COP30 reporters' notebook: Day 12

Friday, Nov. 21, 2025 Fossil fuel phaseout becomes COP’s hardest red line By Jesse Chase-Lubitz Representatives from thirteen countries stood on the stage of press conference room 1 this morning, holding hands and raising them in defiance of the latest draft text published by the Brazilian COP presidency. The group represented a larger cohort of 24 low-to-middle-income and high-income countries that signed on to the Belém declaration on fossil fuels, a statement of intent calling for an accelerated process of transition away from fossil fuels at COP30 and beyond. They also announced the first international conference on the just transition away from fossil fuels, to be held in Colombia in April. The announcement was a show of force and the best example of Mutirão — the Brazilian word for collective effort and token word of this COP — that I’ve seen over these last two weeks. “It is quite ridiculous that after the 30th COP, we’re still trying to debate whether we put fossil fuels on the text,” said Juan Carlos Monterrey, head of Panama’s delegation at COP, to journalists after the briefing. “It is just sad, but at the same time, it is horrendous that after three weeks of heavy negotiations, we’re at this point in the last 24 hours. But we still have 24 hours; we can still turn this around.” The countries are insisting on leaving this COP with a global road map “that guides us, not symbolically but concretely” away from fossil fuels, said Irene Vélez Torres, Colombia's former minister of mines and energy. However, sources have told Devex that this is a hard line for the Arab group, and some other countries are standing behind them so as to avoid causing further division. It is also contentious among some least developed countries that are reliant on fossil fuels for development. The inclusion of a fossil fuel phaseout is one of a few key contentious issues that will keep this COP from closing in the next 24 hours — the Brazilian presidency announced early this week that it would already run over into Saturday. “It would be a failure to think that we’re not going to address the cause of all our problems and yet get more money,” Maisa Rojas Corradi, Chile’s minister for the environment, told Devex just after the session. “I think that only serves the countries that do not want to move ahead.” In a plenary speech following the briefing, André Corrêa do Lago, the president of COP30, pushed cooperation at all costs. He said that countries “who doubt that cooperation is the best way forward for climate” — referring to the United States — will be “absolutely delighted to see that we cannot reach an agreement.” Making hunger a red line By Ayenat Mersie What’s former World Food Programme Executive Director Ertharin Cousin doing at COP? She’s been pressing leaders around the world to put ending hunger at the top of the agenda. “I am working with leaders around the globe to make hunger a red line,” she told me on the sidelines of COP30. Cousin now leads the Chicago-based Food Systems for the Future, which brings partners together and backs new ideas to expand access to healthy and affordable food. “I want to applaud Brazil because they have made this a successful COP for those who I work to support, and those are the most vulnerable people, the hungry people across the globe,” she said. She welcomed the way this year’s summit elevated food systems. She added that she is reviving an effort she began at WFP to bring faith leaders from around the world together to commit to making hunger both a priority and a red line. “The mother who's hungry, whether she's in the city of Chicago or in South Sudan, it's not a partisan issue,” she said. “And it becomes our responsibility to ensure that we are making the case for why this is not a partisan issue.” Amid larger fights, minerals disappear from text By Jesse Chase-Lubitz At COP30, a quiet but consequential battle is unfolding over whether transition minerals, also known as critical minerals, belong in the just transition agenda. Draft text referencing critical minerals appeared for the first time in the Just Transition Work Programme last week — only to be stripped out in the most recent draft today. Insiders say the culprit was China, which pushed hard to take out the language. Antonio Hill, an adviser for the Natural Resource Governance Institute, told Devex that Beijing argued there’s “no broad-based consensus” on the term — essentially saying that transitional minerals haven’t been discussed for long enough to justify putting them on the agenda this year. Every other issue, from fossil fuels to adaptation, has been circulated for years, building the necessary support to get it on paper. “It’s kind of a non-argument,” said Hill. The original text was proposed by the European Union and the United Kingdom. Hill hypothesized that China was more skeptical of it as a result. “Rich countries tend to want to curtail or restrict what they see as a central strategy for China’s economic future,” said Hill. “I think if it had been presented initially from the Africa Group, which has a close relationship to China, it may have been different.” Africa Group and the least developed countries, or LDC, negotiators have been fighting to keep language on minerals in, with Uganda even submitting a compromise text. We’re waiting to see if that makes it into the next draft, but with Brazil’s COP presidency putting forward a watered-down version and ministers scrambling to land deals in larger fights, the minerals issue may get sidelined — at least until COP31.