COP30 – Clouds over Belém

Despite his success with lowering the rate of forest clearance in the Brazilian Amazon, Lula’s influence was perhaps always going to be compromised by his political need to allow hydrocarbon drilling in the Amazon. But other disappointments accompanied failure to mention a roadmap for fossil fuel cessation in the final COP text.

Meanwhile 2024 was recorded globally as the hottest year on record – the first to breach that ominous 1.5 degree marker, with the Amazon suffering its longest drought in recorded history.

COP 30 – the very number is cause for concern. It was 1995 when COP 1 was held in Berlin, with the first warnings of climate change stretching back to the 1960s. Thirty years on, reinforced by climate modelling in the 1980s and the Paris Agreement in 2015, there is momentum – but thus far it remains insufficient to halt climate change.

A brief reminder of the context

Global temperatures have been rising relentlessly for a long while. How concerned are governments? Even with growing knowledge of likely consequences, Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC’s) so far published in 2025 collectively presage a temperature increase of 2.5 degrees – threateningly above the 1.5 alarm level. 

This is driven by atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, at their highest level for 800,000 years. A startling landmark figure, yet one still under-rated, ignored or even misused by industry sectors such as forest bioenergy.

Global emissions rose yet further, by over 1%, in 2024 to 53 GtCO2eq at 423 parts per million. This represents a 60% increase just since 1990.

One gleam of hope – wind, solar and other renewables overtook coal for the first time over 2024 as the leading global source of electricity. But as always the devil is in the detail: wood bioenergy, still classified as renewable and still the largest renewable energy source in Europe, actually produces higher emissions than the fossil fuels it is supposed to replace.

What went well at the COP?

A list that fell short of expectations:

• Adaptation finance to be tripled to $120 bn pa – with an extended target date of 2035. Terrific, but failure to curb fossil fuels or enhance mitigation generally may raise the bill for adaptation by at least that extra amount anyway. Above all, adaptation addresses effects not causes of climate change. There were also minimal further contributions to the heavily depleted Loss and Damage Fund.

• Adoption of a new Climate and Gender Action Plan. A bright spot largely unnoticed – adding momentum to gender empowerment that can make an appreciable difference at all levels. Implementation will hopefully focus on practical outcomes, including support for women’s health 

• Initiation of Tropical Forests Forever Facility (TFFF). $7 billion has so far been raised with the World Bank as interim host, a big step towards the $25 bn needed to gear up a further $100 bn private input.  Annual income of $4 billion is projected, with 20% dedicated to local community support.

Wild Europe participated in the TFFF forum on 20^th November. We asked about reliability of the projected income in real terms when the interest arbitrage process generating it is effectively a speculative procedure impacted by differential exchange rates, inflation and other risk factors. We truly hope this bold vision is successful.

Promotion of the growing range of individual protection schemes could be a supportive, if less spectacular, outcome from COP30. There are important examples of protection being applied with high cost-effectiveness on a large scale, with potential for attracting sufficient finance – from grants as well as the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) agendas – to develop Endowment Funds for protection in perpetuity. 

One such example could be the Kayapo Project, an indigenous led initiative of the Mebengokre-Kayapo peoples to the South East of Belém, supported by the Conservation Fund of Canada (CFC). 9 million hectares of forest has been successfully protected against pressures from ranching, logging and goldmining (see the map on the right hand side, where the Kayapo territory with the yellow boundary remains clearly intact against the red locations of fire on adjacent property).

• Addition to the network of ten protected indigenous areas of over 2500 km2 in the Brazilian Amazon, the first such extension since 2018. Total coverage is roughly 14%. This is welcome if incremental progress, which must now be effectively enforced. A further $2.5 billion was demarcated by European countries for protection of the Congo Basin rainforest.

• Steps towards closer synergies. A formal statement was made on the need for greater interconnection between the three UN conventions on climate, biodiversity and land, essential for a fully integrated policy framework. A hope well articulated in Griffith University’s 2023 Call for a Joint CBD & UNFCCC SBSTS Workplan. There is momentum for a shared work programme.

The World Climate Summit & Investment COP

The World Climate Summit & Investment COP, held separately from COP30, produced some of the most substantial climate related initiatives, alarmingly or inevitably depending on your point of view. Although just two days in duration, the Summit underlined the massive role required from private sector funding, needing to provide at least half The Baku to Belém Roadmap $1.3 trillion target.

Large scale funding from carbon and other non-extractive ecosystem services figured strongly at the Summit, with calls for carbon trading to be accompanied by progressive emission capping. This in turn echoes the requirement for accelerated Capacity Building to enable co-design of financial instruments, outlined in Wild Europe’s list of Ten Proposals from Belém.

Tighter environmental investment criteria. A potentially beneficial paradox rather than a direct outcome. There is a growing sentiment in parts of the investment community that official definitions and principles, related for example to application of ‘sustainability’ and ‘carbon neutrality’, have become so vague and distorted as a result of lobbying and abuse, that a tighter set of ecological and climate criteria are required for credible medium and long-term finance. Regulatory mechanisms and insurance can help de-risk investment, but sound science is essential. Watch this space.

And what did not go so well?

Achingly difficult to be brief here:

• No mention of fossil fuels in the final text. A glaring omission, despite a coalition of 80+ countries in favour of ‘phase-out], prima facie a harder-line phrase – perhaps too hard line – than the ‘transition away’ agreed to by nearly 200 in Dubai (COP 28). The Saudis were joined by many from the extended BRIC network in blocking progress. 

• Belém “4x Pledge” on Sustainable Fuels. This Pledge is likely to be counterproductive for climate change overall insofar as it involves products that are not carbon neutral – particularly solid (forest) bioenergy which produces higher CO2 equivalent emissions than the fossil fuels it replaces, even coal. Yet, despite aggravating climate change, its usage is scheduled to triple by 2050 according to IEA predictions, costing up to 35 billion Euro a year by 2050 if Bioenergy with Carbon Capture & Storage (BECCS) is adopted.

While the Pledge is for Brazil specifically, it aims at global replication and the breadth of products involved could be widely open to interpretation.

• No roadmap towards phasing out of deforestation and degradation. This was backed by over 90 countries throughout the conference. Yet all we had at the end was a route outside the main text. A missed opportunity for individual countries to demonstrate how the zero deforestation pledge made at the Dubai COP could be met, with focus instead on the “importance” of reversal by 2030. 

Little chance of that – with global tropical forest loss doubling in 2024 to 6.7 m hectares, mostly in the Amazon, with for the first time more caused by wildfires than clearance for agriculture. An ominous pointer.

• Launching of the Bioeconomy Challenge. This should be a beneficial element in the ‘positive’ section above. In reality however “the Challenge” reads as a broadly worded free-for-all invitation to innovate new ways of processing the remaining natural resource base. Investment in scaling up a new generation of biochemicals from wood and other fibre could bring a significant element of value added, but there are important caveats:

• For use of forests for timber or fibre products, focus should be on adding value from existing sites, not increasing volume or logging new areas. Cessation of commercial scale forest bioenergy would considerably ease demand for biomass whilst allowing a lot more leeway for genuine value-added enterprise, not the current waste of capital based on fictitious science.
• Further damage to natural forest ecosystems will inflict massive long-term economic as well as environmental costs. The relative costs here need to be collated and clarified more fully.
• There is also an urgent need to provide economic counter-values for non-extractive ecosystem services, enabling a more balanced approach between protection and extraction in bioeconomy strategy generally.

• There was thus scant progress towards mitigation. Just a few implementation plans, mostly voluntary, generalised and largely unfunded: a Global Implementation Accelerator has been proposed to prioritise desirable action. So has A Mechanism for Just Transition towards sustainable “fossil fuel free” economies; this is very necessary – so long as “sustainability” is appropriately defined which is generally not the case. The “fossil fuel free” goal must be extended to become “carbon fuel free”. 

Looking ahead, as the US and Europe fall back

The absence of the USA, coupled with its withdrawal from the Paris agreement has been the biggest single loss for progress. Paradoxically China has been the major beneficiary, adding a trophy of soft diplomacy to its lion’s share production of wind turbines, solar panels, electric vehicles – even co-managing Brazil’s CBERS Amazon satellite surveillance, while skilfully applying its status as a developing country to ward off onerous financial contribution. 

For its part the European Union rightly called for ambition but, juggling consensus among 27 member states, was unable to support the proposed road map for phase-out of fossil fuels. It is also inexplicably continuing to champion economically and environmentally damaging forest bioenergy applying BECCS. Meanwhile Europe’s forest carbon sink continues to decline and climate cynics have extra fuel for their cause. Delay and dilution of the EU Deforestation Regulation and weakening of protection for key species have further undermined Europe’s hard-won and much deserved image for environmental probity.

The UK delivered one of the best pavilion agendas at the COP, and has a promising PES agenda to incentivise ecosystem restoration. Yet its government announced a resumption of hydrocarbon prospecting in the North Sea just days after the end of COP 30. Its once praised wood bioenergy strategy, with or without BECCS, looks increasingly problematic – for the environment but also the UK economy with its crucial need for growth and lower energy prices. It also clashes with government objectives as co-Chair of the Forest and Climate Leaders’ Partnership (FCLP).

Overall, there is certainly a collective will to succeed in addressing climate change. But this remains heavily compromised by conflicting agendas. 

Plans for cessation of fossil fuels, and phasing out deforestation and degradation by 2030, could be reanimated at the forthcoming G20. But it will be hard going given the US position. The 2026 conference to be hosted jointly by Netherlands and Columbia in April could also help, but is not a formal UN event. 

The funding gap

Overhanging all other considerations is the sheer cost of mitigating and adapting to climate change. A key element of the financial scene was set for Belém by the COP 29 Baku to Belém Roadmap with its target of $1.3 trillion annual funding by 2035 – just for developing countries to address climate change.

Recent reports from the Circle of Finance Ministers and International High Level Expert Group suggest this target is still achievable, laying out their own proposals. Opportunity is one thing, unity of purpose is another. It remains to be seen whether a clear route to such levels of funding can be established in the run-up to COP31 in Turkiye.

Despite these setbacks the route to success remains fairly clear.

There have been many strategy proposals. Wild Europe’s contribution included commissioning a 140 page initiative Renewable Energy and Climate Change Strategy (2024) published by Trinomics Consultants, energy advisors to the European Commission. This calculates that cessation and reallocation of subsidies for commercial scale forest bioenergy in Europe, if geared up with matched funding, could on its own deliver 25% of the EU’s net zero target by 2050. Together with a more specialist associated document on BECCS it has wider application to other regions.

The dream ‘theme couple’ for success with addressing climate change globally will be financial incentives alongside sound science. A marriage not easily made in heaven, requiring skilful handling.

Wild Europe’s “Ten Proposals from Belém”

Wild Europe promoted a number of themes during the COP fortnight, discussed with our network and summarised in our Ten Proposals from Belém, which will be published very shortly. While focussing on the European arena, these could also have wider relevance:

1. Renewable Energy & Climate Change Strategy (RECCS)
2. A full ecosystem service component for the Bioeconomy Strategies
3. A capacity building strategy for all sectors
4. Development of alliances beyond the conservation sector
5. Closer coordination of NGO climate change networks
6. Resolving misuse of carbon accounting rules
7. Model nature protection initiatives to address climate change – European example
8. A rebalanced agenda for state forest agencies
9. Reinforcement of key conservation policies
10. Reforms to the representation of conservation interests