Uncensoring the f-words of the climate negotiations

Give credit to the COP30 Presidency - they really tried to be different. 

Since being announced as the host of the most historic round of climate negotiations, Brazil used almost every trick in the book to make this COP different and have more meaningful outcomes than recent ones. 

In a way, one could sarcastically think they made the atmosphere inside the venue terrible on purpose - humid interiors, leaking ceilings, unideal acoustics, and more - to let the negotiators, especially from developed countries, experience first-hand a simulation of a world warmer by 3°C so they'll finally step up and make the much-needed decisions. 

Unfortunately, all serious attempts they employed largely backfired. 

The f-words

The strategy to not have a cover decision, at least up until the second week of COP30, certainly was interesting. Its diplomats preferred to achieve transparent, negotiated outcomes over the usual last-minute political text that has been seen throughout these conferences.  

But this strategy also came with a downside - there was no strong sense of direction. Unlike last year's main focus on defining a new collective quantified goal on climate finance in Baku, or the supposedly landmark declaration in Dubai to transition away from fossil fuels, Brazil tried to highlight multiple workstreams at once. 

Yet the political leadership of any COP Presidency is only as strong as how it highlights critical issues, which are not always what it wants to emphasize. Heading into November, it identified three issues to prioritize: defining a global goal on adaptation; enabling just transition among countries; and turning the findings of the Global Stocktake (GST), from the Dubai climate summit, into concrete strategies. 

While some progress was made on some of these, especially on just transition, the final hours of the Belem climate summit came down once again to the F-words that almost seem taboo to some countries - fossil fuels and finance. 

These have been the two roadblocks of every COP since the beginning. Every time these are mentioned, hard lines are drawn, tensions rise faster than greenhouse gas emissions, and the speed of the talks slows down, if not comes to a complete stop. 

Yet diplomacy, while essential to building consensus in climate COPs, only delays the inevitable. No matter how much developed countries want to avoid finance or petrostates with fossil fuels, the uncensored reality of the worsening climate crisis being felt especially by the most vulnerable nations and communities will put these two issues front and center. 

The decisions made within and outside of COP30 reflected once more the shortcomings of climate multilateralism in responding to these dilemmas. A process that has long been based on compromises is becoming increasingly intolerable, especially when more lives, livelihoods, and entire lands are being lost.

"At least," there was some semblance of progress on finance in Belem. Developing countries succeeded in pushing for tripling of adaptation finance by 2035, albeit in a manner not as decisive or obligatory as hoped. In relation, the Baku to Belem Roadmap to 1.3T was also adopted, with USD120 billion of "at least" USD300 billion from developed countries under the new collective quantified goal on climate finance being allotted for adaptation and likely half of "at least" USD1.3 trillion from the private sector. 

In continuation of a recent trend of multilateral pledges emerging from COPs that are actually outside the decision text, 87 countries committed to developing a roadmap to save the Dubai decision of fossil fuel transition from being mere lip service. The leadership of Colombia, which not only would co-host next year's conference on this issue but let its frustrations be known over having its objections ignored by Brazil as it adopted the headline decisions, is exactly the kind that is needed to actually mitigate climate change. 

Yet even initiatives like this can only do so much if petrostates continue to block fossil fuel-related decisions within the COP process, justifying that they have the right to use their fossil fuels like developed countries did. Even with the premise of carbon capture, use, and storage that remains unproven at scale, to the most vulnerable, this essentially means they want to continue polluting our world. 

In our eyes, two wrongs never make a right. 

Where do we go from here? 

It was a rude awakening for the COP30 Presidency in the final hours of the Belem climate talks. Whether intentional or not, it got its own version of the "COP of Truth": it underestimated just how difficult it would be to bridge the divide among nearly 200 countries. 

The Belem climate summit was branded with many names - Indigenous COP, just transition COP, Amazon COP, forest COP, adaptation COP, the aforementioned COP of Truth. Yet it feels like COP30 had more nicknames than actual meaningful outcomes from these past two weeks. 

This also serves as a lesson for Türkiye and Australia, who are basically co-leading next year's climate talks, to set a strong political direction instead of largely relying on the broad premise of international cooperation and the historic significance of the conference. 

This is not to say that climate COPs are now pointless. Multilateralism remains necessary for responding to a global crisis like anthropogenic climate change. But it needs to change and take different forms.

We are seeing signs of that, including the roadmaps against fossil fuels and deforestation, but we cannot just keep on catching up to the growing speed of climate change itself. Sooner or later, the longstanding issues on fossil fuels and finance must be resolved for the sake of the most vulnerable people, our ecosystems that are also more prone to extreme impacts, and any semblance of a safe and secure future. 

There is no censoring of what needs to be done at the next climate COP, or the ones after that.

illuminem Voices is a democratic space presenting the thoughts and opinions of leading Sustainability & Energy writers, their opinions do not necessarily represent those of illuminem.

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