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The 30th United Nations Climate Change Conference, or COP30, kicks off today in the heart of the Amazon. Devex reporters will be in Belém, Brazil, for the next two weeks to help you make sense of the stakes involved.
+ Join us today at 11 a.m. ET (5 p.m. CET) for a Devex Pro Briefing with Jennifer Wegbreit, the CEO at Shockwave Foundation, to discuss how they advance food and water security, de-risk interventions, and influence major funders to embed climate resilience. There’s still time to save your spot.
Question of degrees
If there’s one thing you can count on at the U.N.’s climate change conferences, it’s predictability — not the reassuring kind, but the infuriating kind.
The dangers of climate change are spelled out, and heads nod in agreement that something must be done (the Trump administration notwithstanding). For lower-income countries, that something is money — a lot more of it — from wealthier counterparts who accumulated their wealth while heating up and destabilizing the planet. For those higher-income countries, that something doesn’t entail nearly as much money, though they’re quite generous with announcements and pledges.
That said, each U.N. climate gathering is distinct and does incrementally build off one another, warts and all. Yes, promises are routinely broken — along with all kinds of temperature records — but progress has not been completely absent over these 29 COPs, nor has hope completely dimmed for its 30th iteration.
Brazil, after all, is a heavy hitter for the global south. It’s also determined to make this COP more about concrete implementation than lofty commitments.
But success will not hinge on Brazil alone, my colleague Ayenat Mersie writes. During a Devex Pro Briefing, Marcene Mitchell of WWF and Karen Silverwood-Cope of World Resources Institute Brasil told her that countries involved must shift from long-standing rhetoric to urgency and action. That includes scaling up finance, agreeing on a forest finance facility, beginning to reckon with fossil fuels and subsidies, finalizing a way to measure adaptation – and finding a way to pay for it all.
There’s that predictable theme again: Money.
At COP29 in Baku, governments agreed to at least $300 billion per year in climate finance for low- and middle-income countries by 2035. Many said that it fell short. As a compromise, the final text acknowledged a broader aim — mobilizing $1.3 trillion annually. How to get from $300 billion to $1.3 trillion is what negotiators call the Baku-to-Belém road map.
Silverwood-Cope said the draft road map reflects prior discussions around reforming multilateral development banks, using innovative finance tools, and leveraging private capital. But she also warned that “we don’t know how it’s going to be rolled out, and what are the monitoring mechanisms.” Even if agreed to in Belém, the reforms would involve a major restructuring of the global financial system.
And by some estimates, even $1.3 trillion “is actually a very low bar,” Silverwood-Cope said.
That implies countries need to come up with an astronomical sum of money to fight climate change. But Mitchell tried to put it into perspective: “We as countries around the world put trillions — and I mean trillions with a T — into subsidies for fossil fuels,” she said. “If we could reallocate those subsidies … into the things we need for this energy transition and for stopping deforestation, we would be significantly down the road. So the money could be there. It’s having these hard conversations.”
Read: COP30 opens in Amazon amid pressure on forests, finance, adaptation (Pro)
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+ My colleagues Jesse Chase-Lubitz and Ayenat Mersie will be on the ground to bring you the latest COP developments. We start with a special newsletter that will hit your inbox shortly. If you’re in Belém, drop them a line at jesse.chaselubitz@devex.com or ayenat.mersie@devex.com.
Feed to the fire
True to its role as a global agricultural powerhouse, Brazil has made food security and food systems central to COP30. On Friday, 43 countries and the European Union signed the Belem Declaration on Hunger, Poverty, and Human-Centered Climate Action, which commits to making social protection a foundation of climate plans; support small-scale food producers; and enable just transitions for people living in forested regions subject to deforestation and degradation. It also calls for big changes to climate finance so that much more money goes toward climate adaptation measures, such as crop insurance — while maintaining the same level of funding for climate mitigation. The declaration does not include any new funding commitments.
“To deliver on this promise, smallholders and other small-scale food producers must be empowered as central agents of resilience, adaptation and the sustainable management of natural resources and landscapes,” said Gabriel Ferrero, a senior strategy adviser at the Global Agriculture and Food Security Program.
The declaration is tied to the Global Alliance Against Hunger and Poverty, which launched in Brazil last year when it held the rotating G20 presidency.
Also on Friday, the Gates Foundation announced a four-year, $1.4 billion investment to help farmers in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia access technologies for adapting to extreme weather. It will go toward things such as personalized mobile apps that help farmers make informed planting decisions, expanding climate-resilient crops and livestock, and soil health research to help restore degraded land.
ICYMI: One year on, global hunger alliance shifts into execution mode
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War — what is it good for?
Another major global gathering — the Second World Summit on Social Development, or WSSD — wrapped up last week in Qatar, where efforts to address poverty, employment, and social inclusion ran headlong into raging conflicts that make all of the above a distant dream.
In fact, the day thousands flocked to Doha for the summit, famine was declared across two areas of Sudan. Before that, U.N. officials warned that the country’s el-Fasher region had “descended into an even darker hell” after it was taken by the Rapid Support Forces, a militia accused of mass rape, killing, and violence.
It was a stark reminder that social development and societal upheaval don’t mix.
“If a war, a civil war, or a conflict, hits a society, it ruins all the progress we made on social development and justice,” Annalena Baerbock, the president of the 80th U.N. General Assembly, told my colleague Elissa Miolene. “The more conflict and crisis you are having, the more the [Sustainable Development Goals] are in danger.”
Read: In Doha, conflict tests the promise of social development
ICYMI, our WSSD wrap-up newsletter: In Doha, a fraying world tries to stitch itself back together
Reformula one
Conflict is not the only roadblock to social development. The path is littered with obstacles, from climate shocks to aid cuts. That’s why Baerbock told Elissa that “deep reform” of the U.N. system is more urgent than ever before.
The current reform effort was triggered by dramatic funding cuts to the U.N. system, and became more critical as the United States and other major U.N. member states have refused to pay their bills. U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres has proposed eliminating thousands of posts and merging agencies. Baerbock backed his position, arguing that reform can be more than “just a cost-cutting exercise.”
Watch: UNGA chief backs reform as climate shocks, conflict threaten progress
Committed
Something that’s never in short supply at global gatherings, whether in Qatar or Brazil? Commitments.
At WSSD, the world adopted the Doha Political Declaration — one of a stream of such documents endorsed by leaders in recent years. Across the declaration’s 17 pages, there are nods to those that preceded it. The first, of course, is a recommitment to the Copenhagen Declaration, which is what the Doha document is centered around.
The second is a reaffirmation of the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals, along with the 2024 U.N. Pact for the Future. The third and fourth relate to development finance, including the 2015 Addis Ababa Action Agenda and the 2025 Compromiso de Sevilla.
There are also mentions of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Paris Agreement, and the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development.
For many, the abundance of declarations felt exhausting. For others, that was exactly the point.
“We did not arrive here by coincidence,” said Sophie Jang de Smedt, Belgium’s permanent representative to the U.N. “Together, all those summits form a coherent strategy to foster peace, and security, through development, dialogue and cooperation.”
In other news
A UN Refugee Agency report warns that climate-related disasters have displaced 250 million people over the past decade, with the climate crisis also intensifying conflicts and worsening inequality around the world. [The Guardian]
The World Bank approved a $925 million loan to South Africa to finance a six-year program aimed at improving urban services and infrastructure in its eight major cities. [Bloomberg]
With the U.N. lifting sanctions on Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa, he has become the first Syrian leader to attend a U.N. climate change conference. [BBC and Arab News]
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About the author
Anna Gawel
Anna Gawel is the Managing Editor of Devex. She previously worked as the managing editor of The Washington Diplomat, the flagship publication of D.C.’s diplomatic community. She’s had hundreds of articles published on world affairs, U.S. foreign policy, politics, security, trade, travel and the arts on topics ranging from the impact of State Department budget cuts to Caribbean efforts to fight climate change. She was also a broadcast producer and digital editor at WTOP News and host of the Global 360 podcast. She holds a journalism degree from the University of Maryland in College Park.
