Önder Özar Diplomasi Sevgisi: Bloomberg Green Daily - COP30 Special Coverage - View in browser Bloomberg Today’s newsletter covers the six key takeaways from this year’s talks and where it leaves the world in its efforts to cut emissions and adapt to a hotter planet.

After two weeks of flood, fire, protests and coffee-fueled late-night negotiations, COP30 has reached a close. The deal left many nations frustrated with its lack of ambition. Today’s newsletter covers the six key takeaways from this year’s talks and where it leaves the world in its efforts to cut emissions and adapt to a hotter planet.

You can subscribe to Bloomberg News for more on international climate politics and way-too-early lookaheads at next year’s meetings in Turkey.

Six takeaways from two weeks in the rainforest

By Amanda Kolson Hurley, John Ainger, Jennifer A Dlouhy, Akshat Rathi, and Fabiano Maisonnave

Global climate negotiations eked out an agreement that manages to nudge forward efforts to curb planet-warming emissions. But the final result — in avoiding explicit reference to fossil fuels — will leave big questions hanging over the efficacy of international climate politics.

Two weeks of talks in the rainforest city of Belém, Brazil, served as a rebuttal of sorts to the idea that climate multilateralism is no longer viable. In the end, nearly 200 countries agreed to an eight-page document that calls for stronger efforts on national goals on emissions and boosting financial support to poor countries that need help defending against intensifying heat, storms and droughts.

But the outcome of COP30 revealed deep fractures, particularly around which countries should pay for adaptation and how to get the world off fossil fuels. The Global Mutirão decision, a title using the Brazilian hosts' term for collective action, left out key provisions about winding down fossil fuel use that had been the benchmark for success by dozens of more ambitious countries.

The two largest economies and historical emitters, the US and China, were conspicuous in their lack of impact. President Donald Trump declined to send representatives as the US exits from global climate accords; China focused more on its own interests in trade rather than stepping into a stronger leadership role.

For some diplomats and experts, the outcome at best prevents a backslide on previous deals while doing little more to curb the oil, gas and coal that remain the primary source of greenhouse gas emissions. “This COP was the manifestation of a new geopolitical reality,” said Linda Kalcher, executive director at Strategic Perspectives.

Brazil, host of the United Nations summit on the edge of the Amazon, announced it would work on two initiatives to combat deforestation and transition away from fossil fuels that will take shape over the next year and could inform COP31 talks in Turkey. To understand what happened and where it leaves the world, we’ve compiled six key takeaways.

A gas flare in Canada. Photographer: James MacDonald/Bloomberg

The fossil fuel gap is still too wide

A proposed road map for the transition away from oil, gas and coal was a focal point of this year’s COP, with backing from roughly 80 countries, including Colombia, the UK, Germany and Kenya. So when the draft that Brazil released on Friday didn’t mention it, many delegates were disappointed and angry.

Ultimately, COP30 President André Corrêa do Lago pledged to create a road map focused on a just transition away from fossil fuels, which will continue over the next year. While that measure won robust applause Saturday, it’s not the full plan incorporated in formal COP processes that supporters wanted.

“Staying silent on fossil fuels” isn’t sufficient, said Harjeet Singh, a founding director of the Satat Sampada Climate Foundation.

Nearly 200 countries agreed in Dubai in 2023 to phase out fossil fuels. But that belies a deep, persistent divide on the issue. Some nations insisted that COP30 spur concrete action to help economies make the shift. For others, such as China and petrostates Russia and Saudi Arabia, any new obligation relating to the phaseout was a red line.

A man bikes through the destroyed neighborood in Jamaica following Hurricane Melissa. Photographer: Ricardo Makyn/AFP/Getty Images

Adaptation has jumped up the agenda

In climate policy, adaptation — learning to live with the effects of a warmer world — has long taken a back seat to emission-cutting work of mitigation. But adaptation was elevated at this year’s COP, a recognition that climate damage is happening now and the need to adapt is here. Worsening storms, floods, droughts and fires pose a huge burden, especially on developing countries and small island states.

COP30 adopted a call to triple adaptation finance by 2035. That timeline is five years longer than what developing nations were pushing for, though. “In the Marshalls, our adaptation needs are overwhelming,” Kalani Kaneko, foreign minister of the Marshall Islands, said at the summit.

The 2035 timeline is hard but achievable, according to experts. “Tripling the adaptation goal is possible,” climate finance specialists at the World Resources Institute wrote in an analysis earlier this month. “But every relevant source of finance will need to step up, and the system will need to work better as a whole.”

A CATL lithium mine in China. Photographer: Gilles Sabrie/Bloomberg

Trade and critical minerals are climate issues, too

Trade is a flashpoint in global politics right now, and it created tension in Belém as well. China and other countries voiced displeasure with the European Union’s carbon levy. The measure is designed to prevent carbon “leakage” when heavy-emitting industries relocate offshore, but critics say it penalizes other countries' exports to the bloc.

Those frustrations made it into the final agreement, which includes a swipe at such unilateral trade actions. The document reaffirms that measures taken to combat climate change “should not constitute a means of arbitrary or unjustifiable discrimination or a disguised restriction on international trade.” It also sets up a dialogue and a high-level event in 2028 to consider the role of trade policy.

And for the first time at a COP, delegates included language on critical minerals such as lithium and cobalt in a draft negotiating text that highlighted the risks associated with their extraction and processing. Although it was left out of the final decision, the proposal underscored mounting concerns that the shift away from polluting fossil fuels could leave the world more reliant on minerals tied to environmental and social ills.

Demonstrators at COP30. Photographer: Marina Calderon/Bloomberg

Political freedom makes a COP comeback

Tens of thousands of people took to the streets of Belém on On November 15 to call for a stronger response to climate change. The previous day, Indigenous activists blocked the entrance to the Blue Zone of the COP30 venue, staying put until they could have a dialogue with the Brazilian officials leading the summit. And before that, a small group of protesters forced their way into the Blue Zone after being denied access.

Such scenes in democratic Brazil were a far cry from the past three COPs, held in countries where political expression is heavily restricted. While many activists said the summit did not adequately include or listen to them, civil society was a bigger part of these talks than it had been for years.

With COP31 set to be held in Turkey, protests may once again recede. The country has seen one of the sharpest pullbacks on freedom of expression over the past decade, according to Freedom House.

Houses in Indonesia's forests. Photographer: Muhammad Fadli/Bloomberg

Forests got money — but not make-or-break support

Brazil went into COP30 with a signature initiative: the Tropical Forests Forever Facility, a fund to support rainforest conservation worldwide. The country hoped for tens of billions in pledges, but the fund fell far short.

Norway, Germany and Indonesia and others have committed more than $6 billion so far. Norway’s pledge came with conditions that include raising more investment from others, meaning much work remains to be done.

The Global Mutirão decision also recognizes the critical role of forests in storing carbon and maintaining a livable climate. However, a proposed road map to stop deforestation did not make it into the final text, with Corrêa do Lago instead propping up a second initiative akin to the fossil fuel one. It’s an omission that some found galling given the setting of the talks.

“If we cannot agree on ending deforestation here in the Amazon, the question is, ‘then where?’” asked Juan Carlos Monterrey Gómez, the special representative for climate change from Panama.

US President Donald Trump Photographer: Graeme Sloan/Bloomberg

The US makes its absence felt

This was the first COP without American attendance since President Donald Trump returned to the White House — and that absence was felt, for both good and bad.

Developed country negotiators, like those in the EU, missed the presence of the US to act as a driver of ambition, using its diplomatic heft during critical moments with countries like China and Saudi Arabia. There was little sign of others being willing to step up into the vacuum. Beijing submitted an underwhelming climate pledge ahead of the summit and kept a low profile at the talks. Europe remained on the defensive against accusations of not providing enough finance and unfair trade measures.

Yet there was also relief that the US didn’t disrupt talks. In the weeks before COP30, the US played the role of spoiler in negotiations at the International Maritime Organization, which had been working for years to adopt a new global charge on the shipping industry’s enormous emissions.

Bill Gates' adaptation play

$1.4 billion

The amount the Microsoft founder committed to helping farmers in developing countries adapt to rising temperatures.

Missing: climate ambition

"It has failed to rise to the occasion."

Mohamed Adow

Director, Power Shift Africa

Adow said "COP30 gave us some baby steps in the right direction." But by not taking bigger ones, it didn't get the world on track to more robust emissions cuts.

Forests in focus

By Antony Sguazzin and Natasha White

As Gabon’s former environment minister, Lee White pioneered the fight for forested nations to be compensated for keeping their carbon-absorbing trees standing. That issue rose to prominence at this year’s climate talks, even if they failed to deliver as big a step forward as hoped.

Lee White Source: Zebek

Much of the focus in Brazil has been on the Amazon and its ability to sequester carbon. White is at the talks in the gateway to the Amazon, though, to advocate for a region that’s an even larger carbon sink: The Congo Basin, a forested region stretching from Nigeria to East Africa’s Rift Valley.

White and a group of almost 200 scientists completed the first-ever comprehensive assessment of the region, finding it takes up as much carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as Germany emits in a year. Their work and others’ underscores the value of tropical forests as a climate hedge.

Brazil made a fund to support developing nations’ conservation efforts a top COP30 priority. The Tropical Forest Forever Facility, or TFFF, seeks to leverage capital markets to generate returns that will be used to pay countries a fee per hectare of forest protected. The fund offers an alternative to the carbon market, which is designed to finance tree planting or reduce existing rates of deforestation, but has so far failed to deliver when it comes to protecting already-standing forests.

For countries like Gabon, where almost 90% of the land is covered by rainforest, funds have not been forthcoming. As rich countries grapple with stretched budgets and pressure to bolster defense spending at the expense of overseas aid, TFFF struggled to attract financing. The talks also failed to adopt a road map to end deforestation.

“Carbon markets have failed, and this is the most tangible sign,” White said of the broken pledges made by wealthy nations to help tropical nations keep their trees standing.

There are some glimmers of progress, though. Just days before a 2023 coup that saw White ousted from the Gabon government, the country partnered with Bank of America Corp. and the nonprofit Nature Conservancy to wrap up a $500 million debt-for-nature swap.

The deal was criticized by investors for the limited debt relief it achieved, but it survived the coup and has paved the way for new funding partnerships. Gabon is now exploring a follow-up arrangement with the Nature Conservancy that would see it raise $200 million in government and donor funds for conservation and community development over the next decade.

In the 800-page report on the Congo Basin, White and the 177 scientists who co-wrote it argue for interventions ranging from modernizing farming methods and sustainable use of forests to finance mechanisms such as debt-for-nature swaps through which countries refinance their debt and allocate any savings to conservation projects.

“There’s a huge problem developing that we are not solving and a huge opportunity that we are missing,” White said.

Laurent Fabius’ best COP memory

Laurent Fabius Photographer: Nathan Laine/Bloomberg

By Laura Millan

Catching COP dignitaries to share their favorite recollections can sometimes lead to a story itself. That’s the case with Laurent Fabius, the COP21 president who oversaw the 2015 Paris Agreement.

After telling a rapt audience at Science Po about what convinced countries to sign off on the text, Fabius quickly left the stage. I wanted to know what his favorite COP memory was and followed him as his advisors whisked him away. I shouted my question just before he disappeared: “Monsieur Fabius, quel est votre meilleur souvenir du COP?”

Fabius stopped for a second and then turned to answer.

“La fin,” he said.

Thank you for following along with our coverage in Brazil this year!