COP30 ended in Belém do Pará, Brazil, with a compromise agreement that avoided the collapse of negotiations, but which left exposed the deep divisions between countries and a significant void on the issue that most affects the climate: fossil fuels. For Francisco Ferreira, president of the environmental association Zero, it is clear that the conclusions of the United Nations Climate Conference were “short of what the planet demands”.
The environmentalist recalls that this conference should mark “the moment of truth and implementation”. However, the truth, he says, was harsh: “We continue, unfortunately, on a warming trajectory of 2.5°C in relation to the pre-industrial era” – above, therefore, the target of 1.5°C agreed ten years ago in Paris.
After two weeks of tense negotiations, which went into the early hours of the morning, the governments approved a final text without any mention of oil, gas or coal – just a discreet reference to the agreement reached at COP28, in Dubai, in 2023, to advance the transition to a post-fossil fuel era – referring this discussion to a parallel document issued by the Brazilian presidency.
The final agreement of this COP30 foresees that rich countries will triple, by 2035, financial support for climate adaptation, especially for vulnerable nations that are already dealing with rising sea levels, heat waves and extreme phenomena.
For António Correa do Lago, president of COP30, the compromise found was what was possible. He admitted that “some had greater ambitions”, but argued that the agreement keeps international cooperation alive at a time of political tensions highlighted by the absence of the United States, which did not send an official delegation.
Still, for many, the omission of fossil fuels symbolized an excessive compromise. Panama’s negotiator, Juan Carlos Monterrey, summed up the discomfort by saying that a text that does not even mention fossil fuels “is not neutrality, it is complicity.”.
It is also on this point that Francisco Ferreira insists. For the president of Zero, this COP “was, supposedly, the COP of truth and implementation”, but the result shows that “we continue, unfortunately, on a warming trajectory of 2.5 degrees in relation to the pre-industrial era”.
The environmentalist says that the national goals presented by the countries also “did not have enough impetus, sufficient ambition”, which leaves the world exposed to increasingly severe impacts, especially in regions with fewer means to respond.
Francisco Ferreira recognizes that the conference brought improvements in the control and transparency of climate financing, but remembers that “It still remains to be seen how the necessary values will be reached, of 1.3 billion dollars per year in 2035”. “Even the tripling of funding for adaptation is only to be seen in 2035”he adds, which in his opinion weakens the real impact of the agreement on countries that are already facing losses and damages today.
But “the biggest disappointment” is the lack of a concrete roadmap for implementing measures that eliminate dependence on fossil fuels, “the main responsible for warming the atmosphere”, he recalls. Instead, he says, there is only “a promise outside the Convention on the part of the Brazilian Presidency for the coming months”. Therefore, he concludes, “this conference is far from the action, from the promised implementation”.
Still, Ferreira points out some progress. “It really saves us to have an agreement”, he states, stressing that this prevents certain countries, “starting with the United States”, from arguing that nothing has been decided. Among the advances, “perhaps one of the most important is the just transitionbecause then we will have the entire mechanism that will allow us to make an energy transition where people will be heard, they will be supported, so that in countries where this change of jobs, this need to really have a response, a transition to renewable energy, abandoning fossil fuels, is carried out and supported with the lowest possible social and environmental impacts”, he says.