The Controversies
The annual UN Climate Change Conferences (COPs) are intended to be neutral platforms for global consensus, yet they are increasingly being held in nations whose domestic policies contradict the goals of the Paris Agreement.
For climate advocates, hosting negotiations in oil-dependent, rights-restricting nations represents a conflict of interest, often serving to legitimise their questionable environmental record while limiting the fundamental right to protest. This stands in direct contradiction to the Just Transition Work Programme (JTWP) that formally embeds equity and human rights into the UNFCCC process. The JTWP mandates countries to pursue people-centred pathways, safeguarding the most vulnerable. Since fulfilling this mandate necessitates open civic space and the freedom to dissent, hosting negotiations in petro-autocracies known for actively suppressing these very rights creates an institutional contradiction that severely undercuts the credibility of the entire governance system [1]. This was evident at COP27 in Egypt, an authoritarian state where civil society faced extreme surveillance, followed by COP28 (UAE) and COP29 (Azerbaijan) – both major petrostates. The legitimacy of these summits was further weakened by concerns over greenwashing, notably with the COP28 President being the CEO of the UAE’s state oil company and Azerbaijani leadership facing accusations of suppressing dissent [2]. This history of conflicted hosts and heightened geopolitical and environmental fears places significant pressure on COP30 in Belém, Brazil, to deliver an inflection point that challenges the integrity of the climate process.
The choice of Belém was intended to symbolise a critical course correction. It is the first COP to be held in the world’s most vital terrestrial carbon sink. It promised a renewed global focus on nature-based solutions and the rights of Indigenous communities. Yet, this choice is being shadowed by a local contradiction.
The preparation for the 50,000+ expected attendees has led to the exponential development of infrastructure [3]. Although this has offered benefits for the local economy in terms of jobs and lasting improvements to urban public infrastructure, the mass-scale construction has also had serious environmental ramifications [4]. Most contentious is the construction of the Avenida Liberdade, a multi-lane expressway intended to ease traffic. Its route cuts directly through the Belém Metropolitan Environmental Protection Area (APA), one of the last fragments of rainforest in the metropolitan region. Global environmental groups and local academics have warned the clearance of the rainforest risks severe consequences for local wildlife, including irreparable habitat fragmentation and heightened roadkill risk for hundreds of species [5]. This act of clearing ecologically sensitive land for a climate conference is the physical embodiment of the very hypocrisy civil society has been railing against.
Beyond the highway, broader policy actions erode Brazil’s climate credibility. Despite President Lula’s administration placing conservation high on its agenda, it has simultaneously pursued oil exploration in the Equatorial Margin, near the Amazon River mouth. This project, which includes an upcoming auction of 47 drilling blocks, is a direct contradiction to COP30’s purpose. A critical issue is the FZA-M-59 drilling block, where the state-owned oil company, Petrobras, backed by powerful political figures within the administration, exerted intense pressure on the federal environmental agency (IBAMA) to override its own technical staff and allow licensing to proceed [6]. An oil spill in this area would be uncontrollable and could detrimentally impact up to eight neighbouring countries, directly threatening the Amazon Reef System and the world’s largest continuous mangrove belt [7]. Not only that but such a move violates the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) warning that to meet the 1.5 degree target, no new fossil fuel projects can be approved .
Ultimately, Belém, like its predecessors, forces delegates and observers to confront a difficult question: can global climate action truly succeed when its negotiations seem to simultaneously cause local environmental degradation and the perpetuation of the very fossil fuel interests the process is designed to phase out?
The Key Negotiation Points
The COP30, to be held in Belém do Pará in 2025, will mark a decisive moment for the global climate regime. Taking place ten years after the Paris Agreement, it is an opportunity to assess global progress to-date and to realign ambition, equity, and implementation. The negotiations will focus on strengthening mitigation commitments, scaling up adaptation, and ensuring reliable climate finance. The Brazilian presidency will also use its Action Agenda to mobilize broader participation and link climate action to social justice and development.
1. Mitigation and Updated NDCs
Parties are expected to present new and more ambitious Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) for the period beyond 2030. Negotiations will address how countries can close the emissions gap by accelerating the phase-out of fossil fuels, scaling up renewable energy, and improving energy efficiency. A particular focus will be on aligning NDCs with biodiversity, adaptation, and sustainable development objectives, as well as on supporting implementation through technology and capacity building.
2. Adaptation and Loss & Damage
COP30 will also advance discussions on the Global Goal on Adaptation, with an emphasis on defining measurable targets and indicators. Another crucial item will be the operationalisation of the Loss and Damage Fund, agreed at COP28, ensuring rapid, accessible, and equitable financing for vulnerable countries. These negotiations are directly tied to justice and resilience: addressing how climate impacts can be managed without deepening inequalities or creating new dependencies.
3. Climate Finance
After the partial fulfillment of the USD 100 billion annual commitment, COP30 is expected to establish a new collective quantified goal for climate finance — estimated at around USD 1.3 trillion per year by 2035. The “Baku-to-Belém Roadmap” aims to define pathways for scaling both public and private finance, reforming multilateral banks, and integrating adaptation and just transition funding. Transparency and accountability in financial flows will be a key element of the negotiations.
4. Transparency, Reporting and Global Stocktake Follow-Up
The implementation of Biennial Transparency Reports (BTRs) and the alignment between national reporting systems will remain central to the post-Paris architecture. Countries will debate how to ensure consistency across NDCs, national adaptation plans (NAPs), and long-term low-emission strategies. Subnational governments, cities, and private actors are increasingly part of this discussion, reflecting the multi-level nature of climate governance.
5. Just Transition and Sustainable Development
Discussions on just transition will focus on the social dimensions of climate action — employment, education, skills, and protection of vulnerable communities. The objective is to guarantee that decarbonisation pathways are equitable and inclusive, linking climate policies to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). COP30 will likely feature strong narratives around poverty reduction, green jobs, and local resilience.
6. Gender, Inclusion, and Climate Justice
A key expectation at Belem is the adoption of a renewed Gender Action Plan (GAP), with measurable objectives and funding mechanisms to mainstream gender equality across all areas of the UNFCCC process — mitigation, adaptation, finance, and transparency. The participation of women, youth, Indigenous peoples, and persons with disabilities will be emphasized as essential to climate governance and justice.
7. Article 6 and International Cooperation
Negotiations on Article 6 of the Paris Agreement — concerning carbon markets and cooperative approaches — will continue to be complex. Parties aim to finalize robust rules to ensure environmental integrity, to avoid double counting, and to promote real emissions reductions. Technology transfer, capacity building, and South–South cooperation will also be central, especially as developing countries seek greater access to innovation and data.
Beyond the formal UNFCCC negotiations, the Brazilian presidency has launched an Action Agenda – a mobilisation platform connecting governments, the private sector, and civil society. It articulates six thematic axes and thirty key objectives, translating global climate goals into tangible areas of collaboration.
The six axes are:
- Transition in the energy, industry, and transport sectors – tripling renewables, doubling efficiency, expanding access to clean energy, and accelerating a fair and equitable fossil-fuel phase-out.
- Sustainable management of forests, oceans, and biodiversity – halting deforestation, restoring ecosystems, and conserving nature through biodiversity-based and community-driven solutions.
- Transformation of agriculture and food systems – promoting sustainable agriculture, resilient food systems, and equitable access to adequate nutrition.
- Building resilience in cities, infrastructure, and water systems – advancing sustainable urban planning, water management, and waste management.
- Promotion of human and social development – fostering health resilience, poverty eradication, education, employment, and cultural heritage linked to climate action.
- Cross-cutting enablers – including climate finance, adaptation funding, carbon market harmonization, innovation, AI and digital infrastructure, and state capacity for planning and governance.
The Action Agenda emphasizes that climate action must “begin and end with people”, integrating the voices of women and girls, youth and children, Indigenous peoples, traditional and rural communities, and marginalized groups living in cities and coastal areas.While these thirty objectives are not formal negotiation items, they frame the political priorities of the COP30 presidency and help align global momentum with local implementation, especially across the Amazon region and other territories most affected by climate change.
The Role of Youth and Civil Society
Non-state actors is a term used to refer to all those who attend COP30 as observers, rather than formally as Parties (a status reserved for states). These could be charities, campaigns, or any non-governmental organisation with a stake in the outcome of the conference. Within that, The UNFCCC groups all of these organisations into nine official constituencies according to who they represent. For instance, one of the largest and most influential constituencies is YOUNGO, which consists of every NGO that is made up of, or represents, children and youth. Other key players are TUNGO (any NGO representing a Trade Union) and ENGO (environmental NGOs, also known as the Climate Action Network).
These groupings are fairly vague in order to encompass all of civil society, but that isn’t to say that these groups don’t act as one. In fact, each constituency will coordinate their own internal positions on the key issues of negotiations, and convey them to the UNFCCC and all Parties. That could be through official statements read out during plenary sessions, or by proposing technical recommendations or specific language to be included in draft texts.
Before they even reach Belém, these organisations would have spent the last months campaigning, organising, and strategising on how best to influence the outcome of negotiations on the ground; even though non-state actors are not granted formal voting power, their impact is significant and they make up an essential part of the UNFCCC “ecosystem”.
Different groups will have different hopes, fears and ambitions going into COP30, which reflect their constituencies. The YOUNGO’s Strategic Policy Position urges the COP30 leadership to support more measures that could lead to intergenerational equity, such as engaging more authentically with the recommendations that YOUNGO collects each year, and working to promote youth attendance on the ground. The equivalent for the Women and Gender Constituency, or WGC – consisting of all feminist groups at COP30 – calls for gender-responsive finance and more meaningful participation of women in negotiations and planning for fossil fuel phase-out. Meanwhile, the statements published by the International Indigenous Peoples’ Forum on Climate Change will consistently stress land rights as a high priority, as they fear that land-use decisions are being taken without indigenous peoples’ free and informed consent.
At Belém specifically, the priorities of non-state actors are likely to roughly converge around a few main points, reflecting what the key issues are in negotiations at this COP. The oft-celebrated “Baku-to-Belém” roadmap revealed itself to be lacking in key areas. Chief among them, it didn’t seem to have a plan to actually pay for implementing the Just Transition. Still, the fact that the Just Transition was officially tabled in the UN climate process should be seen as an excellent sign: after years of pressure, the Just Transition has moved from the periphery to the core focus of climate negotiations within the UNFCCC. We can expect to see renewed discussion and engagement around the Just Transition; the fact that Parties have finally recognised the importance of protections for workers and vulnerable groups could mean that civil society groups are coming to this COP with new energy and new hope. Three civil society groups we’re likely to hear from are the Climate Action Network, the WGC, and TUNGO, who have been pushing for this for a very long time.
Whether civil society groups can keep up the momentum of this victory and celebrate a formally adopted Just Transition Plan at COP30 remains to be seen.
Another aspect of negotiations with high attention is the Paris Agreement Crediting Mechanism which is finally set to become operational. Civil society groups will likely be pushing for rights-based safeguards – such as Indigenous Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) – to be embedded in any mechanisms implemented, and to make sure that carbon offsetting schemes don’t hurt vulnerable communities. From the perspective of civil-society groups like TUNGO, whose main priority is workers’ rights, any carbon credit system needs to be committed to social justice and equity. Otherwise, it risks becoming just another way for the most powerful players in society to pay their way out of real emissions cuts.
Hopes & Expectations
While the past 30 years of negotiations have failed to deliver the climate ambition and justice that the world needs, COP30 in Belém marks a potential turning point. Recent legal developments have clarified States’ responsibilities for climate action, transforming moral imperatives into tangible legal duties. In light of these developments, this year’s COP presents a critical opportunity to reset climate negotiations, and ensure that legal obligations take precedence over political interests.
Two landmark Advisory Opinions from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) and the International Court of Justice (ICJ) have denied polluters’ attempts to evade responsibility and to downplay their legal duties to prevent and remedy harm stemming from the climate crisis. These Courts found that ambitious climate action is not a political option; rather, it is a legal responsibility meaning that States could face legal consequences for inaction.
To meet their legal obligations at t COP30, States must set NDCs that reflect their country’s highest ambition and that are capable of keeping warming to 1.5 degrees Celcius. It is no longer acceptable for countries to settle for weak commitments or empty statements; the era of empty promises, diversionary rhetoric, and obstruction by major emitters must come to an end.
Both courts have made it clear that developed countries have a legal duty to provide real finance to meet mitigation and adaptation goals at scale. This obligation acknowledges both the historical responsibility of high-emitting nations and the rights of those least responsible for the crisis but most affected by it. Wealthier countries must also ensure effective redress and reparations for the harms they have caused and continue to cause — starting with meaningful contributions to the Loss and Damage Fund. Their commitments to climate finance for mitigation, adaptation, and loss and damage must be made not as acts of goodwill, but as binding legal responsibilities.
These legal developments offer hope that the days of too little ambition and too many broken promises are over. Youth, Indigenous Peoples, frontline communities, and advocates have been fighting for decades, but this year we have something new in our arsenal – clear messages from the world’s highest courts that the law is on our side.
