COP OF TALK

The UN's 30th climate summit, COP30 in Belém, was billed as the COP of truth and implementation.It was an opportunity for the world to move beyond diagnosis to delivery. Instead it revealed a system struggling to prove its relevance.

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AVANTIKA GOSWAMI, TRISHANT DEV, RUDRATH AVINASHI and SHAGUN report from Belém with AKSHIT SANGOMLA, PUJA DAS, SEHR RAHEJA and UPAMANYU DAS in Delhi

EACH YEAR brings high expectations from the UN's climate summit— and rightly so. Each year the crisis deepens. This year the urgency has peaked, according to reports released ahead of the gathering of leaders, diplomats and negotiators in Belém, a Brazilian city on the edge of the Amazon, for the 30th Conference of the Parties (COP30) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The World Meteorological Organization said 2025 is on track to be the second- or third-warmest year on record, extending an alarming run of exceptional temperatures. The UN Environment Programme's “Emissions Gap Report” warned that the world is heading for 2.8°C of warming and that global temperatures are likely to exceed 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels within the next decade. Overshooting that threshold will unleash spiralling, unchecked climate impacts. COP30 acknowledged that more climate action is needed—then failed to provide it.

On November 22, the Brazilian presidency gaveled through the final Belém Political Package. Its key outcomes included a new mechanism for international co- operation on a just transition, vague language on tripling adaptation finance by 2035, and a work programme (under Article 9 of the Paris Agreement) to scrutinise finance provided by developed countries to help developing ones mitigate and adapt to climate change. Notably absent was any reference to transitioning away from fossil fuels. Brazil has instead shunted the issue into a roadmap, to be discussed later. Ending deforestation is another roadmap launched at cop30. Although the just-transition mechanism is a win for developing countries and civil-society groups that championed it, the outcome on adaptation finance is far hazier.