COP30 was presented as a summit centred on implementation. Marking the 10th anniversary of the Paris Agreement, countries were expected to move beyond negotiations and concentrate on accelerating climate action, especially at a moment when the goal to keep global warming below 1.5°C is at risk of slipping out of reach. The urgency to move towards implementation was highlighted by Indigenous communities and youth activists, who staged several protests throughout the two weeks of COP30. The mutirão decision, a word from the Indigenous Tupi-Guarani language that translates to “collective efforts”, which was the main outcome, does affirm countries’ resolve to “decisively transition to a focus on the implementation of the Paris Agreement”.  Yet it was never clearly explained how the process would shift from negotiation to action, even though expectations remained high. 

In practice, COP30 produced a political package that largely reiterates previous agreements and commitments. It highlights both the progress achieved and the gaps that persist, offering mostly procedural outcomes and voluntary initiatives, instead of concrete targets and actionable results. 

Crucially, meaningful decisions on the two most pressing issues: increasing mitigation ambition, including by phasing out fossil fuels, and providing public finance to support climate action in countries in the Global South, were not forthcoming. These two issues are also not unrelated. Many countries in the Global South depend on fossil fuel exports to repay their external debts. Without additional financial support in the form of climate finance, phasing out fossil fuels would leave these countries unable to pay their debts. 

Ultimately, the Global North resisted any calls to make strong commitments on finance, even though this would be in line with their obligations. This failure to act resulted in the unambitious outcome, heavily criticised by civil society and feminist groups. Fossil fuels were not even mentioned, despite more than 80 countries calling for a roadmap to phase them out.

At a time when many voices are calling for a reform of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the apparent inability of the process to provide concrete solutions to the challenges of implementation highlights the urgency of rethinking the functioning and role of these climate negotiations.  

What was achieved: Steps forward for a Just Transition – but the job is not yet done

The most successful outcome of COP30 was the decision under the United Arab Emirates Just Transition Work Programme. Countries agreed to develop a just transition mechanism, popularly known as the Belém Action Mechanism or BAM, to enhance international cooperation, technical assistance, capacity-building, and knowledge-sharing, aiming for it to be operational by COP31 next year. Importantly, the decision acknowledges the need to support just transitions in a manner that does not exacerbate the debt burdens of countries.

The establishment of the just transition mechanism followed a sustained civil society campaign calling for a mechanism to foster coordination and coherence across actors, generate and share knowledge, and identify available technical, financial, and capacity-building support for just transition initiatives.

Beyond establishing the mechanism, the decision stands out for recognising the importance of inclusion and respect for human rights. It acknowledges the need for broad and meaningful participation and recognises the rights not only of workers but also of vulnerable groups, Indigenous Peoples, local communities, migrants and internally displaced persons, people of African descent, women, children, youth, elderly people and persons with disabilities.

Though this is a major win, operationalising the mechanism amid shrinking budgets, both for the UNFCCC and climate action more broadly, still poses significant challenges. The decision’s caveat that “actions of the secretariat called for in this decision be undertaken subject to the availability of financial resources” is a stark reminder that, as seen with the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD), new mechanisms can become empty shells if the resources needed for their functioning do not materialise.

What is still missing? Fossil fuels, finance and reform

COP30 largely failed to respond to the realities of the climate crisis and the demands of vulnerable countries, particularly when it comes to climate finance, and especially in relation to adaptation and mitigation.

After last year’s disappointing outcome of the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG), countries in the Global South sought to refocus discussions on the provision of public climate finance from wealthy countries, in line with Article 9.1 of the Paris Agreement, arguing that this issue was not adequately addressed under the NCQG. They also pushed for more clarity on the provision of adaptation finance. 

Vulnerable countries proposed a target of tripling grant-based public climate finance for adaptation to at least US$120 billion by 2030.They faced strong resistance to this proposal from Global North countries, which sought to tie any future, though undefined, commitment to provide adaptation finance to progress on mitigation ambition. The final outcome was therefore significantly weakened, calling for the tripling of adaptation finance but not specifying that it should be grant-based. The outcome also pushes the deadline forward to 2035.

Additionally, COP30 established two new finance-related processes, with yet-to-be- defined outcomes: a high-level ministerial round table to reflect on NCQG implementation, and a two-year work programme on climate finance addressing Article 9 of the Paris Agreement as a whole.

On mitigation ambition, COP30 failed to outline a clear, multilaterally-agreed pathway to phase out fossil fuels or accelerate action. Instead, the final outcome launched two new, short-term, voluntary, Presidency-led initiatives to support implementation of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and National Adaptation Plans (NAPs): the Global Implementation Accelerator and the “Belém Mission to 1.5.” However, their modalities remain unclear. The concept appears to build on last year’s Baku to Belém Roadmap to 1.3 trillion, which resulted in a joint report by the Presidencies of COP29 and COP30. But the report was released only days before the start of COP30, and while Parties took note of it, they did not agree to act on its recommendations. 

Finally, despite the opportunity created by concluding the Sharm el-Sheikh Dialogue on Article 2.1(c) of the Paris Agreement, and the need to decide on the future of this work, COP30 failed to offer a concrete pathway for addressing much-needed international financial architecture reform. It also failed to address the barriers that the current architecture creates for climate action in the Global South, especially concerning the critical debt situation in many countries. Opportunities to advance discussions on reforms to the international debt architecture, strengthen links to the UN Tax Convention negotiations, or support initiatives to reform the Bretton Woods institutions to support climate finance and climate action, were ultimately squandered. The COP merely welcomed ongoing efforts and called for continued work in the mutirão decision, without mentioning reform in the Article 2.1(c) text. The 2.1(c) discussions will continue for another three years under the newly named Veredas Dialogue, which will be complemented by a high-level round table - the Xingu Finance Talks. 

Where do we go from here?

At a time when multilateralism and climate science appear to be under considerable pressure, COP30 explicitly reaffirmed countries’ commitment to multilateralism, even as developments signalled a parallel shift toward plurilateral initiatives and other coalitions to advance work that remains stalled in the UNFCCC process. This  includes the launch of a Premium Flyers Solidarity Coalition, to raise finance through placing new levies on polluting industries, or the announcement of the first International Conference on the Just Transition Away from Fossil Fuels by Colombia and the Netherlands.

Whether any of these processes can deliver the much-needed shift from negotiations, and coalition building, to concrete climate action that closes existing ambition gaps remains to be seen. The next COP, hosted by Türkiye and presided over by Australia, is likely to reopen these questions, while the ongoing push to reform the UNFCCC continues to offer a chance to rethink the Convention’s role in driving climate action.