BELÉM, BRAZIL — The COP30 climate summit concluded on Saturday with a contentious compromise that increases financial support for developing nations but failed to secure a global consensus on phasing out the fossil fuels driving the climate crisis.
Presided over by Brazil in the Amazonian city of Belém, the summit was intended to be a show of global unity. However, the final agreement, hammered out in overtime after two weeks of fraught negotiations, has exposed widening rifts in the international community regarding the path forward for climate action.
“Failed Agreement”: Deep Divisions Over Fossil Fuels
The core controversy of the summit arose from the omission of any explicit language regarding the transition away from fossil fuels in the final text. While the European Union and a coalition of Latin American nations pushed for a mandate to phase out oil, gas, and coal, they met staunch opposition from a bloc including Saudi Arabia, which argued such mentions were off-limits.
The resulting deal was slammed by critics as a capitulation to “climate denialism.”
Latin American Objections
In a dramatic final plenary, neighbors of the host nation voiced fierce objections. Colombia, Panama, and Uruguay criticized the outcome, arguing that the deal ignored scientific reality.
“A consensus imposed under climate denialism is a failed agreement,” stated the Colombian negotiator, emphasizing that her country could not endorse a text that disregarded the primary driver of global warming.
Panama’s climate negotiator, Juan Carlos Monterrey Gómez, offered a scathing assessment: “A climate decision that cannot even say ‘fossil fuels’ is not neutrality, it is complicity. And what is happening here transcends incompetence.”
The “Side Text” Compromise
To salvage the summit, the Brazilian presidency, led by André Corrêa do Lago, resorted to issuing a separate “side text” regarding fossil fuels and forest protection. Corrêa do Lago acknowledged the dissatisfaction, stating, “We know some of you had greater ambitions for some of the issues at hand,” but urged countries to continue the dialogue.
Financial Wins Amidst Political Tension
Despite the deadlock on emissions, the summit did achieve a significant milestone regarding climate finance.
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Tripling Adaptation Funds: The deal calls for wealthy nations to at least triple the funding provided to developing countries for climate adaptation by 2035.
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New Voluntary Initiatives: A voluntary initiative was launched to accelerate emissions reductions to help countries meet existing pledges.
Avinash Persaud, special adviser to the Inter-American Development Bank, noted that the focus on finance was critical as climate impacts—such as rising sea levels and heatwaves—intensify. However, he warned, “I fear the world still fell short on more rapid-release grants for developing countries responding to loss and damage.”
A Summit Marked by Disruption
The tension inside the negotiating rooms was mirrored by disruptions on the ground.
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US Absence: The fragility of global unity was highlighted early on by the absence of an official delegation from the United States, the world’s largest historic emitter.
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Fire Incident: The summit was briefly thrown into chaos when a fire at the venue interrupted proceedings.
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Procedural Outcry: Tensions peaked during the final session when delegates from Sierra Leone and other nations objected to the “watering down” of metrics used to measure food security and climate impacts. Sierra Leone’s climate minister, Jiwoh Emmanuel Abdulai, called the agreed-upon indicators “unclear, unmeasurable, and in many cases, unusable.”
The EU Stance
The European Union, which had aligned with the Latin American push for tougher fossil fuel language, ultimately agreed not to block the final deal to prevent a total collapse of the talks.
“We should support [the deal] because at least it is going in the right direction,” said EU climate commissioner Wopke Hoekstra, though he admitted the bloc did not agree with the conclusion.
As the gavel fell in Belém, the prevailing sentiment was one of relief that a deal existed, tempered by the stark realization that the gathering had failed to directly address the root cause of the crisis.