Experts react to COP30 outcome

While lack of ambition on a fossil fuel phase-out roadmap and adaptation finance was noted, progress on forests, information integrity and Indigenous rights offers hope.

André Corrêa do Lago, COP30 President, Brazil (Photo: © UN Climate Change - Kiara Worth)

Jennifer Morgan, former German climate envoy

“While far from what’s needed, the outcome in Belem is meaningful progress. The Paris Agreement is working, the transition away from fossil fuels agreed in Dubai is accelerating. Despite the efforts of major oil producing states to slow down the green transition, multilateralism continues to support the interests of the whole world in tackling the climate crisis.”

Linda Kalcher, Executive Director, Strategic Perspectives

“This COP was the manifestation of a new geopolitical reality. Trade, investment deals and concrete initiatives on energy and deforestation are the defining themes of Belém. Clear steps will need to follow before COP31 in Turkey, showing how countries address the gaps on NDCs, investments and resilience. The EU and its allies including in Latin America defended their core interest in accelerating the energy transition despite strong opposition from major fossil producers. The phase down will start with the 80+ countries that will harvest the economic and security benefits of doing so.”

Marcio Astrini, executive secretary, Observatório do Clima, Brazil

“COP30 failed to address the urgency of responding to the climate crisis on the verge of overshooting 1.5, but it nonetheless provided crucial political momentum for the transition away from fossil fuels and the end of deforestation. President Lula’s determination to create a roadmap for overcoming our dependence on fossil fuels has gathered support from 80-plus countries and made this conversation inevitable in 2026”.

Jiwoh Abdulai, Minister of Environment and Climate Change, Sierra Leone

“COP30 has not delivered everything Africa asked for, but it has moved the needle. There is clearer recognition that those with historical responsibility have specific duties on climate finance, and public finance remains at the core of adaptation, not an afterthought to private capital. We have made progress on just transition and on technology and capacity, but not yet at the scale that science and justice demand. For Sierra Leone this is a floor, not a ceiling. We will judge this outcome by how quickly these words turn into real projects that protect lives and livelihoods.”

Marcelo Behar, Special Envoy for Bioeconomy COP30 said:

“We’ve just witnessed forest and Indigenous rights being catapulted from the margins, to the epicentre of climate talks. From the three tropical forest basins, to the furthest corners of Europe, leaders have come behind a new centre of gravity for Nature finance - the TFFF and the Earth Investment Engine. Forest countries have been asking for years to be consistently compensated for protecting ecosystems that provide climate, food and water security to all of us around the world. This COP has answered those calls.”

Charlotte Scaddan, Senior Adviser on Information Integrity United Nations (An Architect of the GIIICC and Belem Declaration on Information Integrity on Climate Change):

“The explicit inclusion of ‘information integrity,’ standing alongside the ‘COP of Truth,’ is a genuine watershed moment and a massive victory. It formally recognizes that tackling the climate crisis is inseparable from fighting disinformation—a mandate we have pursued since the launch of the Belem Declaration on Information Integrity on Climate Change and through the dedication of the Global Initiative on Information Integrity for Climate Change (GIIICC) coalition. This historic codification is not just a victory; it is the beginning of a new era for upholding information integrity and ensuring that climate action is driven by verifiable truth.”

Ali Mohamed, Special Climate Envoy, Kenya;

“The 30th COP in Belém has reaffirmed both the urgency of climate action and the disproportionate risks faced by the most vulnerable. Kenya, and Africa, stand ready to lead in the transition to clean energy, but resilience and adaptation cannot remain afterthoughts for a continent responsible for less than four per cent of global emissions. Developed countries must finally honor their finance commitments, especially adaptation finance, and recognize Africa’s central role in the global shift to a cleaner, greener economy.”

Kate Logan, Director of China Climate Hub and Climate Diplomacy at the Asia Society Policy Institute, said:

“COP30’s outcome reflects the fractured geopolitical landscape in which it was agreed. The patchwork deal sustains the process, but satisfies few apart from those content to let ambition stall. For the time being, progress will continue to rely primarily on real economy efforts.

With the U.S. absent, China received little pressure in negotiation rooms, and a fragmented EU had limited leverage to accelerate emissions reductions. Officials and media actively highlighted China’s leading role in driving down the cost of clean energy – thus leaving scant incentive for China to make additional promises, despite its underwhelming new climate targets.

For the first time, trade is elevated alongside mitigation and finance as a critical third pillar for climate progress. Amplifying the importance of an open and supportive international trade environment was China’s most active priority at COP30. Trade is likely to remain a key arena for China’s influence within the global climate regime in the years ahead.”

Greenpeace East Asia Beijing-based Global Policy Advisor Yao Zhe said:

“Powerful countries came to Belém ready to defend their redlines. But hardly anyone came prepared to compromise and move the line forward on our collective response to the climate crisis. This mindset of take-and-not-give can only lead negotiators to the lowest common denominator as an outcome. The Mutirão Decision sends a red alert. Ten years on from the Paris Agreement, and transitioning away from fossil fuels disappears from the consensus.

“China’s position is indispensable to break that deadlock. While China’s economy is moving toward a clean future faster than any other major power, its leading role in delivering climate solutions is not yet reflected in multilateral climate talks. China’s climate leadership shouldn’t simply copy that of its Western counterparts. Still, its position should be recalibrated to face the current reality. “

Professor Michael Jacobs of the think tank ODI Global and the University of Sheffield, said:

“The implacable opposition of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Russia and India to any language here on transitioning away from fossil fuels – the long-term goal agreed by all countries, including them, at the COP two years ago – reveals an increasingly bitter conflict at the heart of global climate politics: between those who accept the scientific fact that to deal with climate change the world must wean itself off fossil fuels over the coming decades; and those who are actively resisting this in pursuit of their short term energy interests. The United States was not present here. But it is inconceivable that the COP was not discussed in Donald Trump’s remarkably friendly meeting in the White House with Saudi Arabian leader Mohammed bin Salman this week - or that it was not a part of Trump’s reversion to the Russian side in the Ukraine war, also this week. I think today we have witnessed what the three countries have agreed. Geopolitically, this is the creation of a new Axis of Obstruction - actively promoting fossil fuels and opposed to climate action.”

Carlos Nobre - Science Panel of the Amazon; Fatima Denton - United Nations University; Johan Rockström - Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research; Marina Hirota - Instituto Serrapilheira; Paulo Artaxo - Universidade de São Paulo; Piers Forster - University of Leeds; Thelma Krug - Chair of the COP30 Science Council:

”The truth is that there’s no way to avoid a dangerous temperature overshoot without ending the dependence on fossil fuels by 2040, the latest by 2045. Failing this will push the world into dangerous climate change within 5-10 years, causing increased climate extremes hitting billions of people. At the start of the week, we said COP had a choice - to protect people and life, or the interests of the fossil fuel industry. Despite the best efforts by Brazil and the many countries that worked to unite the world around a roadmap to end our dependence on fossil fuels, opposing forces blocked the deal. They seem to ignore that, unlike the COP venue, we cannot evacuate planet Earth when disaster hits.”

On the new adaptation finance goal in paragraph 53 of the Global Mutirão decision just adopted Joe Thwaites, International Climate Finance Director at NRDC, said:

“Countries agreed a new goal to at least triple adaptation finance by 2035. This complements the overarching international climate finance goals agreed at COP29 last year. While the new goal wasn’t the tripling by 2030 that developing countries wanted, it helps ensure that funding for adaptation will continue to grow as climate impacts continue to rise. Having this goal within the framework of the NCQG means that developed countries take the lead, with other countries encouraged to contribute voluntarily.

“There is ambiguity about the baseline year for the tripling, but given the previous goal to double from 2019 levels is due in 2025, the decision to triple was taken this year, and absent anything saying otherwise, the assumption should be that the baseline year is 2025.

“If the goal of doubling adaptation from 2019 levels by 2025 is met, the new goal will be at least $120 billion per year by 2035. Data on 2025 climate finance would normally be reported in 2027, but if it can be released sooner it would help provide clarity.

“The new tripling goal includes important language on increasing the trajectory of finance provision – even though the deadline is a decade away, developed countries can’t be complacent and must immediately get to work scaling up adaptation support. The goal also notes the NCQG commitments on tripling UNFCCC climate funds, a critical source of grant-based adaptation finance.”