Lack of leadership the key stumbling block for Cop30

Multilateralism survived another year in Brazil – but the outcome was far below the level of ambition that is needed to address the climate crisis

- Nick Ferris

Symbolism was everywhere as Brazil's Cop30 drew to a close. First, there was the Africa Pavilion dramatically bursting into flames on Thursday afternoon, which - along with the daily bursts of Amazonian rainfall that flooded a number of meeting rooms over the two weeks - gave the impression that climateinduced extreme weather was right there in the room with us in Belem.

Then, there was the news that, after much squabbling between the two countries, the next UN climate conference, Cop31, is set to be hosted by the Australian government in the Turkish city resort of Anatalya, with a pre-Cop world leaders' summit set to be held on a Pacific island. Quite how this will all pan out is anyone's guess at this stage - but the decision reflects something of just how hard countries seem to be finding it to agree on anything at the moment.

Nearly a full day after Cop30 was supposed to finish - and several hours after two massive cruise ships hosting national delegations departed from Belem - the final decision document set to drive climate policy back home, or “Global Mutirão” as it is being called here, was released by the Brazilian presidency. As ever with UN climate conferences, it was a compromise - but one that seemed to be defined by a resignation of ambition, rather than an attempt at genuine trade-offs.

At the heart of the outcome was a failure from rich countries - grappling as they are with weakening political consensus around climate, and cuts to aid budgets - to commit to a target to triple aid available for poorer countries to adapt to climate change by 2030. Instead, the deadline has been pushed back to 2035, while it is to be part of an existing promise to deliver $300bn in climate finance agreed to last year, rather than additional finance, which is what the world's least developed countries have been asking for.