Tag: cop30

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.

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.

Cli­mate agree­ment increases money to coun­tries hit by extreme weather

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.”

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.

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.

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

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

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 rain forest. 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 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.

“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.”

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

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.

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.”