It’s Week 2 of the 30th U.N. Climate Change Conference. I hope you’re hydrated.
After a week of heat, toilet closures, and the constant, unnerving scream of air conditioners throughout the COP30 venue, we’re back for more. This weekend featured an impressive show of force from Indigenous groups and local communities, who walked through the streets of Belém, Brazil, to call for more environmental protections. On the lighter side, there was a boat ride to the beach for some lucky attendees.
The agenda’s sticky spots
While Week 1 was more technical, Week 2 is when the ministers arrive and the political side of COP begins.
The main disagreement we expect is on finance. Many lower-income countries still want to see a larger total amount going from developed to developing countries — this is a reference to the new collective quantified goal, or NCQG, which was the main topic of debate last year in Baku, Azerbaijan. But wealthier countries are saying “been there, done that” and don’t want to reopen the question of total developed-developing finance. This could be a serious stalemate in the final hours.
The adaptation finance debate could add fuel to that fire, as many countries are calling for a tripling of adaptation finance from the $40 billion target of Glasgow in 2021 to $120 billion per year. Developed countries are unlikely to agree to this. An official of a developed country told Devex that their country has no intention to commit to a specific number on adaptation finance; instead, they are focused on indicators, which are measurable benchmarks — such as climate-risk assessments, early warning coverage, resilience of infrastructure, or adaptation finance — that track collective progress toward adaptation outcomes. The indicators and the finance goal fall under the Global Goal on Adaptation, an international framework aimed at helping countries adapt to climate impacts and reduce vulnerabilities.
“As countries are expected to agree on a set of indicators to track progress towards the Global Goal on Adaptation, or GGA, finance continues to be the elephant in the room,” Salomé Lehtman, climate advocacy adviser for Mercy Corps, told Devex. “For the GGA to be meaningful, it must be accompanied by a new and ambitious adaptation finance commitment. The GGA cannot be left hanging without sufficient and high-quality finance to implement it.”
The indicators are contentious for another reason. African countries are trying to avoid committing to anything too specific in the event that donors use technicalities to withhold funds. Others are pushing for a list of indicators somewhat smaller than 100. Though that’s a reduction from the original 9,000.
Beyond finance, we still don’t have all the nationally determined contributions, or NDCs — originally due in February, and then late September, and now whenever they arrive. This means it’s hard to tell what countries’ greenhouse gas emissions goals will look like moving forward.
And there is also no agreement on trade. The European Union is holding steady on its carbon border adjustment mechanism, or CBAM, which takes effect next month and puts a carbon tax on certain products imported to the EU. CBAM is meant to prevent carbon “leakage,” which is when companies move production to countries with weaker climate rules to avoid taxes. With all of Europe creating an emissions wall, the hope is that it will encourage global emissions reductions. However, developing countries are pushing against the plan, arguing that it’s more of a trade barrier than a climate remedy.
On Sunday evening, the COP presidency issued a summary note addressing the four problem topics of last week: the gap between current greenhouse gas emissions versus the level needed to keep global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, climate finance, trade measures, and the transparency of country reports. It plans to bring these together and address them in a mutirão decision, referring to the Brazilian word for collective action — or in COP terminology, a cover decision.
The umbrella term for the decision is the Belém political package, which also includes mainstream agenda items such as adaptation and the just transition. This is likely to be rather unwieldy, covering around 14 topics and with wording broad enough to include just about anything.
On Monday, the 11th letter from the presidency called for countries to “accelerate the pace.” By morning today, the presidency shared an update with delegates saying it was speeding up work on the Belém political package, and that delegates would receive draft texts today in order to work toward an agreement on Wednesday.
Background reading: COP30 opens in Amazon amid pressure on forests, finance, adaptation (Pro)
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Should minerals stay ore should they go?
For the first time ever, transition minerals — the lithium, nickel, and copper powering everything from electric vehicles to solar storage — appeared in a U.N. draft text at a COP. Delegates are now debating whether to include language around safeguarding communities that live near the mining, how mining activities should happen, and the rights of Indigenous peoples to have “free, prior, and informed consent.”
But the language is hanging on by a thread. A new draft released Monday includes an option to delete the entire section on transition minerals. “Let’s not kid ourselves: Minerals are still one edit away from disappearing,” Antonio Hill, an adviser on just energy transitions for the Natural Resource Governance Institute, told Devex.
While negotiators wrangle over the words on paper, the impacts are already real in places such as Poço Dantas, a rural town in Brazil’s lithium belt in the southeast. Since mining ramped up, residents say explosions are cracking their houses, dust is contaminating water tanks, and anxiety is rising.
“Before, life was calm, peaceful, everybody knew each other, and there was community,” a resident of Poço Dantas told Devex. “Now, we have a mountain of problems — noise, dust, and conflict between friends and family.”
Brazil — home to 8% of global lithium reserves — has indicated it wants a framework that would help mineral-rich countries move beyond being raw-material suppliers. But over the last four years, the country has passed laws encouraging mine exploration and extraction. Meanwhile, South Africa and Burkina Faso are leading the call for domestic processing, fairer value chains, and stronger rights for Indigenous peoples.
For mineral-rich countries, the fight in Belém is about refusing to once again be the supply country for the global north to develop. “We have mothers with their babies on their backs that work to make sure we can enjoy our mobile phones,” said Princess Abze Djigma, who leads negotiations for Burkina Faso on the just transition, during one of the negotiations.
The stakes are enormous: Demand for transition minerals is set to more than double by 2030 and quadruple by 2050. Whether COP30 seizes the moment to make that transition just — or allows another extraction story to play out — may be decided in the next few days.
Read: As COP30 debates just energy transition, Brazil’s lithium towns suffer
Related: How to turn the critical minerals boom into a development win
Whitehouse shames the White House
Remember how the United States used to be part of these COP debates? Well, this year, just one federal representative from the country’s smallest state showed up: the Democratic senator from Rhode Island, Sheldon Whitehouse.
Whitehouse said he struggled to get accreditation under UNFCCC since the U.S. is not a party to the conference. He instead received an observer badge from the Global Legislators Organisation for a Balanced Environment, a network of cross-party parliamentarians dedicated to promoting sustainable development.
Whitehouse argued that the global community must stop “treating a burglar in the house like an unwelcome guest” and start confronting what he called its “malevolent” influence. The senator also framed the EU’s CBAM as the “last lifeboat” for global climate safety — and warned that protecting it from geopolitical pushback, particularly from the Trump administration, must be a top priority.
He referenced the administration’s “thuggish attack” on the International Maritime Organization over its proposed climate fee on greenhouse gas emissions from shipping, telling reporters that the lack of an official U.S. delegation in Belém may actually be a relief to negotiators “as long as we’re just here to cause trouble,” but stressed that the long-term damage to U.S. credibility is profound. “We used to be the good guys,” he said, recalling his own family history in the U.S. Foreign Service.
What matters, he said, is investing in technologies such as direct air capture to pull the world out of its now-inevitable overshoot of the 1.5 degrees Celsius goal, and refusing to ignore the role of the fossil fuel industry in shaping U.S. politics. “We’ve got to stop fighting each other,” he said of U.S. Democrats. “The adversary is right there.”
Catch up: COP30 reporters’ notebook — Day 8
Related: Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse talks USAID, ‘Muskrats,’ and bipartisanship
To tree or not to tree
Meanwhile, Germany is still stringing Brazil along on funding its Tropical Forest Forever Facility, or TFFF — one day they promise a commitment, the next … crickets. The United Kingdom, which said it will not invest, has largely remained consistent, though there are whispers that it could be shamed into an investment. Experts told Devex that Canada has expressed some interest as well.
In the meantime, Carsten Schneider, the German environment minister, announced a different number: €60 million ($69 million) for the Adaptation Fund — just in time for a fiery adaptation finance debate.
Schneider also complimented the “extraordinary city” of Belém, which was probably necessary after German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said that journalists traveling with him on his one-day Belém visit “were all happy” to leave. Merz’s words were not well received in the Brazilian press.
+ Why is adaptation so hard to fund? Because it focuses on protecting communities rather than generating direct profits. Learn more about why adaptation finance is such a tricky topic by checking out my video primer.
The other AI
Artificial intelligence is everywhere at COP30, my colleague Kate Warren reports. But a side event at Climate Action House highlighted what Luca Schiano di Colella, an Indigenous translator with the Ayni Alliance, called the “other AI”: ancestral intelligence. In a conversation with Yawanawá elder Fernando Luiz, they emphasized solutions rooted in history and forest wisdom rather than algorithms — and the frustration of being showcased at COP30 while wondering whether their voices will influence anything beyond the agenda.
Indigenous leaders are more visible this year than at any previous climate COP, a deliberate aim of hosting the summit in the Amazon. Their voices are on panels and in hallways, often followed by clusters of cameras eager to capture traditions rarely seen in these spaces.
But visibility isn’t power.
Several Indigenous representatives question whether their perspectives will shape decisions or simply be quoted by those making them. Luiz noted that communities are asked for their wisdom yet rarely given the authority or resources to act, and that investments meant to support them often never reach the villages they’re designed for.
Indigenous groups broke into the Blue Zone entrance on Tuesday night. On Friday morning, they blockaded the front doors, forcing attendees to go through unofficial security screenings. They stayed at the entrance until COP30 President André Correa do Lago and CEO Ana Toni showed up and promised them an immediate meeting with Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. The blockade was peaceful, but it certainly caused a disruption.
They are calling for more representation at COP30, and they want to see action on the logging that’s destroying their homes, as well as the pollution destroying their water and food sources.
Between the precarious sewage system, mind-melting heat, and unreliable air conditioning, there are a lot of reasons to question the decision to host COP in the Amazon. But these groups have made that value clear.
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About the author
Jesse Chase-Lubitz
Jesse Chase-Lubitz covers climate change and multilateral development banks for Devex. She previously worked at Nature Magazine, where she received a Pulitzer grant for an investigation into land reclamation. She has written for outlets such as Al Jazeera, Bloomberg, the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, and The Japan Times, among others. Jesse holds a master’s degree in Environmental Policy and Regulation from the London School of Economics.
