Negotiations surrounding the final document of the 30th United Nations Conference on Climate Change (COP30) have not yet concluded, even though there are just a few hours left before the end of the event.at 11:59 pm this Friday (21). If countries do not reach consensus by this time, the Negotiations may continue during the early hours of the morning or resume this Saturday (22).
Early in the morning, drafts of the texts under discussion were released, the so-called Belém Package. Civil society representatives criticized the lack of ambition among nations to pursue the climate goals set out in the Paris Agreementwhich seeks to contain the increase in the planet’s temperature by up to 1.5ºC, as a limit so that the planet does not enter a serious cycle of environmental catastrophes.
One of the main points of frustration is the absence of a road map for the gradual elimination of fossil fuelssuch as oil and coal, which are mainly responsible for gas emissions that cause global warming. The Brazilian government, and especially President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, was very insistent on approving a text that addressed some proposed implementation schedule for this energy transition, which ended up not being materialized.
For the Climate Observatory, a network that brings together hundreds of civil society entities, the proposed text on this topic ended up taking into account the interests of oil-producing countries.
“There is no mention of fossil fuels in any of the texts, which makes any answer here insufficient. In the part about financing, [o rascunho] creates a two-year program on public financing. But how do you make a connection with article 9? [do Acordo de Paris] as a whole, we have to wait and see the reaction of the Arab countries to see if this will be enough”, pointed out Stela Herschmann, climate policy specialist at the Observatory.
Throughout the day, negotiating groups, which are articulations of countries that usually negotiate together, such as the African Group, the European Union, Arab countries, the China+77 bloc, among others, spent the day in negotiations and disputes over the direction of the documents.
A group of 29 countries, including Colombia, Germany, France, the United Kingdom and island nations such as the Marshall Islands and Vanuatu, the latter strongly threatened by rising oceans, reacted by calling for an immediate review of the text under analysis.
“We cannot support a result that does not include the roadmap for implementing a fair, orderly and equitable transition,” stated the group that proposes holding an international conference next year to deal precisely with the elimination of fossil fuels.
“We can’t leave here with this bitter taste in our mouths,” said Carolina Pasquali, executive director of Greenpeace Brazil.
“There is a group of countries that are always against it, Saudi Arabia, for example, India, and others that are complaining that they did not come here with this mandate to discuss fossil fuels. Yesterday, we had a small fire here that did not turn into a major tragedy because it was dealt with urgently, the firefighters and professionals treated the fire with the urgency that they demand of us and we are here today working”, he added.
Renowned Scientists also published a letter criticizing the lack of mention of fossil fuels in COP30 documents and warn of a scenario in which the global average temperature could rise above 2ºC, which would be an existential threat to human life on the planet.
Amidst disagreements, both the president of COP30, ambassador André Corrêa do Lago, and the secretary-general of the United Nations, António Guterres, agreed demonstrated throughout the day calling for consensus and urging countries to achieve concrete results.
Advances achieved
In the field of adaptation, which is the concept that relates to the set of climate actions to make communities more resilient to extreme events, COP30 managed to generate some advances.
Proposal from the Brazilian presidency presented an attached list of 59 adaptation indicatorsless than the 100 initially predicted. This is called GGA, its acronym in English. These indicators define means of implementation that talk about international public financing from developed countries to developing countries.
“We also have the establishment of a new process, which is the process from Belém to Addis, in Ethiopia, which has the function of aligning adaptation policies and bringing safeguards for the implementation of indicators, which is a demand that comes from African countries. And we still have the Baku Adaptation Roadmap in the text, on the other hand, also fulfilling this coordination function between adaptation agendas. On the other hand, we still do not have the text of the new financing target in this presidency proposal. It was moved to the joint effort’s decision, with still weak language about tripling funding for adaptation, without clearly saying where this funding comes from, so we need to see how countries will react to this proposal”, highlighted Daniel Porcel, specialist at the Talanoa Institute.
The climate policy specialist at The Nature Conservancy (TNC), Fernanda Bortolotto, highlights the mitigation work plan that “recognized indigenous rights and traditional peoples, across the territories, as a long-term policy to help combat climate change”.
On the topic related to the Work Program on Just Transition, there was an important advance, in the evaluation of the entities that monitor the subject, which is the provision of a multilateral instrument, within the scope of the UN Secretariat on Climate Change (UNFCCC), that promotes actions on the so-called just transition.
“There is an option in the text, which still needs to be adopted, deciding to develop a mechanism, next year, whose functions will be outlined at the session of the subsidiary bodies in Bonn [Alemanha]also combining with a recommendation for the new mandate, new cycle of the Work Program for Just Transition, to be adopted at COP31”, said the executive director of the LACLIMA institute, Caroline Rocha.
