'Our last chance': Pressure on Cop30 to deliver after divisive Cop29

Civil groups look to Cop30 next year to bridge the multilateral divide

Belem, Brazil, will host Cop30 in November 2025. AP

Read more: Cop29 secured a done deal but it needs to be built on

All eyes are on Brazil, the host of Cop30, after developing nations deemed the finance plan agreed at Cop29 to pay for the ravages of climate change to be too little, too late. The climate summit, which will bring together tens of thousands of delegates, will be held from November 10 to 21 next year in the northern city of Belem.

Marina Silva, Brazil's Minister of Environment, said that Cop29 was the finance Cop but Cop30 would be the Cop of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) – plans set out by governments to tackle climate change. Climate activists hope more can be achieved in Brazil than in Baku, Azerbaijan, over the past two weeks.

"To be held in Brazil, a major developing country with huge forest reserves, it’s even more apt to push the frontier even harder for global funding and carbon markets advancement," Prof Lawrence Loh, director of the Centre for Governance and Sustainability at NUS Business School, told The National.

Clare Shakya, global managing director for climate of The Nature Conservancy, a US global conservation organisation, said the Paris Agreement process is still alive, albeit barely, post-Cop29. "Hopefully the ambition evident in fresh NDCs from Brazil and others, coupled with President Lula's recent G20 summit comments, will inject fresh vigour into UN climate at Cop30," she said.

Brazil's President, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, went further, inviting participants to make next year the "turnaround Cop". "Cop30 will be our last chance to avoid an irreversible rupture in the climate system," he said.

Civil rights groups are looking to Cop30 to mend the chasm opened by events in Baku. Sergio Chaparro Hernandez, international co-ordinator of Dejusticia (Colombia), said the $300 billion deal at Cop29 falls far short of the ambition the world needs to show to confront the climate crisis.

"We needed those most responsible for the climate crisis to go beyond speeches and commit to resources at the level of trillions," he said. "But this did not happen, which shows the crisis of these multilateral spaces, and the need to give new impetus to climate co-operation at Cop30 and seek to align financial flows."

Claudio Angelo, head of international policy at Observatorio do Clima, said: “Brazil now is given one more daunting task for Cop30: to scale up finance and rebuild the trust among countries.”

From Baku to Brazil

A hard-fought agreement was reached in Baku after developed nations increased their offer from $250 billion to $300 billion, bringing the negotiations at the Cop29 summit to a delayed conclusion.

The compromise agreement urges "all actors" to contribute to the $1.3 trillion annual funding target sought by developing countries. However, the $300 billion core commitment from wealthier nations is smaller and more vague than the specific amount that poorer and more vulnerable countries had pushed for during the two weeks of negotiations in Azerbaijan.

"Cop29’s conclusion may seem to be a mixed bag with the difficulty in aligning the expectations of financing level between developed and developing countries. Even with the apparent discord, Cop29’s outcomes are commendable," said Prof Loh.

Laura Sabogal, a senior policy adviser at E3G, said that the adoption of the New Collective Quantified Goal marks a "critical yet imperfect step forward". "At the same time, its glaring shortcomings cannot be ignored, it reflects a troubling lack of urgency and ambition in addressing the deep inequities at the heart of global climate finance."

Beyond the finance plan, on day one of the Cop29 conference, the presidency had signalled an early win on pushing forward progress on carbon markets after almost a decade of standstill. "This resolution is probably most significant as the world is now ready to implement net zero through proper country-level carbon trading procedures and crediting mechanisms," Prof Loh said.

Known as Article 6 of the 2015 Paris Agreement, carbon markets allow nations to transfer carbon credits earned through emission reductions to help meet their climate targets. For instance, initiatives such as preserving rainforests or other carbon sinks could receive funding from credits from those looking to offset emissions.

Cop29 – in pictures