BELÉM, Brazil — Almost 200 countries gathered in Brazil acknowledged Saturday that their efforts to stop calamitous global warming were off pace — but geopolitical headwinds and fossil-fuel-producing countries snuffed out hopes of a meaningful commitment to move faster.
The deal approved after a difficult final day of negotiations near the mouth of the Amazon calls for enhanced efforts by nations to curb the Earth’s rising temperatures and provide poorer, particularly vulnerable countries with assurances of funding to deal with the impacts of a hotter planet. But it offers money less quickly than those nations would have wanted, due to resistance from Europe and other rich countries.
The COP30 agreement also points to expansions of the worldwide clean energy economy, calling the transition toward reduced planet-warming pollution and more climate-resilient development “irreversible and the trend of the future.”
It was a stronger outcome than what the talks’ Brazilian hosts had proposed in the final days of the talks. The negotiations faced multiple complications, including the United States’ refusal to attend the summit at all.
But the agreement still only alludes to a push by 82 nations, including many in Europe, for a concrete process to speed up the worldwide transition away from fossil fuels. That proposal had drawn objections from major oil- and natural-gas-producing nations, which have pointed to rising energy demand as a driver of the continued need for output.
Instead, countries agreed to take marginal steps to accelerate their climate efforts while “striving” to do better, a phrase that China — the world’s clean energy superpower, second-biggest economy and largest greenhouse gas polluter — has used to refer to its own targets.
Brazil also pushed a side deal for creating two separate “roadmaps” that would outline a path toward winding down fossil fuel use and ending deforestation. Colombia and the Netherlands, strong advocates of a fossil fuel phase-out, had announced Friday they would co-host a summit next year to move that effort forward.
“As president of this conference, it is my duty to recognize some very important discussions that took place in Belém and that need to continue during the Brazilian presidency … even if they are not reflected in these texts we just approved,” COP30 President André Aranha Corrêa do Lago said following the final gaveling.
“There was no backtracking, there was a bit of progress,” said German climate minister Carsten Schneider. “I would have liked to see much more, but we also wanted a COP that produces results and shows that multilateralism works, even if it is incredibly difficult.”
The final text is nonbinding, and even a firm reiteration of a previous summit’s 2023 pledge to eventually phase out oil, gas and coal would have no effect on countries such as the United States that are aggressively moving to expand their production and exports of fossil fuels. But the less-than-resounding support for taking that pledge forward raises questions about whether countries remained united behind a goal they had described as historic just two years ago, according to delegates who expressed disappointment Saturday.
The 13 days of talks by nearly 200 countries in the northern Brazilian port city of Belém had taken place without U.S. delegates present — a first for the annual global climate talks — after President Donald Trump dismissed the entire effort to avert the Earth’s warming as a “hoax” and a “con job.”
Trump announced in January that he was once again withdrawing the United States from the 2015 Paris Agreement, the global climate pact whose goals had provided a basis for this month’s negotiations.
The absence of a strong U.S. push for a climate deal, something Washington had provided at previous talks under former Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, allowed a bloc of emerging economies and petro-states to scrub the final text of any explicit mention of the fuels driving climate change.
EU members, while initially split over whether to endorse the roadmap on fossil fuels, had railed against the snub on Friday and were prepared to walk away from the summit on the final day without a deal.
But the bloc won a handful of small concessions overnight, and after hours of discussions early Saturday morning decided to endorse the slightly tweaked text.
“We would have liked to have more,” EU climate chief Wopke Hoekstra said, but “we do think we should support it because at least it goes in the right direction.”
The 2023 U.N. climate summit in the United Arab Emirates — a major oil and gas producer in its own right — had urged countries to begin “transitioning away from fossil fuels.”
In the years since, fossil fuel production has continued rising. At the same time, though, use of renewable energy sources such as solar and wind power have taken off, thanks in large part to lower costs and rising exports of gear from China.
But China, which still describes itself as a developing country, declined to step into a political leadership position at the talks, despite having a major presence at the summit and a predominant role in the world’s clean energy supply chains. That left the European Union and more progressive climate countries, such as Colombia and the United Kingdom, isolated in pushing for a more ambitious deal without U.S. backing.
As the COP30 host and president, Brazil had placed a priority on connecting the talks to the real economy and sending a message that global cooperation on climate is still alive and breathing. The final deal achieved that aim, but just.
“At a time of great political challenge, 193 countries have come together within the Paris Agreement to recommit to acting on the climate crisis,” said U.K. Energy Secretary Ed Miliband. “We fought hard for this outcome because it is crucial to protect future generations and because of the economic opportunities today from clean energy.”
