delegation will need to strike the right balance in its goals, especially with the country in the spotlight as the summit host.

The international context has shifted considerably since COP29, she noted. “There were very high expectations for this COP,” Ms. Netto said. “But with the United States exiting the Paris Agreement, ongoing wars, and the disengagement of key countries, optimism has faded. Europe, which had always led on climate, didn’t even present a collective NDC this time,” she added, referring to the Nationally Determined Contributions that define each country or bloc’s emissions reduction targets. Given that Brazil is leading the COP30 presidency, represented by André Corrêa do Lago and Ana Toni—both of whom are expected to maintain a neutral stance during the talks— Ms.

Netto said the rest of the Brazilian delegation, led by chief negotiator Maurício Lyrio, should take on a more conciliatory posture to avoid leaving the conference politically weakened.

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