Written by Tony La Viña, Ben Te, Jayvy Gamboa, Dinah Faye Balleco, and Gab Mesina
We had high hopes going into COP30.
It was expected to be a significant meeting of the Parties, marking not only the more than three decades of the UNFCCC but also the 10th year since the Paris Agreement. It ought to have been a moment of reflection on what we have done so far in the battle against climate change. It should have been a renewed platform for discussing what the next steps are and what further actions remain to be done. After SB62, we raised our expectations on Why COP30 Must Deliver on Climate Justice. We had noted that the next round of climate talks offer a generational opportunity where we are tasked to sustain momentum, safeguard justice, and ensure that global ambition is not just proclaimed but also delivered.
That COP30 was held in Belém, the “gateway to the Amazon”, also signaled its significance. This year’s climate conference was to be held in a region that symbolized global risk and global opportunity. This meant that Parties are brought in closer proximity to what is at stake, what we stand to lose, and what we must protect – the forests, nature as a whole, and the most vulnerable of communities. COP30 should have been perceived as a challenge where Parties are called to make ambitious plans to meet the 1.5 degree temperature goal, urged to make stronger commitments for a just transition to renewables, and compelled to scale up funding for climate action.
COP30 was imagined to be a turning point. It is the first COP after the release of the ICJ Advisory Opinion on the Obligation of States in Respect of Climate Change (ICJ AO). This meant that Parties now have something to hold on to so that they can claim that they all have a legal obligation under international law to protect the climate system from harm, to undertake climate action, and to fully cooperate with each other towards these shared objectives. It is a textual recognition of universal obligations and of collective responsibility. It ought to have bound each Party under a common goal and a united direction for immediate climate action towards climate justice.
All these lofty expectations were largely met with the sobering disappointment of reality. While COP30 was not a total loss, with a few positive outcomes here and there, its totality fell far too short of what we imagined that it could be and what we hoped it would achieve. The high expectations for COP30 are not based on the mere naïve belief that, after thirty years of COPs, Parties will suddenly agree on the most ambitious, just, and science-based outcomes. These hopes were simply based on the simple belief that Parties could, as they should, recognize that the window for climate action is fast closing and that the climate crisis will soon be as destructive as it is irreversible. Any COP outcome should be tested and scrutinized in this context. No negotiated text, as palatable as it may seem, will pass muster if the totality of the outcomes, and even the entirety of the processes, do not meet the urgency required of the climate crisis nor the justice demanded by communities. It is through this lens, of juxtaposing expectations versus reality, that we pick apart what results we got from COP30.
Examining the Outcomes
The Mutirão Decision: A projection of unity
The Mutirão Decision or the COP30 Presidency’s climate package, titled “Global Mutirão: Uniting humanity in a global mobilization against climate change,” reaffirms the parties’ commitment and belief in the multilateral process. The core of the decision is the resolution for a ‘Global Mutirão’, a collective effort meant to emphasize “the importance of international cooperation for addressing global issues.” Further, it recognizes that some progress has been made since adopting the Paris Agreement; initial projections had expected a 4°C increase in global temperatures but the world has now limited it to 2.3°C – 2.5°C.
However, much more must be achieved and in a more urgent manner.The text reaffirms that “climate change is a common concern of humankind.” Therefore, parties must act to limit global temperature increase well below 2°C and pursue it to only just 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. The document stresses the urgency at which the parties must adhere to the 1.5°C goal as it notes the global carbon budget is rapidly depleting which demands sustained greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction. Moreover, it emphasizes that the window to achieve the 1.5°C target is quickly closing, and so the urgency to act is imperative. The decision also recognizes that the Paris Agreement policy cycle is now fully operational, with the conclusion of the first Global Stocktake informing new Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and National Adaptation Plans (NAPs). This mobilization is essential given that current GHG trajectories are insufficient to meet the 1.5°C goal.
To drive the Global Mutirão, key initiatives such as the Global Implementation Accelerator and the Belém Mission were launched. It also welcomed efforts to scale up climate finance for developing countries and introduced ways to work on the intersection of climate change with social and economic systems. All of these are necessary initiatives, but lacking in the general scheme for concrete climate action.
The Global Implementation Accelerator is a “cooperative, facilitative, and voluntary initiative” launched under the COP30 and 31 presidencies. Its aim is to enhance cooperation among all stakeholders to accelerate the implementation of NDCs and NAPs. However, its voluntary nature raises concerns as it lacks binding requirements and clear accountability structures. The reliance on voluntary cooperation may not be proportionate to the scale and urgency of the climate crisis. Simultaneously, the Belém Mission to 1.5 aims to foster enhanced ambition and international cooperation across mitigation, adaptation, and climate finance. In particular, this mission seeks to close the gap between existing NDCs and NAPs, and what is globally needed to keep warming under 1.5°C. Yet this ambition sits uneasily with the broader COP30 outcome as it did not secure a roadmap on fossil fuel phase-out which is already identified by scientific analyses as essential in achieving the 1.5°C limit. The lack of specific structural commitments in the Belém Mission risks operation in an incomplete system, allowing major emitters to retain discretion over fossil fuel expansion.
In terms of finance, the decision emphasizes the need for massive scaling up of climate funding for developing countries. It calls for efforts to triple adaptation finance by 2035. More broadly, it endorses a target that is agreed under the Baku-to-Belém Roadmap to mobilize at least USD 1.3 trillion per year by 2035 from public and private sources to support climate action (mitigation, adaptation, resilience) in developing countries. Additionally, it retains the previously adopted “minimum” target of USD 300 billion per year by 2035, originally under the New Collective Quantified Goal on Climate Finance (NCQG) which developed countries are expected to help lead. Under the Mutirão framework, a two-year work programme on climate finance has been established, intended to put these goals into practice. However, the decision still falls short of having binding obligations for delivery, a major reason previous finance pledges have been delayed or partially met.
The Mutirao Decision also introduces significant mechanisms and frameworks for the intersection of climate change with economic and social systems. Specifically, it requests the subsidiary bodies to hold a dialogue on trade with participation of institutions like the International Trade Centre (ITC), World Trade Organization (WTO), and United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). This dialogue is aimed at considering opportunities, challenges, and barriers in relation to enhancing international cooperation related to the role of trade in climate targets. While this inclusion is factually grounded, there should be further clarification on how to navigate existing tensions, such as divergent national approaches to carbon pricing.
The text puts forward that the cost of inaction far exceeds the cost of timely climate action, and the Global Mutirão decision is framed with this reality in mind. It centers on urgency to act, to cooperate, and to dramatically scale up climate finance. It acknowledges that three decades of multilateral effort have yielded some real progress, while also making clear that far greater ambition and resolve are needed to meet our shared goals. However, the decision still lacks the concrete, enforceable commitments needed to close the widening gap to 1.5°C.
Minor gains and major challenges for Loss and Damage
On the first day of COP30, the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD) launched the call for proposals for accessing the fund through the Barbados Implementation Modalities (BIM). Beginning on 15 December 2025 and for six months thereafter, countries will be able to submit their requests for funding from the FRLD with the FRLD Board expected to approve requests in July 2026. Parties were also able to agree on adopting the 2025 FRLD Report, which includes a decision providing further guidance to the Fund. The guidance took the form of urging the Board to ensure that the modalities and processes under the BIM and the Fund’s long-term operating model “will avoid disproportionate bureaucratic obstacles to the access of resources” and “to maintain high fiduciary standards, environmental and social safeguards, financial transparency standards, and accountability mechanisms”. While the decision essentially emphasized the need for accessibility of funding, it did not provide any mechanism for actually scaling up funding nor did it mention any calls for additional contributions or to convert existing pledges to actual contributions from developed countries. It even noted with concern the Board’s “delay in the adoption of the long-term fundraising and resource mobilization strategy”.
COP30 also saw the completion of the third review of the Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage (WIM). As one of the key pillars in the international Loss and Damage architecture, the WIM’s primary function is to enhance knowledge, strengthen dialogue, and coordinate efforts towards addressing loss and damage. After a deadlock in negotiations during COP29 in Baku, the WIM review has now resulted in outcomes that include, among others, establishing a process for producing a State of Loss and Damage Report, the development of new knowledge products on Loss and Damage, and ensuring their accessibility.
The agreement to produce a State of Loss and Damage Report is a positive outcome as it can inform the FRLD’s work in approving requests for funding. The Report is meant to synthesize information on “critical issues and lessons learned and providing best practices, solutions and policy advice in relation to loss and damage associated with the adverse effects of climate change.” The value of this Report, however, risks being minimized if there is not enough financing for loss and damage response to be distributed in the first place.
In essence, there was no significant outcome on Loss and Damage with respect to finance. There were no commitments for additional funding, no mechanism established for ensuring the sustainability of the Fund, and no recognition of the need for increased contributions from developed country parties. The lack of concrete outcomes for Loss and Damage financing is particularly alarming considering that the current amount of contributions, which amount to a little more than USD 700 million, is already woefully inadequate to address current and recent cases of losses and damages suffered by developing countries. With current contributions already insufficient to meet actual needs of climate-vulnerable communities, there is a growing concern that the FRLD would quickly deplete its funding in the absence of any means for replenishing and mobilizing resources.
Apart from the matter of finance, another key issue among parties was whether any negotiation outcome should include a reference to the recent ICJ Advisory Opinion on Climate Change. The ICJ AO is perceived by many as a significant legal victory that clearly establishes the legal obligations of States to prevent harm to the climate systems and to cooperate in all efforts towards addressing climate change. A number of Parties pushed for a reference to the ICJ AO during Loss and Damage negotiations, stressing that it is a recognition of the obligation of States to undertake climate action, including on Loss and Damage. Unfortunately, however, it was met with adamant resistance, with some Parties even threatening to walk away from negotiations on the mere suggestion that the ICJ AO may be referenced, much less recognized as an acknowledgement of legally binding obligations.
Whatever gains were made on Loss and Damage with the launch of the BIM appears too meager in the absence of commitments for further funding. While the guidance given to the FRLD to focus on accessibility may certainly be perceived as small steps forward in terms of global commitments, the absence of mechanisms for resource mobilization will likely be a major issue that Parties will have to deal with moving forward. The omission of any reference to the ICJ AO portends similar challenges for the future, as Loss and Damage financing will remain to be treated as gratuity rather than legal duty.
A step toward operationalizing Just Transition
The United Arab Emirates Just Transition Work Programme (UAE JTWP) has unlikely wins and likely losses at COP30. Coming out of SB62 in June, the UAE JTWP’s only tangible outcome was a non-binding Informal Note, which, although forwarded to Belém, remained heavily contested. Among the major outstanding issues were the institutional arrangements for further operationalization of the UAE JTWP, the language on transitioning away from fossil fuels, and the long-standing tug-of-war on climate-related unilateral trade measures.
The initial negotiations in Belém seemed a re-run of SB62. With the COP30 Presidency’s subsequent intervention, the heavily divisive issues on the language on transitioning away from fossil fuels and the climate-related unilateral trade measures were taken to the political level. Technical negotiations on the key messages of the four Dialogues in the past two years, or what just transition pathways mean and entail, became a space where potential agreement could happen. The only saving grace was the unity of the broad negotiating bloc of developing countries, or the Group of 77 (G77), around the establishment of a Just Transition Mechanism.
Let us start with the unlikely wins. Paragraph 25 of the UAE JTWP decision text “[d]ecides to develop a just transition mechanism”. The just transition mechanism, which we can call here as JTM, aims to “enhance international cooperation, technical assistance, capacity-building and knowledge-sharing, and enable equitable, inclusive just transitions”. Parties shall collectively decide on the consequent form of the JTM at COP31.
For some, this is another year of delay. Further, the lack of reference to ‘finance’ in its purpose puts it in a limbo, because international cooperation may or may not involve finance. But for those who have been in the UAE JTWP negotiation table since 2024, this is a hard-earned compromise. For those negotiating in Belém, it was in the final days when everyone was pleasantly surprised that the JTM found its way intact into COP30’s deal.
Moreover, another win is the adoption of the language affirms a crucial foundation of the climate emergency: “That adaptation and climate resilience are integral to just transitions”. To reiterate the points from Manila Observatory’s previously published article “A new convergence in Just Transition: Climate change adaptation” and UNFCCC submission, this is a recognition that low-carbon transitions cannot be ‘just’ if climate resilience is sidelined. While this outcome ultimately forwards the interests of climate-vulnerable developing countries, such as the Philippines, the main challenge is how domestic climate action can embody this principle and prevent a resort to false solutions at the local level.
Despite these wins, there are still likely losses, owing to the slim chances of consensus in the first place. Yet, these must be pointed out, even just for the sake of accountability of the countries that refused to compromise. The language on transitioning away from fossil fuels as a non-prescriptive just transition pathway was not adopted. In addition, the language on the extraction of critical minerals, which are needed for clean energy technologies, and its social and environmental risks was also a redline for some Parties. Arguably, these issues go far beyond the UAE JTWP, but it is within the Work Programme where the seeds of failure were sown. These have reverberated as a major hit against the COP30 climate deal, but perhaps, for the Presidency, the JTM was the needed win and step forward at this point of climate diplomacy.
Reaffirmation of hope and transforming realities
All told, COP30 displayed a multilateral climate system making an effort to show signs of life. With a few minor gains, some small steps forward, and the projection of the Parties’ continued commitment to the entire process, what little was achieved were products of compromise. Anything more ambitious, such as commitments to phase-out fossil fuels or to scale up Loss and Damage finance, seemed much too unlikely. From there it appears that perhaps compromises were made for its own sake. It was an attempt for Parties to agree on something just to show that they can, instead of agreeing on what they must.
What we got from COP30 was predictable for some, especially those that have already cast doubt onto the entire global climate negotiations process. For others, it may be more of a wake-up call or simply a reaffirmation that climate justice cannot be achieved so easily. It is a reminder of the oft-repeated question on whether this system is worth putting our faith into – questions that increase in frequency within and outside COP venues as the years go by. It’s a fair question considering that, according to reports from the Institute for European Environmental Policy and the World Meteorological Organization, anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions have steadily increased since the 1990s and that over half of all total emissions since the pre-industrial age have taken place over the last thirty years. And so, even more questions arise. What has the three decades of the UNFCCC truly accomplished? How far have we truly come since the Paris Agreement? Are any of the compromises made in the plenary halls and negotiation rooms making a real and immediate impact on those who stand to lose so much from the climate crisis?
The system of multilateralism and the processes under the UNFCCC are rightly put under scrutiny. Peoples and communities have every reason to criticize, even under the harshest of terms, the very system that promises to provide solutions for climate change and yet does too little each year, despite the amount of resources poured into the annual climate talks. Every COP that does not achieve enough is simply another year lost and another opportunity wasted. It brings us further away from the 1.5 goal and closer to irreversible climate harm. For communities, an insufficient COP outcome has real-life consequences. It means more land and livelihood lost, more suffering from climate losses and damages, and more lives put at risk.
Despite the underwhelming outcomes of COP30, climate justice advocates cannot be cowed into cynicism. What was highlighted in Belém was not just the major disagreements between Parties, but the unity that was shown and galvanized by stakeholders. COP30 saw Indigenous Peoples taking a stand and demanding a seat at the table. They marched from the streets and into the COP venue. Their message was clear: we can no longer afford to ignore those who protect nature and those most vulnerable to the climate crisis. They showed that having a complete and fervent faith in the UNFCCC system is not an option. And yet, resigning to defeat and apathy is just as untenable. What their protest proved is that there are times when our voices will only be heard when it is amplified by our actions.
Belém also bore witness to thousands marching through the city, under unbearable heat, for the Global March for Climate Justice with the common vision for real, urgent, and meaningful climate action. The march exemplified not only resilience but determination. We saw alternative venues for conversation and collaboration through the People’s COP and the People’s Plenary. These broad engagements were complemented by many more spaces of protest and various acts of solidarity and resistance throughout the two weeks of COP and even beyond. Each and every one of these actions sowed the seeds of hope in what otherwise would have been another bleak and unfruitful COP.
Doubts and disappointment in the international climate talks is a reality that we must contend with. The disagreement of Parties, their efforts to arrive at crude compromises, and the ultimately unsatisfactory outcomes merely reflect the state of disarray that characterize global politics. It is this very system that caused and worsened the climate crisis. It is also the reason why climate action is stalled and why the promise of multilateralism can often sound hollow. But we cannot let this reality shape our views nor our actions. Rather, it must be our own views and actions that must endeavor to transform reality. After all, climate justice is not just an ambition, but a movement. It must be built, broadened, and sustained. It requires every form of engagement, every act of resistance, and every symbol of solidarity. It must reject any form of compromise that forsakes our future.
Our collective task is to build pressure, expose the systemic gaps, and shift the power dynamics from the ground up so that our calls are heard and acted upon. This work must not be confined solely within the UNFCCC system, but wherever climate injustice is found and must be confronted. At the end of the day, any hope for resolving the climate crisis will not be found within negotiation halls. It is found in communities, those that are in the frontlines of climate action, where our expectations of climate justice are turned into reality. It is in this unwavering commitment and relentless struggle where we proclaim that the future of the people and the planet belongs to all of us – and it is not up for negotiation.