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COP30 reminds us that we can’t wait for perfect consensus to act

This opinion was written by Robert Muggah, Co-founder of the Igarapé Institute and principal of SecDev, and was published in the Globe & Mail on November 25, 2025.

**Indigenous people attend a protest calling for climate justice and territorial protection during the UN Climate Change Conference in Belém, Brazil, last week.**

The COP30 climate summit opened with flood alerts and closed with a fire, framing the stakes of the negotiations inside. Delegates departed with a mixed result: progress on forests and adaptation finance, and a conspicuous retreat on any promise to phase out fossil fuels. That verdict is disappointing, but it is not the whole story.

Consider some of the real successes achieved in Belém. The core deal boosts finance for climate-vulnerable countries, including a call to at least triple adaptation finance by 2035. COP30 also initiated a process to review how international trade rules align with climate goals. Alongside plans to accelerate more than 110 solutions, Brazil also launched a new tropical forest initiative with pledges of almost US$7-billion with a view of raising US$125-billion in the coming years.

Brazil’s COP presidency also pushed two separate road maps: one to phase out fossil fuels, and another to reach zero deforestation. Either would be consequential; together, they outline a path to slash the bulk of emissions while protecting the forest carbon banks that stabilize the planet. The road maps are gaining traction. Nearly 90 countries endorsed a process to phase out fossil fuels and agreed to reconvene in Colombia in 2026 to keep the supply-side agenda alive.

Now for the bad news. After acrimonious debate, the final text ducked clear language on phasing out oil, gas and coal. This represents a retreat. And because COP runs on consensus, even a small bloc can water down the language. That is precisely what happened in Belém, abetted by petrostate politics and more than 1,600 industry lobbyists – more representatives than all the country delegations combined.

And yet, in a geopolitically fractured era – with wars raging, trade spats hardening and the U.S. electing to sit this one out – 193 countries still found a way to agree. That is not trivial. Multilateralism did not buckle; it bent, and then produced a compromise that moves money for adaptation and tightens co-operation on forests, mangroves and oceans. The rule of consensus can be an anchor and an ankle weight, and in Belém, it was both. We should acknowledge the achievement without romanticizing the cost.

Crucially, COP30 also underlined how climate outcomes are not just determined by states, but by a much wider cast. Inside and outside the halls, cities committed to electrify bus fleets and cool heat islands; companies set tougher supply chain standards and procurement targets; Indigenous organizations secured stronger land-tenure protections that keep forests standing; and investors and insurers refined the risk math that makes capital more expensive for high-carbon assets.

Hundreds of initiatives were launched or scaled during the two weeks in Belém. None requires permission from holdout capitals. All create facts on the ground. This is how progress will come in the near term: not just by editing commas in communiqués, but by building coalitions that rewire markets, grids and land use faster than the slowest national government will allow. Think of the Brazilian road maps as ways to mobilize willing partners over the coming year, an approach that can harden into norms and, eventually, into law.

To be clear, none of these new commitments excuse the failure to name the problem. While the final text reaffirmed the 1.5 C target set in Paris, the result left many wondering how credible a climate deal can be if it won’t name, much less end, the fuels driving the crisis. The credibility gap is not semantic: it is material. Adaptation finance pledged for 2035 does not repair a washedout bridge. A side text on forests does not stop an illegal clearing tomorrow. We must demand faster, clearer delivery and we should build the institutions that make it possible, from debt relief tied to climate investment to insurance and liquidity backstops that get money where it is needed most.

But COP30 is a reminder to resist the easy fatalism that says the process is broken beyond repair. It isn’t. COP remains the only table where every country, enthusiastic or obstructive, must sit. That is both its weakness and its strength. When the centre cannot force ambition, the periphery has to pull. Cities, development banks and corporate buyers can tighten the political leash and narrow the space for backsliding before negotiators meet again.

The message from Belém isn’t that climate multilateralism has failed. It is that we have seen where it stops, and now need to do what it cannot. If a minority of countries can block even rhetorical ambition, a majority of actors can still deliver the strongest deeds. The multitude of initiatives launched by local governments, companies and civil society show where momentum lives.

The world won’t wait for perfect consensus. Neither should we.

Fossil fuel concerns left out of deal

Climate agreement increases money to countries hit by extreme weather

Delegates from Ethiopia, hosts of COP32, cheer during a plenary session at the COP30 UN Climate Summit in Belem, Brazil. The climate talks ended Saturday with a compromise that some criticized as weak and others called progress.

This article was written by the Canadian Press and was published in the Toronto Star on November 23, 2025.

United Nations climate talks in Brazil reached a subdued agreement Saturday that pledged more funding for countries to adapt to the wrath of extreme weather. But the catchall agreement doesn’t include explicit details to phase out fossil fuels or strengthen countries’ inadequate emissions cutting plans, which dozens of nations demanded.

The Brazilian hosts of the conference said they’d eventually come up with a road map to get away from fossil fuels working with hardline Colombia, but it won’t have the same force as something approved at the conference called COP30. Colombia responded angrily to the deal after it was approved, citing the absence of wording on fossil fuels.

The deal, which was approved after negotiators blew past a Friday deadline, was crafted after hours of late night and early morning meetings in COP30 President André Corrêa do Lago’s office.

Do Lago said the tough discussions started in Belem will continue under Brazil’s leadership until the next annual conference “even if they are not reflected in this text we just approved.”

UN SecretaryGeneral António Guterres said the deal shows “that nations can still come together to confront the defining challenges no country can solve alone.” But he added: “I cannot pretend that COP30 has delivered everything that is needed. The gap between where we are and what science demands remains dangerously wide.”

Many gave the deal lukewarm praise as the best that could be achieved in trying times, while others complained about the package or the process that led to its approval.

“Given the circumstances of geopolitics today, we’re actually quite pleased with the bounds of the package that came out,” said Palau Ambassador Ilana Seid, who chaired the coalition of small island nations. “The alternative is that we don’t get a decision and that would have been a worse alternative.”

“This deal isn’t perfect and is far from what science requires,” said former Ireland president Mary Robinson, a fierce climate advocate for the exleaders group The Elders. “But at a time when multilateralism is being tested, it is significant that countries continue to move forward together.”

Some countries said they got enough out of the deal.

“COP30 has not delivered everything Africa asked for, but it has moved the needle,” said Jiwoh Abdulai, Sierra Leone’s environment minister. What really matters, he said, is “how quickly these words turn into real projects that protect lives and livelihoods.”

U.K. Energy Minister Ed Miliband said the agreement was “an important step forward,” but that he would have preferred it to be “more ambitious.”

UN climate summit proposals criticized for failing to mention fossil fuels

This article was writtetn by Seth Borenstein, Melina Walling, and Anton L. Delgado, and was published in the Globe & Mail on November 22, 2025.

**Activists participate in a demonstration outside where negotiations are taking place at the COP30 UN Climate Summit in Belem, Brazil, on Friday.**

Several nations held firm Friday in blocking proposals in the final stages of this year’s UN climate talks because they failed to explicitly cite the burning of fuels such as oil, gas and coal as causes of global warming, and the talks appeared certain to sprawl past a midnight deadline.

Juan Carlos Monterrey Gomez, a top negotiator for Panama, said the decades long United Nations process risks “becoming a clown show” for the omission. His nation was among 36 to object to a proposal from the conference president, André Corrêa do Lago of host Brazil, because it doesn’t provide an explicit guide map for the world to transition away from fossil fuels, nor to strengthen climate fighting plans submitted earlier this year.

Before nations moved into high-level negotiations behind closed doors, Mr. Monterrey Gomez warned that talks were on “the verge of collapse.”

A few hours later, he said nothing much had changed.

Mr. do Lago started the day telling diplomats he thought they “are very close” to doing what they set out to do when they started meeting a week ago. When the allcountry talks fizzled, Mr. do Lago pivoted to bringing in smaller pairings of negotiating teams for meeting in his office.

“I would expect there needs to be another text,” veteran observer and former chief German climate negotiator Jennifer Morgan said late Friday afternoon. “I think there’s quite a lot of work to be done.”

The Brazilian proposals – also called texts – came on the heels of a fire on Thursday that briefly spread through pavilions of the conference known as COP30 on the edge of the Amazon. No one was seriously hurt but the fire meant that a day of work was largely lost.

“The problem is we’re 24 hours behind schedule,” said David Waskow, international climate director for the World Resources Institute.

The European Union said flatly that it wouldn’t accept the text. EU Climate Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra reminded negotiators that countries had gathered at the edge of the Amazon to bring down emissions and transition away from fossil fuels.

“Look at the text. Look at it. None of it is in there. No science. No global stocktake. No transitioning away. But instead, weakness,” Mr. Hoekstra said in a closeddoor meeting of negotiators, according to a transcript provided by the EU.

“Under no circumstances are we going to accept this. And nothing that is even remotely close, and I say it with pain in my heart, nothing that is remotely close to what is now on the table.”

UN head pushes for compromise at COP30

Secretarygeneral calls on Trump to bring U.S. to talks

This article was written by Seth Borenstein, Melina Walling, and Anton L. Delgado, and was published in the Toronto Star on November 21, 2025.

UN SecretaryGeneral António Guterres on Thursday called for countries at climate talks in Brazil to compromise and “show willingness and flexibility to deliver results,” even if they fall short of the strongest measures some nations want.

“We are down to the wire and the world is watching Belém,” Guterres said, asking negotiators to engage in good faith in the last two scheduled days of talks, which already missed a selfimposed deadline Wednesday for progress on a few key issues. The conference, with this year’s edition known as COP30, frequently runs longer than its scheduled two weeks.

“Communities on the front lines are watching, too — counting flooded homes, failed harvests, lost livelihoods — and asking, `how much more must we suffer?’ ” Guterres said. “They’ve heard enough excuses and demand results.”

On contentious issues involving more detailed plans to phase out fossil fuels and financial aid to poorer countries, Guterres said he was “perfectly convinced” that compromise was possible and dismissed the idea that not adopting the strongest measures would be a failure.

Asked whether he had a message for U.S. President Donald Trump, who has pulled the world’s secondlargest carbon polluter out of climate talks: “We are waiting for you.”

When asked if there was any hope that Trump would change his tune on climate change, Guterres smiled and said: “Hope is the last thing that dies.”

At a UN session in September, Trump called predictions of climate change a “con job.” The U.S. federal government is absent from the negotiations in Belém on the edge of the Amazon.

Guterres was more forceful in what he wanted rich countries to do for poor countries, especially those in need of tens of billions of dollars to adapt to the floods, droughts, storms and heat waves triggered by worsening climate change. He continued calls to triple adaptation finance from $40 billion a year to $120 billion a year.

Officials from nations battered by natural disasters gave emotional testimony earlier this week imploring the world to stop talking and start acting.

“No delegation will leave Belém with everything it wants, but every delegation has a duty to reach a balanced deal,” Guterres said.

“Every country, especially the big emitters, must do more,” Guterres said.

Delivering overall financial aid — with an agreed goal of $300 billion a year — is one of four interconnected issues that were initially excluded from the official agenda. The other three are: whether countries should be told to toughen their new climate plans; dealing with trade barriers over climate and improving reporting on transparency and climate progress.

COP30 president André Corrêa do Lago had given negotiators a Wednesday deadline for some kind of package on those four issues, but no deal was in sight.

More than 80 countries have pushed for a detailed “road map” on how to transition away from fossil fuels, like coal, oil and natural gas, which are the chief cause of warming. That was a general but vague agreement two years ago at the COP in Dubai.

Guterres kept referring to it as already being agreed to in Dubai, but did not commit to a detailed plan, which Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva pushed for earlier in a speech.

Brazilian, UN leaders push for deal at COP30

Scores of countries and advocates are calling for detailed road map on how to phase out fossil fuels

Activists push for a transition away from fossil fuels outside the venue for the COP30 UN Climate Summit in Belém, Brazil, on Wednesday. Two years ago, climate talks agreed to language calling for a transition away from fossil fuels, but little has been done since to clarify or amplify on that one sentence.

This article was written by Seth Borenstein, Melina Walling, and Anton L. Delgado, and was published in the Toronto Star on November 20, 2025.

Two global power players pushed negotiators Wednesday to find compromises at United Nations climate talks in Brazil’s Belém, where a selfimposed deadline is rushing up fast.

UN SecretaryGeneral António Guterres and Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva arrived at the COP30 talks to take a hand. Lula’s schedule included meetings with negotiators for the European Union, emerging nations in Latin America, the Middle East and Asia, and hardhit small island nations and African countries.

“The arrival of President Lula and António Guterres is hugely significant and suggests the hosts think we should have some kind of deal passed today,” said Mohamed Adow of the Kenyan environmental organization Power Shift Africa. “You don’t generally have the president coming into the talks midway through the second week, without something to show for it.”

Raising the possibility of a historic outcome, Greenpeace Brazil executive director Carolina Pasquali said: “The COP is nearing the endgame and the joint arrival of both Lula and Guterres gives a clear political signal that they mean business.”

Wednesday was an important day in the plans of the Brazilians running the conference on the edge of the Amazon. Even though the talks are scheduled to go until at least Friday, COP30 President André Corrêa do Lago gave negotiators a Wednesday deadline for a decision on four interconnected issues that were initially excluded from the official agenda: whether countries should be told to toughen their new climate plans; details on handing out $300 billion in pledged climate aid; dealing with trade barriers over climate and improving reporting on transparency and climate progress.

Along with those four issues is a push by scores of countries, rich and poor, for a detailed road map on how to phase out fossil fuels. And that’s key to the part about toughening new climate plans for a shot at limiting future warming to 1.5 C, the global goal set in 2015’s Paris Agreement.

Two years ago, after days of contentious debate, climate talks agreed to language calling for a transition away from fossil fuels — coal, oil and natural gas — but since that time, little has been done to clarify or amplify on that one sentence. Protesters inside and outside the conference venue kept pushing for a phaseout.

A group of scientists Wednesday criticized current proposals for a fossil fuel phaseout road map as inadequate.

“A road map is not a workshop or a ministerial meeting. A road map is a real workplan that needs to show us the way from where we are to where we need to be, and how to get there,” said a letter from seven prominent scientists, including some who are advising the COP30 presidency. “We need to be as close as possible to absolute zero fossil fuel emissions by 2040, the latest by 2045.”

New Global Study: Dangerous Nighttime Heat Rising in 83% of Global Cities Analyzed, Becoming More Oppressive, And More Frequent

This article was written by Globe Newswire and was published in the Toronto Star on November 19, 2025.

While leaders have been focusing on avoiding breaching the +1.5°C threshold of the Paris Agreement, a sweeping new scientific analysis of the most dangerous summer weather conditions across 100 major global cities revealed that minimum nighttime temperatures have been rising up to 10 times faster than daytime average highs in many global cities during oppressively hot weather.

The study by Climate Resilience for All, Extreme Heat and the Shrinking Diurnal Range: A Global Evaluation of Oppressive Air Mass Character and Frequency, analyzed weather data over a 30-year period from 1994 to 2024, isolating the two types of weather conditions, or “air masses”, considered most dangerous for human health: “dry tropical” (DT) weather, which is hot and dry, and “moist tropical” (MT) weather which is hot and humid.

Heat exposure has traditionally been measured by exposure to daytime high temperatures and increasing “average” temperatures. This study points clearly to the urgent need for preventative and responsive actions on extreme heat to explicitly account for and address the rapidly rising threat of hotter nights.

Global, regional, and city level data visualizations can be accessed via this link.

The analysis found:

Increases in nighttime temperatures, and decreases in the gap between daytime highs and nighttime lows across much of the globe

83% of cities in the study are experiencing sustained, higher nighttime temperatures.
Nighttime temperatures are rising fastest in Melbourne, Australia (dry tropical), where they increase by 1°C every 5.36 years, and Dubai, UAE (moist tropical), where they rise by 1°C every 8.81 years.
- During moist tropical weather, Santa Maria, Upington, Seoul, Samarkand, Paris, Kuwait City, Portland, and Abadan are seeing the biggest decrease between daytime and nighttime temperatures. The number of cities seeing decreases per region breaks down as follows:
  - Africa: 13 out of 15.
  - Asia: 18 out of 22.
  - Central and South America: 10 out of 11.
  - Europe: Seven out of 12.
  - Middle East: 5 out of 5.
  - North America: 14 out of 16.
  - Oceania: Nine out of 11.
  - 83% of cities in the study are experiencing sustained, higher nighttime temperatures.
  - Nighttime temperatures are rising fastest in Melbourne, Australia (dry tropical), where they increase by 1°C every 5.36 years, and Dubai, UAE (moist tropical), where they rise by 1°C every 8.81 years.
    - During moist tropical weather, Santa Maria, Upington, Seoul, Samarkand, Paris, Kuwait City, Portland, and Abadan are seeing the biggest decrease between daytime and nighttime temperatures. The number of cities seeing decreases per region breaks down as follows:
      - Africa: 13 out of 15.
      - Asia: 18 out of 22.
      - Central and South America: 10 out of 11.
      - Europe: Seven out of 12.
      - Middle East: 5 out of 5.
      - North America: 14 out of 16.
      - Oceania: Nine out of 11.
    - During dry tropical weather, Melbourne, Agadir, Seoul, Mumbai, Cairo, Luxor, Kuwait City, and Santiago are seeing the biggest decrease between daytime and nighttime temperatures. The number of cities seeing decreases per region breaks down as follows:
      - Africa: 10 out of 14.
      - Asia: 13 out of 22.
      - Central and South America: Seven out of 11.
      - Europe: Four out of six.
      - Middle East: Six out of seven.
      - North Americas: 11 out of 14
      - Oceania: Five out of nine.
      - Some of the regions show weaker differentiation, possibly because dry tropical weather types are rarely present in the cities we evaluated in those regions.
      - 83% of cities in the study are experiencing sustained, higher nighttime temperatures.
      - Nighttime temperatures are rising fastest in Melbourne, Australia (dry tropical), where they increase by 1°C every 5.36 years, and Dubai, UAE (moist tropical), where they rise by 1°C every 8.81 years.
        During moist tropical weather, Santa Maria, Upington, Seoul, Samarkand, Paris, Kuwait City, Portland, and Abadan are seeing the biggest decrease between daytime and nighttime temperatures. The number of cities seeing decreases per region breaks down as follows:
        Africa: 13 out of 15.Asia: 18 out of 22.Central and South America: 10 out of 11.Europe: Seven out of 12.Middle East: 5 out of 5.North America: 14 out of 16.Oceania: Nine out of 11.
        During dry tropical weather, Melbourne, Agadir, Seoul, Mumbai, Cairo, Luxor, Kuwait City, and Santiago are seeing the biggest decrease between daytime and nighttime temperatures. The number of cities seeing decreases per region breaks down as follows:
        Africa: 10 out of 14.Asia: 13 out of 22.Central and South America: Seven out of 11.Europe: Four out of six.Middle East: Six out of seven.North Americas: 11 out of 14Oceania: Five out of nine.Some of the regions show weaker differentiation, possibly because dry tropical weather types are rarely present in the cities we evaluated in those regions.
        83% of cities in the study are experiencing sustained, higher nighttime temperatures.Nighttime temperatures are rising fastest in Melbourne, Australia (dry tropical), where they increase by 1°C every 5.36 years, and Dubai, UAE (moist tropical), where they rise by 1°C every 8.81 years.
        During moist tropical weather, Santa Maria, Upington, Seoul, Samarkand, Paris, Kuwait City, Portland, and Abadan are seeing the biggest decrease between daytime and nighttime temperatures. The number of cities seeing decreases per region breaks down as follows:
        Africa: 13 out of 15.Asia: 18 out of 22.Central and South America: 10 out of 11.Europe: Seven out of 12.Middle East: 5 out of 5.North America: 14 out of 16.Oceania: Nine out of 11.
        During dry tropical weather, Melbourne, Agadir, Seoul, Mumbai, Cairo, Luxor, Kuwait City, and Santiago are seeing the biggest decrease between daytime and nighttime temperatures. The number of cities seeing decreases per region breaks down as follows:
        Africa: 10 out of 14.Asia: 13 out of 22.Central and South America: Seven out of 11.Europe: Four out of six.Middle East: Six out of seven.North Americas: 11 out of 14Oceania: Five out of nine.Some of the regions show weaker differentiation, possibly because dry tropical weather types are rarely present in the cities we evaluated in those regions.
        Increases in the frequency of extreme heat days
        Over the 30-year study period, summertime moist tropical weather patterns have increased close to or over 50 percent in Central and South America, Oceania, and Africa – and have grown by 37 percent globally. Dry tropical weather patterns have grown by 13 percent over the same period, with the largest increase in Australia, which had a 29 percent rise.
      - “Before this analysis, we did not know how rapidly nighttime heat has been rising within the most dangerous air masses,” said Larry Kalkstein, climatologist, Chief Heat Science Advisor at Climate Resilience for All, and the study’s lead author. “It is critical for us to understand how the heat of summer—that sends people to the emergency room—is shifting, and what we are overlooking when we talk about it.” “We want this analysis to mobilize city and health leaders to urgently broaden their view of what is a 24-hour heat crisis. This research uncovers a critical blind spot in our understanding of extreme heat,” said Kathy Baughman McLeod, CEO of Climate Resilience for All.High nighttime temperatures prevent the human body from cooling down, increasing risks of heat exhaustion, dehydration, and cardiovascular stress. When sleep is disrupted by heat, the body loses its ability to recover from daytime exposure, heightening the danger of illness and death—especially for older adults, women, and those living in poorly ventilated housing.Heat warning systems are focused on high daytime temperatures and currently minimize the impact of overnight temperatures. The study offers guidance and urges health officials and policymakers to integrate these changing patterns into their work and to ramp up regionally targeted heat warning systems that account for the growing probability of multi-day, high-intensity events that offer little nocturnal relief.About Climate Resilience for AllClimate Resilience for All is a global adaptation NGO dedicated to protecting the health, income, and dignity of women on the frontlines of extreme heat.

Brazil releases draft proposal for COP30 talks

Major issues facing negotiators include $300B in aid, trade barriers, transparency

This article was written by Melina Walling, Seth Borenstein and Anton L. Delgado, and was published in the Toronto Star on November 19, 2025.

With a direct letter sent to nations and a draft text released Tuesday, host country Brazil is shifting the UN climate conference into a higher gear.

The letter sent late Monday comes during the final week of the first climate summit in the Amazon rainforest, a key regulator of climate because trees absorb carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that warms the planet. COP30 president André Corrêa do Lago later released a proposal with 21 options for negotiators to choose from on four sticky and interrelated issues.

“It’s text Tuesday and we’re off to the races,” said World Resources Institute’s David Waskow, who said the ninepage proposal “addresses some of the core questions that have been part of the presidency consultations.”

The four key political issues are whether countries should be told to do better on their new climate plans; details on handing out $300 billion (U.S.) in pledged climate aid; dealing with trade barriers over climate; and improving transparency, which Waskow said is really about reporting climate progress.

While the options in the draft text “are a first step, what’s required now is to eliminate the options that add to delay and ignore the urgency of action,” said Jasper Inventor, deputy program director of Greenpeace International.

Tuesday was also a day for speeches from highlevel ministers.

“At this very moment, there are people in a number of countries across the world, including my own, who want to deny the crisis even exists or delay the urgent action we need to address it,” said U.K. Energy Secretary Ed Miliband.

Sophie Hermans, the Netherlands’ deputy prime minister, said “the transition is no longer about setting targets. It is about executing them. And execution requires realism, planning and the ability to adjust when circumstances change.”

The documents ask leaders to hash out many aspects of a potential agreement by Wednesday so that much is out of the way before the final set of decisions Friday, when the conference is scheduled to end. Climate summits routinely go past their last day as nations face balancing domestic concerns with the major shifts needed to protect the environment and cut greenhouse gas emissions.

Brazil President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was scheduled to return to Belem on Wednesday and the deadline may be timed for him to push parties together or celebrate some kind of draft agreement, observers said. But many don’t think countries will actually be ready with everything Brazilian leaders have asked for by Wednesday. That timeline is “pretty ambitious,” said Alden Meyer, a senior associate at climate think tank E3G.

Brazil’s guidance for the summit, called COP30, is raising hopes for significant measures to fight global warming, which could range from a road map to move away from fossil fuels like oil and coal to more money to help nations build out clean energies like wind and solar.

“There are important concessions we expect from all sides,” do Lago said Monday. “It is said you have to give to receive.”

Some have expressed concern the agreements will be short of what’s needed.

“The draft text might have the right ingredients, but it’s been cooked up in a way that leaves a bitter aftertaste,” said Andreas Sieber of 350.org, which works to end use of fossil fuels. Without a fossilfuel transition at the core, the documents are “weak and empty, a dish with its main component left out.”

But Monday night, Meyer, of E3G, said the optimistic spirit of the host country “is starting to get a little infectious” and that is part of building trust and goodwill among nations.

“I sense ambition here, I sense a determination,” former German climate envoy Jennifer Morgan said.

Climate summits — like the UN's COP30 in Brazil, which is scheduled to end Friday — routinely go past their last day as nations face balancing domestic concerns with the major shifts needed to protect the environment and cut greenhouse gas emissions.

As nations push for ambition at climate talks, chair says they may get their wish

This article was written by Seth Borenstein, Anton L. Delgado, and Melina Walling, and was published in the Globe & Mail on November 17, 2025.

**Activists participate in a climate protest during the COP30 UN Climate Summit on Saturday in Belem, Brazil. The urgency of climate change is causing some negotiators to push for more action.**

Going into United Nations climate negotiations, the Brazilian hosts weren’t looking for big end-of-session pronouncements on lofty goals. This conference was supposed to hyperfocus on “implementation” of past promises not yet kept. Throw that out the window. The urgency of climate change is causing some negotiators to push for more big-picture action – on weak plans to cut emissions of heat-trapping gases, on too little money to help nations wracked by climate change, on putting teeth into phasing out coal, oil and gas. Because of that pressure to do more – including from Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva – the diplomat chairing the talks said Saturday he’ll consider a big picture, end-of-negotiations communiqué, sometimes known as a decision or cover text.

“I think things have changed, which is a very good thing,” said veteran observer Jean Su of the Center for Biological Diversity. “So I think there’s momentum that we will get some type of decision text, and our hope is that in particular there’s going to be some commitment on phasing out fossil fuels.”

“I would say that what’s at stake now is probably higher than the last several COPs because you’re looking at an ambition gap,” said former Philippine negotiator Jasper Inventor, international program director at Greenpeace International. “There’s a lot of expectation, there’s a lot of excitement here, but there’s also a lot of political signals that’s been sent by President Lula.”

“We’re at the middle of the COP, and at the middle of COP is usually where the negotiators stare each other eye-to-eye. It’s almost like a staring contest,” Mr. Inventor said. “But next week, this is where the negotiations need to happen, where political decisions are made by the ministers.”

Because this process stems from the Paris Agreement on climate, which is mostly voluntary, these end statements grab headlines and set global tone but have limited power. The last few COP end statements have made still-unfulfilled pledges for rich countries to give money to poor nations to cope with climate change and the world to phase out fossil fuels.

Key among those issues is the idea of telling nations to go back to the drawing board on what experts consider inadequate climate-fighting plans submitted this year.

In the 2015 Paris agreement, which is being celebrated here on its 10th anniversary, nations are supposed to have submitted climate-fighting, emissions-curbing plans every five years. So far 116 of 193 countries have filed theirs this year, but what they promised isn’t much. United Nations and Climate Action Tracker, a group of scientists, calculates that these new pledges barely reduced future projections for Earth’s warming.

Even if the world does all it promises, Earth would be about seven-tenths of a degree Celsius above the Paris goal of limiting warming to 1.5 C above preindustrial times, the groups estimated.

So small island nations, led by Palau, asked that this conference confront the gap between what’s planned in national pledges and what’s needed to keep the world from hitting the temperature danger zone.

That’s not on the agenda for these talks. Nor are specific details on how to fulfill last year’s pledge by rich nations to provide US$300-billion annually in climate financial aid.

So when nations early on wanted to address these issues, COP president André Corrêa do Lago, a veteran Brazilian diplomat, set up special small confabs to try to decide if the controversial topics should be discussed. On Saturday, the conference punted the issue to the incoming ministers.

“The parties will decide how they want to proceed,” Mr. do Lago said at a Saturday evening news conference. Given what countries are saying and past history that usually means a final end-of-COP message to the world, several experts said.

In a casual exchange with a reporter about how the conference is going, Mr. do Lago said: “Eh, could be better but not as bad as it could be.”

UN General Assembly president Annalena Baerbock, the former German foreign minister who has been to 10 of these sessions, told the Associated Press Saturday morning before the evening’s session that she saw “new momentum” in Belem.

“We can fight the climate crisis only together if we commit to a strong mitigation target,” she said. “This means also transitioning away from fossil fuels, investing into renewable energy.”

Two years ago in Dubai, the world agreed to “transition away from fossil fuels,” but last year no mention of that was made and there have been no details on how or when to do this.

Ms. Baerbock hailed as crucial Mr. da Silva’s call during the Leaders’ Summit last week for “a road map for humanity to overcome, in a just and planned way, its dependence on fossil fuels, reverse deforestation, and mobilize the resources needed to do so.”

Indigenous groups demand attention at UN climate talks

This article was written by Andre Penner and was published in the Toronto Star on November 15, 2025.

Brazil set out to host this year’s United Nations climate talks with a promise to spotlight Indigenous peoples whose way of life depends on the Amazon rainforest. Those groups are seizing the chance.

For the second time this week, Indigenous protesters on Friday disrupted entry to the main venue for COP30 to demand progress on climate change and other issues. Though their march was peaceful — it required conference participants to detour through a side door, leading to long lines to get in for the day’s events — one protester likened it to “a scream” over rights violated and decisions made without consulting the Indigenous.

“I wish that warmth would melt the coldness of people,” Cris Julião Pankararu, of the Pankararu people in the Caatinga biome of Brazil, said.

Brazilian military personnel kept demonstrators from entering the site. The protesters, most in traditional Indigenous garb, formed a human chain around the entrance to keep people from getting in. Other groups of activists formed a secondary chain around them.

Paolo Destilo, with the environmental group Debt for Climate, joined the human chain encircling the protesters, saying he wanted to give Indigenous communities a chance to have their voices heard.

“This is worth any delays to the conference,” he said, adding: “If this is really to be Indigenous peoples’ COP, like officials keep saying, these types of demonstrations should be welcomed at COP30.”

The twoweek conference began Monday with countries offering updated national plans to fight climate change. Scientists say it appears likely the world will blow past a goal set in the 2015 Paris Agreement to hold Earth’s warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) since preindustrial times.

Members of the Munduruku Indigenous group led the demonstration that blocked the main entrance, demanding a meeting with Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

“President Lula, we are here in front of COP because we want you to listen to us. We refuse to be sacrificed for agribusiness,” protesters said in a written statement in Portuguese released by the Munduruku Ipereg Ayu Movement. “Our forest is not for sale. We are the ones who protect the climate, and the Amazon cannot continue to be destroyed to enrich large corporations.”

Munduruku leaders had a series of demands for Brazil. They included revoking plans for commercial development of rivers, cancelling a grain railway project that has raised fears of deforestation and clearer demarcations of Indigenous territories. They also want a rejection of deforestation carbon credits.

André Corrêa do Lago, COP30 president, holds the hand of an Indigenous woman as he walks with a group outside the venue for the COP30 UN Climate Summit on Frida in Belém, Brazil.

Indigenous groups demand attention at UN talks

This article was written by Anton L. Delgado, Seth Borenstein, and Melina Walling, and was published in the Globe & Mail on November 15, 2025.

**A Munduruku Indigenous man of the Ipereg Ayu movement, right, celebrates with Indigenous people during the COP30 UN Climate Change Conference, in Belem, Brazil, on Friday.**

Protesters disrupted entry to the main venue by forming a peaceful human chain around the entrance

For the second time this week, Indigenous protesters on Friday disrupted entry to the main venue for COP30 to demand progress on climate change and other issues. Though their march was peaceful – it required conference participants to detour through a side door, leading to long lines to get in for the day’s events – one protester likened it to “a scream” over rights violated and decisions made without consulting the Indigenous.

“I wish that warmth would melt the coldness of people,” Cris Julião Pankararu, of the Pankararu people in the Caatinga biome of Brazil, said.

Paolo Destilo, with the environmental group Debt for Climate, joined the human chain encircling the protesters, saying he wanted to give Indigenous communities a chance to have their voices heard.

The two-week conference began Monday with countries offering updated national plans to fight climate change. Scientists say it appears likely the world will blow past a goal set in the 2015 Paris Agreement to hold Earth’s warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) since preindustrial times.

Members of the Munduruku Indigenous group led the demonstration that blocked the main entrance, demanding a meeting with Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

The reason for having a COP in the Amazon is for us to listen to the very people that are the most vulnerable. ANA TONI CONFERENCE CEO

Conference president André Corrêa do Lago, a veteran Brazilian diplomat, met with the group as they blocked the entrance. He cradled a protester’s baby in his arms as he talked, smiling and nodding. After a prolonged discussion, Mr. do Lago and the protesters moved away from the entrance together. The entrance opened at 9:37 a.m.

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change told conference participants “there is no danger” from what they called a peaceful demonstration.

Conference CEO Ana Toni said at a news conference that Belem is the most inclusive COP for Indigenous people with more than 900 Indigenous people registered, far exceeding the old record of 30.

And she said they are being heard.

“We are listening to their voices,” she said. “The reason for having a COP in the Amazon is for us to listen to the very people that are the most vulnerable.”

Harjeet Singh, a veteran activist against the fossil fuels that are driving Earth’s dangerous warming, said the protest reflects frustration that past COPs “have not delivered.”

“We should look at this as a message and signal from Indigenous people, who have not seen any progress over the past 33 years of COP, that all these conversations have not led to actions,” Mr. Singh said. “They are the custodians of biodiversity and climate and clearly, they are not satisfied with how this process is doing.”

Separately, Indigenous leaders from across the Ecuadorean Amazon used a COP30 side event in Belem to warn that oil drilling, mining and agribusiness expansion are pushing the rain forest closer to an irreversible tipping point.

The session, hosted by Amazon Watch and Indigenous leaders from Kichwa and other nations, focused on the rollback of environmental and Indigenous protections, fossil-fuel contamination along the Napo and Amazon rivers, and demands for direct climate finance for Indigenous communities. Speakers also raised alarm about political decisions in Ecuador, including an upcoming referendum that Indigenous groups fear could weaken constitutional “rights of nature” and collective Indigenous rights.

Leonardo Cerda, a Kichwa leader from Napo, said Indigenous leaders travelled more than 3,000 kilometres along the Napo and Amazon rivers to reach COP30.

“It is very important for us that the rights of Indigenous peoples are recognized at the COP30 negotiating tables, because many times decisions made here directly affect our territory,” he said. “During our journey along the Napo and Amazon rivers, we were able to see how the fossil fuel industry has threatened an ecosystem as fragile as the Amazon and the peoples who live in it.”

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