By Will Worley
I was spared the grating jargonistic platitudes of attending the COP30 UN Climate summit in Belém, Brazil, and settled instead for disappointment from afar. Non-attendance may not have been ideal, but it did mean I wasn’t (for once) caught up in the noise of the circus, and could focus more on what ultimately matters: the negotiated outcomes.
And – in a world that now has to officially accept “overshoot” of the 1.5C target and increasingly dangerous levels of climate change – these outcomes did not come close to meeting the moment. In a clear demonstration of the danger, more than 1,300 people have been killed in the few days since COP30 ended on 22 November as devastating floods hit Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, and Thailand.
Preventing the worst effects of disasters like these requires climate adaptation to do things like build infrastructure and early warning systems. That, in turn, requires climate adaptation finance – and a lot of it. It’s a funding stream that has always been way short of what is required, and any hope that COP30 might urgently change that equation withered after governments could only agree to a target to triple it to $120 billion by 2035. As is being so clearly demonstrated right now across southern Asia, the money is needed immediately to prepare for the next decade – which the science tells us is all but guaranteed to see an escalation in catastrophic climate disasters. Loss and damage finance also remains gravely low and, while it is far more politically contentious than adaptation finance, it will now be needed in far bigger volumes given the latter’s shortfall.
What few positives greeted COP30’s deal generally dealt with the multilateral process being kept alive and some intangible political space being created for future talks. But incrementalism does not meet the moment of a world locked into overshooting 1.5C of warming, with all the associated and cascading risks.
What humanitarians had to say about COP
Despite a smaller presence than previous recent years, some humanitarians did go to Belém, and even found room for optimism. Notably, this was often around outcomes away from the official negotiations.
I asked two such people why they showed up, and if it was worth the cost in austere times for humanitarian budgets. Here’s what they said.
Wabbes was particularly enthusiastic about the Global Climate Action Agenda, an initiative run by Brazil outside the negotiations bringing together a wide range of climate-related programmes, many predating COP30. These “solutions are essential to accompany and drive the UNFCCC’s slower official negotiation agenda, but also to reduce the humanitarian situations in the medium term,” she said. Wabbes told me there were roles for humanitarian actors within the Agenda, particularly on aspects focusing on food systems, social protection, and reducing hunger and poverty.
But my initial take is that the projects the Agenda lists are extremely broad, and will require funding that is hard to come by. Nowhere in the Agenda is the word “humanitarian” mentioned, nor are other core humanitarian concerns like “conflict”, “fragility”, “refugees”, or even the word “politics” (“political” is mentioned four times, twice in relation to marine ecosystems). Some experts have expressed concern that the Brazilian leadership of COP30 avoided dealing with the politics or violence that often cause crises like hunger. The Agenda does have a section dedicated to “Early Warnings Systems and disaster response”, which highlights a report showing massive gaps in the UN’s Early Warnings for All initiative, which plans to help protect the entire global population from extreme weather by 2027.
What next?
Given the paucity of tangible negotiated outcomes with real-world impact for communities in crisis, it’s very possible climate diplomacy needs a wholesale rethink, such are the fundamental paradoxes bedevilling the COP process.
Here are some of them (informed by my experience also covering humanitarian policy and aid budgets):
- Climate change is a highly time sensitive problem.
- But the COP process requires total consensus. It can be held hostage to countries that have no intention of ever meaningfully contributing to climate justice or the green transition, and who seek to maximise their fossil fuel revenues before renewables take over.
- Global political conditions since the 2015 Paris Agreement have fundamentally changed – the 1992 UNFCCC categorisation of “developed” and “developing” countries even more so. Many leaders appear to have calculated it as in their interest to ignore, manage, or take advantage of existential climate risk rather than damage their economies by preventing it. Climate diplomacy is, therefore, very clearly no longer a bubble insulated from wider politics. And while countries demand their sovereignty is protected, the COP process seeks to shake up established economies and strategic advantages for powerful petro-players.
- There is a general retreat from international cooperation (sometimes in favour of transactionalism) and decreased willingness among Global North governments to spend taxpayers’ money in international institutions that often seem opaque, distant, and ineffective. But climate finance – which has been slow to grow and set big targets – is needed in ever-greater amounts as climate impacts intensify.
- Campaigners often demand climate finance comes in the form of grants – from the public purse. But voters in the donor countries expected to cough up are increasingly feeling the pinch, and did not cause an outcry when aid budgets – which can help save lives now (compared to adaptation saving lives in the future) – were almost universally cut this year. Aid, like climate, also used to enjoy big targets and wide support.
- Climate action is legally binding under the 2015 Paris Agreement, among others. But the collapse of international humanitarian law and norms – which should provide immediate support for people in violent conflicts – shows the fragility of international agreements when political support falls.
- In tense times, it’s not unreasonable to think countries opposed to the COP process will pull out the moment their presence stops being useful for them (Trump has now twice withdrawn the United States). Why should the prospect of future climate-related damage and deaths hold more sway than humanitarian law that protects lives now?
So if the main COP process has become intractable, what is the way forward?
Perhaps the answer lies in “minilateralism” – coalitions of like-minded countries taking forward the climate agenda outside of the UN climate talks. After it became clear the COP30 deal would be completed without reference to fossil fuels – the ultimate cause of dangerous climate change – a new initiative launched in Belém.
The First International Conference on the Just Transition Away from Fossil Fuels will be co-hosted by Colombia and the Netherlands in April 2026, with a follow-up event to be held by Pacific nations. The plan is for the scheme to run alongside the COP and “identify legal, economic, and social pathways that are necessary to make the phasing out of fossil fuels”, said Irene Vélez Torres, Colombia’s Minister of Environment and Sustainable Development, at a press conference in Belém.
“As difficult as it can be, we also know that this conversation cannot end here,” said Vélez Torres. “We must keep the momentum, lead with bravery, rise to the challenge, and build a coalition of the willing.”
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The New Humanitarian puts quality, independent journalism at the service of the millions of people affected by humanitarian crises around the world. Find out more at www.thenewhumanitarian.org.