The world is starting to shift away from fossil fuels. Renewable energy now generates 30 per cent of global electricity, and investments in clean energy have reached US$2.4 trillion, more than double fossil fuel investments. Yet COP30, the latest United Nations (UN) climate summit held in Belém, Brazil in November, again failed to make any political commitment to accelerate the end of fossil fuel use. In a year scientists say will be the second or third hottest on record, with the others being 2023 and 2024, COP30 showed just how hard international cooperation on this urgent threat to humanity has become.

2025 is a very different time from 1992, when the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change was agreed. The state of multilateralism has deteriorated significantly even since 2015, when states near-unanimously adopted the Paris Agreement. Some states are now nakedly pursuing narrow self-interest, striking transactional deals and pulling out of international processes. For the first time, not a single representative of the US federal government was present, since the Trump administration is withdrawing from the Paris Agreement. This meant the world’s second-biggest current greenhouse gas emitter and largest fossil fuel exporter couldn’t be held to account or pressured to do better as part of the COP process.

The best that can be said is that COP30 kept alive the principle of states negotiating on the climate crisis, even if some did so in better faith than others. The deal reached following chaotic and fractious final negotiations may have been the best possible in the circumstances, but it’s nowhere near enough. COP30 took small steps when big leaps are needed.

Fossil fuels overlooked

In some respects, this COP was sadly typical. Talks overran, and at one point it seemed the meeting might end without any agreement, before a hurried ending that left many global south states unhappy. As ever, the key sticking point was the main driver of the climate crisis: the continued extraction and use of fossil fuels. It took until COP28 in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) before the summit’s declaration mentioned fossil fuels, recording a vague commitment to ‘transition away from’ them. But there was no such language the following year at COP29, held in Azerbaijan. Having slipped up by allowing fossil fuels to be mentioned, petrostates were determined to avoid a repeat.

The same battle ensued at COP30. Ultimately an initiative led by Brazil succeeded in establishing a voluntary process to develop a roadmap for fossil fuel phaseout, which will present its findings and recommendations at COP31. This is less than states on the frontlines of climate change wanted, but it was hard to achieve. The idea wasn’t on the official agenda, but over 80 states demanded a roadmap, and when the Marshall Islands’ representative spoke in favour of it at a press conference, ministers from 20 countries lined up behind her to show support. The roadmap made it into one draft agreement text only to disappear in the next following the intervention of Russia, Saudi Arabia and other Arab states, after which at least 29 states threatened to walk out unless it was included.

The focus now shifts to a conference on transitioning away from fossil fuels to be hosted by Colombia and the Netherlands next April. The roadmap’s development will take place outside official COP processes, but when it reports at COP31, states that support climate action will have an opportunity to push for the conference to adopt it.

The same happened with discussions on the Global Implementation Accelerator, another voluntary initiative the summit created to try to speed up implementation of climate commitments. In setting this up, the COP30 text for the first time recognised that global temperature rises are likely to exceed 1.5 degrees above preindustrial levels, the ceiling the Paris Agreement was supposed to limit them to. But after discussions long into the night, the text doesn’t mention fossil fuels, instead referencing the ‘UAE consensus’, intended to be read as a reaffirmation of COP28’s acknowledgement of fossil fuels.

The fossil fuel taboo reflected two enduring weaknesses of the process. The first is the heavy role of fossil fuel lobbyists. Over 1,600 were present in Belém, collectively outnumbering almost all national delegations. The second is the need to make decisions by consensus. A single state can block a decision, and some frequently do, with major oil and gas producers Russia and Saudi Arabia particularly obstructive. Immense efforts accordingly go into arguing over the finer points of language and seeking weak compromises no state will veto.

It was a similar story for deforestation, a headline issue for Brazil. The deforestation goal agreed at COP26 is off-track and the COP30 text made no suggestions on how to address this. Brazil was able to use COP30 to launch a new initiative, the Tropical Forest Forever Facility, which will make payments to countries for preserving rather than exploiting rainforests. But this has so far attracted little funding and many in civil society reject it for its market-based approach, which doesn’t engage with the structural drivers of deforestation, and for its lack of focus on Indigenous peoples and local communities. Aside from this fund, the meeting ended with Brazil agreeing to lead efforts to develop a deforestation roadmap outside official COP processes.

Overall, on big issues where consensus is blocked, the focus has now shifted to voluntary coalitions of states working outside official processes. This means states that take the climate crisis seriously can at least work together, and civil society may gain new entry points for engagement. But it also lets states determined to avoid climate action off the hook. The need to create voluntary coalitions on key issues is the clearest possible sign that COP processes aren’t working.

Spotlight on Brazil

While Brazil led some important initiatives, it didn’t emerge from the summit with a clean reputation.

The government had wanted to host COP30, and hold it in the Amazon, to highlight the importance of protecting the Amazon, reversing deforestation and respecting the rights of Indigenous peoples in climate action. But months before COP30, it approved an array of oil and gas drilling licences at the mouth of the Amazon. Additionally in August, the opposition-led congress forced through a law slashing environmental protections, with President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva vetoing some particularly destructive clauses.

During COP30, Brazil designated 10 new Indigenous territories, including one in the Amazon, extending cultural and environmental protections. And there were more Indigenous people at COP than before, able to take part in activities such as discussions in the meeting’s Amazon Zone. But other Indigenous representatives complained of not being represented in the deliberations, and of participation being tokenistic.

On 12 November, hundreds took part in an Indigenous-led protest against continuing extraction and the lack of human rights protections. As part of this, dozens forced their way into the venue’s ‘blue zone’, the space for official negotiations, leading to scuffles with security officers. After that, civil society complained that the beefed-up security, with armed officers deployed, brought a militarised air to the meeting, compromising accessibility and chilling the potential for peaceful protests.

Tens of thousands nonetheless took part in a march outside the meeting venue on 15 November, with others joining related protests around the world. This was a step forward from the previous three COP summits, in Egypt, the UAE and Azerbaijan, all countries with closed civic space where mass protest is impossible.

President Lula also used his influence to force some progress on financing, a big sticking point in recent negotiations. There’s a huge gap between what global south countries need to adapt to climate change and what global north states are prepared to provide. After Lula used the concurrent G20 summit in South Africa to persuade European Union (EU) states to drop their opposition, COP30 supported the tripling of the amount available for adaptation to US$120 billion a year. However, the text ‘calls for efforts’ rather than directly committing to the funding boost, and climate financing targets have a habit of not being met. Even if this one is, the timetable isn’t until 2035, and it falls far short of the target agreed at COP29 of US$310 billion a year. There was also precious little discussion of the Paris Agreement’s Global Goal on Adaptation. The continuing evasiveness of global north states when it comes to funding can only fuel distrust in the process among global south states.

Some gains but large gaps

Another noteworthy step came with agreement to launch the Belém Action Mechanism (BAM), a just transition work programme that civil society has strongly urged for several years. The concept of a just transition recognises that the shift to low-emission economies must come with human rights protections, including for workers’ rights and livelihoods. Without this, fossil fuel industry workers face unemployment while those in transition-related industries, such as mining minerals for renewable technologies, risk exploitation.

What was agreed fell short of civil society’s hopes, notably excluding the minerals industry from the final text. Right-wing governments, including Argentina, delayed negotiations by disputing definitions of gender. But the decision is an important step forward, bringing social justice considerations into UN climate negotiations and explicitly recognising the importance of human rights. The decision will see the creation of a just transition coordination platform, and civil society will be pushing for this to be realised with ambition, backed with resources and create space for participation.

Other important issues went largely unacknowledged. COP30 made no decisions about agriculture, a major source of emissions. It failed to take adequate account of the groundbreaking International Court of Justice ruling that established states’ obligations to prevent climate harm, despite pressure from Caribbean and Latin American states and Vanuatu, which went to the court in response to a civil society campaign. And while the summit produced some language about reforming future COP processes, it said nothing to suggest this will entail excluding fossil fuel lobbyists, encouraging good faith negotiations or ending petrostate veto powers.

The meeting was never going to achieve enough. States made this clear in advance. Under the Paris Agreement, all states were required to submit new and more ambitious emissions cuts plans, known as Nationally Determined Contributions, ahead of COP30, but almost all missed the February deadline. By the summit’s end, 122 states had complied, but with notable holdouts including India, the world’s third biggest emitter. If fully implemented, these plans would lead to emissions cuts of 10 per cent by 2035 compared to 2019 levels, which isn’t nearly enough. Estimates are that global temperatures would still rise between 2.3 and 2.5 degrees by 2100.

A lot is left to Brazil, as the current sitting president, to drive stronger progress now the meeting is over, particularly on the new voluntary processes created, and civil society will keep urging the Brazilian government to drive progress and not get distracted. But when it comes to the next summit, where initiatives such as the fossil fuel roadmap are set to report, the consensus-based decision-making process has thrown up another odd compromise that leaves no one happy.

Australia and Turkey had been vying to host COP31. Australia’s bid, positioned as a partnership with Pacific Island nations, had won widespread support, but Turkey refused to give ground, blocking consensus. The compromise solution gave Turkey hosting rights while Australia will lead negotiations. This means Pacific Islands have lost a chance to shed the global spotlight on their frontline status, while civil society will be concerned about limits on its ability to mobilise and protest, given Turkey’s repressed civic space. There’s clear potential for the two countries to disagree, and they have just a year to prepare.

Beyond the conference

But outside COP processes, the news isn’t all bad. Renewable energies are becoming cheaper and more widely used, with Asian countries leading the way. China didn’t step into the leadership vacuum at COP30, being reluctant to be seen as shouldering the burden while the USA stayed away and the EU was compromised by internal divisions. But while it remains the world’s biggest greenhouse gas emitter, it’s also on its way to becoming the world’s first ‘electrostate’ – the post-fossil fuels equivalent of a petrostate – with huge investments in renewables, electric vehicles and high-speed railways. It now makes more money from exporting renewable energy technology than the USA does from fossil fuels.

China still burns a lot of coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel, but this is on its way out: globally, more energy is now produced from renewable sources than coal. During COP30, South Korea, the world’s fourth largest importer of thermal coal, announced plans to phase out its coal power plants – a move that undermines the economic rationale for other countries to keep extracting coal. This includes Australia, the world’s second biggest thermal coal producer, where the government says it expects its coal and gas export earnings to fall by half in the next five years.

Some countries – including Costa Rica, Ethiopia and Nepal – are now generating pretty much all the electricity they consume from renewable sources. Bhutan, which pioneered the notion of measuring national happiness rather than national income, now promotes itself as the world’s first carbon-negative country, with its forests absorbing more greenhouse gases than the country produces. And while Trump stayed at home, making a show of welcoming Saudi Arabia’s leader Mohammed bin Salman, an array of leaders of US states and cities are driving local change regardless.

The world has probably already passed its peak oil moment and is reaching tipping points in switching to renewables. Investors, informed by civil society advocacy, are coming to recognise that betting on continued fossil fuel demand and the development of further extractive sites is a losing proposition. But oil companies and petrostates know this too, and are fighting desperately to delay the transition for as long as possible. Climate denial has given way to delay, because delay means continued profits.

They can slow but not turn back the tide. Yet delays matter, because the longer transition takes, the more harm accumulates and the longer greenhouse gases choke the Earth’s atmosphere. Emissions are falling, but not quickly enough – but every reduction helps, because limiting warming by even a fraction of a degree can make a difference to millions of lives.

Civil society is driving progress through practical projects, shareholder activism, climate litigation, policy advocacy, direct action and mass protests, often paying a heavy price as state and corporate repression intensifies. Civil society will maintain whatever COP engagement is possible because every gain matters, but the struggle for climate justice is being fought on all fronts, and it’s this cumulative pressure, not summit compromises, that will determine the pace of change.

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