Reflections from COP30

The lack of significant actionable items from the end of COP30 shows that the world remains divided on how to address the critical issue of climate change. Experts from across the University of Pennsylvania and our extended network—some recently returned from Belém—have shared their perspectives on the results of COP30 and what may be in store for the future of international climate diplomacy and the world.

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An Unusual COP: Politics, Gaps, and Glimmers of Progress

I had anticipated an unusual COP in Belém, given, among other things, the lack of a clear theme, the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) ambition gap hanging in the air, and no official U.S. presence. However, even beyond the heat, humidity, and fire inside the venue, this COP was more unusual than expected.

• First, of all the COP themes put forward during the year—the Amazon COP, the COP of Implementation, the COP of Truth, the Adaptation COP—a key theme of this COP was none of the above. Rather, it was a topic rarely mentioned during the year, i.e., whether to launch a roadmap for furthering Dubai’s outcome on “transitioning away from fossil fuels.” This debate, which pitted the “coalition of the willing” against the “coalition of the drilling,” became perhaps the hottest political issue of the COP.
• Second, given the host country and its relationship to the BRICs, it was never realistically in the cards for the final decision to get an A+ for mitigation ambition; however, it was still surprising to see such a weak response to the gap between the submitted 2035 NDCs and the 1.5C limit.   
• Third, while the U.S. government skipped the COP, the venue was very much alive with Americans—students, academics, governors, mayors, the private sector, NGOs, and former U.S. officials. And that was on top of the Local Leaders Forum in Rio. No one could have left the COP thinking the United States is monolithic on climate.
• Fourth, for someone who negotiated the climate/trade principle in the 1992 Framework Convention, it was interesting to see it find a home for discussion—or at least a temporary one — over thirty years later.  
• Finally, Australia and Turkey surprised us with an innovative partnership that will include a Turkey-hosted COP with a newly created Australian position of “president for negotiations.”

Given the geopolitics this year, my litmus test for success had been somewhat modest:

• that something be agreed by consensus to demonstrate that multilateralism is still alive; 
• that the Parties respond robustly to the NDC gap; and
• that real-world action catalyzed by the Paris Agreement be announced and furthered.  

The second element was not realized.  Here’s hoping the shared COP31 does better.

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U.S. Absence at COP30: A Leadership Vacuum the World Can’t Afford

As the 2025 climate summit in Belém opened, delegates from nearly every country but one arrived with full teams. The United States was conspicuously absent—its delegation officially zero. That absence matters not just symbolically, but strategically: when Washington stays off the field, others fill the space. At COP30, that means China, oil-rich states, and other authoritarian or tightly managed regimes are stepping up with capital, influence, and governance models that challenge the long-standing U.S. role as broker, norm-setter, and convener in climate diplomacy.

Without U.S. engagement, the core mechanisms of the Paris Agreement regime—the global stocktake, adaptation metrics, carbon-market rules, and the pathway to large-scale public climate finance—are all being negotiated in a vacuum of liberal-democratic leadership. Illiberal powers are offering their own vision: fast, top-down deployment of clean energy, backed by state-directed capital and close alignment with hydrocarbon interests. Their model can be efficient in the short term, but it is also opaque, centralized, and weak on accountability and participation.

In this context, the key policy question is not how to bring the United States back in, but how others respond to its absence. Democratic allies, vulnerable states, multilateral development banks, and private investors will need to decide whether to accommodate an emerging illiberal climate order or to hedge against it: by hard-wiring transparency, participation, and rights protections into finance mechanisms; by insisting on open data and independent monitoring; and by building coalitions that can outlast any single U.S. administration. If they fail, the world risks locking in a climate architecture shaped less by liberal values than by authoritarian convenience—a profound gamble for human rights, equity, and long-term sustainability.

A longer version of this insight can be found at https://time.com/7335092/cop30-united-states-absence-illiberal-climate-leadership/

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COP30 and Global Mutirão

As we evaluate what COP30 did and did not accomplish, we do know that it advanced the Brazilian word “mutirão” (pronounced moo-tchê-rauw) into climate negotiations and global consciousness. COP President André Corrêa do Lagoexplained the term: 

The Brazilian culture inherited from Brazilian native indigenous peoples the concept of “mutirão” (“motirõ” in the Tupi-Guarini language). It refers to a community coming together to work on a shared task, whether harvesting, building, or supporting one another.

At COP30, in the second week, the Brazilians proposed their “Global Mutirão: Uniting Humanity in a Global Mobilization Against Climate Change” for adoption by the COP.  Addressing a number of issues, the Global Mutirão affirmed global temperature goals and also proposed different mechanisms to address gaps in each country’s emission reduction plans. 

What it did not do was call for a clear roadmap to phase out fossil fuels, leading to division that nearly scuttled COP30. Twenty-nine countries signed a letter calling for a fossil fuel transition roadmap and the European Union signaled the roadmap call must be incorporated in the Mutirão. Press reports conveyed that more than 80 countries supported this, but that same call was described as a “red line” for several countries with significant fossil fuel industries. The divisions were familiar, as Carbon Brief noted: countries supporting a phase-out roadmap represented about seven percent of the world’s fossil fuel production.

The final Mutirão was adopted without a fossil fuel phase-out roadmap call. To get that done, the Brazilian COP presidency made a separate commitment to develop a roadmap “to transition away from fossil fuels in a just, orderly and equitable manner” This new effort—without the pressure of a COP about to end, and with Global South leadership—may well provide the groundwork for what could not be done in Belém. 

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Good COP, Bad COP

The COP30 global climate summit in Brazil may have been the last opportunity for the nations of the world to reach an agreement that limits planetary warming below catastrophic (>1.5C/3F) levels. By that criterion alone, the now-completed COP30 conference was an abject failure, despite whatever other progress might be claimed. Petrostates like Russia, Saudi Arabia, and, now, the United States, have banded together to weaponize the “consensus” rule machinery of the UNFCCC, hijacking the negotiations and blocking any meaningful commitment or timeline for phasing out fossil fuels. Both the patience of most serious climate advocates—and the clock—are quickly now running out.

As if it wasn’t clear already, fundamental changes must now be made in the UNFCCC rules. A small number of rogue nations cannot be allowed to block progress for the rest of the world. One suggestion has been a rule change requiring a three-fourths (75 percent) majority rather than a “consensus” of all countries for reaching an agreement. The cruel irony here, however, is that such a rule change would also require “consensus” among participating nations. 

There’s an easier solution however. It simply involves looking up the word “consensus” in the dictionary. Consensus is not “unanimity,” though it has been convenient for the few major holdouts to insist otherwise. “Consensus” is typically defined e.g. as “a generally accepted decision among a group of people.” By such a definition, three-fourths support seems more than adequate to constitute “consensus” and, thereby, pass an agreement, under current rules, that meets the moment and commits to a rapid phaseout of planet-warming fossil carbon emissions.

The handful of stragglers who refuse to sign on could be subject to economic sanctions (e.g. border adjustments) by countries that do, the details of which would have to be worked out. Such measures seems necessary, as the prior enforcement mechanism of “name and shame” simply doesn’t work with parties that have no shame. I’m looking at you Saudi Arabia, Russia, and (sadly yes, at least right now) the United States, too). 

If this—or an equivalent—changes in posture is not adopted at the COP31 summit next year in Turkey, then the UN might have to consider a more drastic overhaul of the entire COP summit framework which, according to some climate policy leaders, is sadly “no longer fit for purpose.”

We­—and the planet—cannot afford another Bad COP.

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COP30: Geopolitical Realities and Biodiversity

This year’s Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP) takes place against a generally dispiriting backdrop for climate action globally. Earlier this year, President Trump withdrew the United States from the Paris Agreement for a second time. The almost total absence of the US from the COP talks will deprive it of diplomatic energy, substantive expertise, and above all money—until this year, the United States was the largest single national contributor to climate finance. China, for its part, announced a commitment to reduce emissions seven to ten percent below peak levels that was widely criticized by foreign observers as insufficient—though it marks the first time China has committed to specific, short-term emissions reductions of any magnitude. It is perhaps unsurprising that COP30 has struggled to reach agreement on a roadmap to phase out fossil fuels as hoped. 

Even so, COP30 has made important strides in two linked areas. One is better linking the climate and biodiversity policy agendas. Though interrelated, the latter is the focus of a separate international environmental agreement, the Convention on Biological Diversity, that runs its own COP process. COP30 includes an effort made to link climate and biodiversity protection commitments. It also includes a high-level discussion on better linking the COPs for climate, biodiversity, and desertification—the subject of a third international environmental agreement, the Convention to Combat Desertification. All three were in fact outcomes of the 1992 Earth Summit, so it makes great sense to integrate them. This may not be the brightest year for climate action, but if you squint, you can still see the outlines of progress on tackling the world’s ecological crises.    

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Reflection on COP30 Outcome and Adaptation

An agreement for COP30 was reached at the end of two intense weeks of negotiations held at the heart of the amazon, in Belém, Brazil. The final hours of the COP was a demonstration of the cracks in the multilateral process, where trust was thin, and courageous political leadership was scarce. Given that we are living in a time of challenging geopolitics—and the rise of climate skepticism, where multilateral cooperation is under threat—the fact that we have an agreement is a significant achievement and a testament that the Paris Agreement is working. The COP30 outcome will send the political signals to the real economy and other multilateral processes to work together in advancing climate action and this will be tested in the coming year.

However, as an islander, the ambition level of the outcome is disappointing, especially on missing the moment for limiting the global temperature rise to less than 1.5C; an overshoot of the temperature goal is an existential threat to the small island developing states such as the Maldives. On the resilience agenda, parties agreed to a Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA) package, which includes the adoption of the indicators under the GGA framework with the call to establish a two-year work program to further refine the indicators. 

Therefore, parties will continue to refine and work on the indicators, and this work is key in contributing to measuring adaptation progress for the second global stocktake. Furthermore, on the contested issue of finance, the COP30 decision calls for efforts to triple adaptation finance by 2035, in the context of the agreement of the NCQG decision from Baku last year with the call to developed countries to scale up finance. 

To move from the negotiated text to implementation, significant work and political will is required to scale the finance needed to address the adaptation needs of the most vulnerable countries. While the adaptation outcome of COP30 is not perfect, progress has been made, and it is important for all parties to continue working together to strengthen collective resilience globally and take ambitious climate action.

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Climate Ambition, Domestic Constraints: the Difficult Pathway to Phase out Fossil Fuels

Despite the lack of consensus at COP30 on setting a clear date and pathway to phase out fossil-fuel production, Colombia assumed a leadership role in Belém by announcing it will co-host, with the Netherlands, the first International Conference on the Just Transition Away from Fossil Fuels. In addition, and in an effort to lead by example, the Colombian delegation declared its intention to halt new oil exploration and large-scale mining projects in the Amazon region, which represents more than 35 perccent of the country’s territory. However, the pledge risks becoming largely symbolic.

The administration of President Gustavo Petro has shown that political will, ideological commitment, and strong international rhetoric are not enough to achieve domestic climate goals. At home, the landscape is far more complicated. Declining natural-gas reserves—combined with the decision to suspend new exploration—have tightened supply. Meanwhile, major delays in wind-energy development in La Guajira and a growing backlog in transmission projects have slowed renewable expansion. As a result, Colombia has increasingly depended on costly LNG imports. These imports not only weaken economic competitiveness but also fuel inflationary pressures—an unpopular outcome for a government already facing political backlash.

Any abrupt reduction in oil production also poses serious risks for regional and local public finances. Many municipalities rely heavily on oil and mining royalties to fund essential services, infrastructure, and social programs. Replacing these revenues in the short to medium term remains one of the most daunting challenges of the energy transition, especially at a time when the national economy is experiencing sluggish growth.

It is therefore unsurprising that the government is now banking on its new natural-gas discovery—the Sirius project—to secure future energy supply and reduce LNG dependence. Paradoxically, Sirius lies just off the coast of Santa Marta, the Colombian city set to host the proposed conference on transitioning away from fossil fuels.

Ultimately, Colombia’s experience underscores a critical lesson: climate leadership requires more than ambitious declarations. It demands realistic policies, long-term investment plans, and strong institutions capable of delivering a truly just and sustainable transition.

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Beyond COP30: Linking Climate and Biodiversity Loss

Climate change and biodiversity loss are interconnected issues. As an official observer of climate and biodiversity negotiations, specifically the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), Penn is in a unique position to develop linkages between these environmental agreements. 

During the UNFCCC COP30 in Belém, Brazil, the Center for Latin American and Latinx Studies (CLALS) and the Environmental Innovations Initiative (EII) organized an event on Penn’s campus to explore the intersections between biodiversity conservation and climate adaptation. This discussion was built upon a previous gathering during the CBD COP16, which highlighted the connections between biodiversity conservation efforts implemented at local, national, and global scales. 

After bringing together experts and Penn delegates of both conventions, a few insights stand out: 

1. Regional leadership: holding these conferences in highly biodiverse regions of Latin America highlighted the negative impact of deforestation and forest degradation on both climate adaptation and biodiversity protection goals;  
2. Economic opportunity: the Cali Fund, which recognizes the commercial value of genetic resources and supports biodiversity conservation, and the Tropical Forest Forever Facility, which manages a public and private fund and facilitates the distribution of forest payments, are two finance mechanisms underscoring the value of forests as assets;
3. Interconnected but distinct: even if climate action gets on track, biodiversity intrinsic value is threatened by ongoing issues like invasive alien species, species over-exploitation, and pollution, prompting a growing interest in doing more for and with nature; and
4. Observers’ engagement: the role of universities in both conventions is key to coordinate higher education institutions globally, where thousands of students, researchers, and professionals sit ready to meaningfully impact a socio-environmental transformation that will protect the health of the planet and its inhabitants.

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Reflections After COP30: Climate Politics in a Fragmented World

The UNFCCC and Paris Agreement set clear objectives: stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations and hold global temperature rise well below 2C, pursuing efforts for 1.5C. These goals were grounded in science and shared ideals of collective action.

COP30 in Belém revealed the gap between ambition and reality. As Politico noted, negotiations “exposed the world as it is: haltingly and slowly tackling climate pollution, fragmented by rising economic nationalism and protectionism.”

Today, climate politics is shaped less by unity and more by states managing inflation, supply-chain insecurity, geopolitical rivalry, and shrinking fiscal space. Science clarifies what is necessary; geopolitics and economics define what is possible.

Emissions growth has slowed and clean-energy deployment accelerated, bending the curve, but the 1.5C carbon budget may be exhausted by 2026. Meanwhile, resilience is urgent: water scarcity, heat-driven productivity loss, crop declines, and glacier melt are reshaping priorities. Finance is adjusting too—insured losses have tripled since the 1990s, and sovereign downgrades linked to climate risk are rising.

The question for the next 12 to 60 months: how can governments make energy, food, and water systems more resilient and affordable under real-world constraints? 

Cooperative, growing economies can invest in shared grids and regional supply chains.

Fiscally constrained states can scale modular renewables and blended finance.

Competitive economies can diversify industries and secure critical minerals.

Fragmented, contracting contexts need decentralized solutions and fairness-based targeting.

In late November, PICO will launch its 2026 Global Climate Trends Report, a foresight tool developed with University of Pennsylvania faculty, staff, experts, and partners for navigating these realities and identifying near-term decisions that accelerate progress toward the ultimate objectives of our work on climate change. Stay tuned.

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COP30: Moving Beyond the Fossil Fuel Phaseout

I’m an optimistic person who counts incremental progress as real progress, but this was a hard COP to be part of. The global political environment was extremely challenging, the logistics were difficult, and the absence of U.S. climate leadership all contributed to an underwhelming UN Climate Conference.

Brazil had hoped to make COP30 the “Amazonian COP,” with a focus on forest preservation. Forests absorb and store almost thirteen GtCO₂-equivalent per year, which is more than the emissions from global electricity production. Deforestation is therefore a major concern for climate advocates, and halting and reversing it would be one of the most powerful tools we have to prevent catastrophic climate change.

But as the year unfolded, and as COP30 progressed, forest preservation steadily gave way to debates over fossil fuel phaseout. It might seem obvious that this would sit at the heart of a UN Climate Conference, but the Paris Agreement sets a temperature goal and remains decidedly neutral on how countries achieve it. Not until COP28 in Dubai did Parties finally agree to “transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems, in a just, orderly and equitable manner …” This was the first concrete UN acknowledgment of fossil fuel phaseout. Although the decision was adopted by consensus, the Arab Group, Russia, and several other countries and blocs have repeatedly pushed back on it, refusing even to reference it, let alone build on it, in subsequent negotiations.

This resistance set the stage for COP30’s central conflict: how, or whether, to advance the transition away from fossil fuels. On one side, roughly 80 countries pressed to build on the COP28 decision by developing a roadmap—an incremental but meaningful next step. But 80 countries make up less than half of the Paris Agreement’s Parties, and a substantial number opposed any such move. While the exact count is unclear, both the Arab Group and the Africa Group rejected roadmap language, and together they represent around 80 Parties.

Climate diplomacy is never about a single issue. Progress in one area often hinges on movement in another. At COP30, the major issues beyond fossil fuel transition included so-called “unilateral trade measures” (i.e., barriers against electric vehicle and photovoltaic exports, largely from China), increased funding for adaptation, and negotiations on the Global Goal on Adaptation.

The final compromise on transition emerged when developed countries agreed to language committing to tripling adaptation finance. This concession gave the Arab Group enough room to accept text that referenced the COP28 transition decision, without naming it explicitly or advancing it. In parallel, the COP President announced his own voluntary roadmap process, under his authority alone and outside any formal agreement by all Parties.

One genuine bright spot was the adoption of indicators to measure progress on the Global Goal on Adaptation. The Paris Agreement provides a clear benchmark for mitigation: keep global temperature well below 2C, with an ambition of 1.5C. Adaptation lacks such a tidy metric. COP28 established high-level targets for building resilience across food, water, health, biodiversity, infrastructure, livelihoods, and cultural systems. COP30 took the next step by creating 59 concrete indicators, giving the second global stocktake a more rigorous basis for assessing adaptation progress.

Judged in isolation, COP30 felt bleak. Judged within the larger process, it represents small but real steps forward. The process held, and meaningful progress was made on adaptation. Here’s hoping the Turkish COP pushes further … and faster!