This year’s global climate summit, COP30, kicked off on Monday morning in the Amazonian city of Belém in Brazil, amid a warning from Simon Stiell, the United Nations climate chief, that the world is not doing enough to combat the crisis, and strategic compromises over the elements of the official agenda of the summit.
The day before, after hours of tense exchanges on the agenda, delegates finally agreed on the compromises and resolved sticky matters.
Experts from Power Shift Africa (a Nairobi-based think tank) on the ground in Belem understand that the suggestion for the inclusion of Africa’s ‘special needs’ in the agenda did not make the cut, and that this will instead be handled through informal consultations led by the COP Presidency.
Other key items under discussion on last Sunday evening included Article 9.1 of the Paris Agreement, which outlines finance obligations of the Global North to the Global South, national climate plans known as Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), the European Union’s proposal on biennial transparency reports, and the developing countries proposal to discuss restrictive universal trade measures.
Meanwhile, a special session on Africa’s unique climate interests was announced, together with a promise for the agenda to be taken up more fully at COP32, which will be hosted in Africa and for which Ethiopia has placed a strong bid. Despite the usual first-day wrangling, negotiators portray this as a smooth and cooperative start, a signal from the Presidency that multilateralism is alive and well. With anti-climate lobbies waiting to exploit any sign of gridlock, the Brazilian COP30 Presidency is eager to demonstrate unity and progress.
At the opening plenary, Simon Stiell, the UN Climate Change Executive Secretary, said the world is not moving fast enough to confront the climate crisis but was quick to note that global cooperation had at least prevented ‘an impossible future’ of runaway heating.
‘We have so much more work to do. We must move much, much faster; both in reducing emissions and in strengthening resilience,’ he told delegates. Stiell credited the Paris Agreement, adopted ten years ago, with bending the curve of projected global heating from as high as 5°C to below 3°C, saying ‘it is still perilous, but it proves that climate cooperation works.’ He said success now depends on two interlinked pillars: stronger, more credible national climate plans, the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs); and the financing to make them possible. ‘Plans without finance cannot reach their full potential,’ he said.
Finance is the great accelerator
Stiell pointed to the Baku to Belém Roadmap, a new initiative that seeks to increase global climate finance from about US$300 billion a year to US$1.3 trillion by 2035, describing it as a shared investment in ‘stability and prosperity,’ and noting that countries acting fastest on clean energy would reap the greatest economic benefits. ‘Every dollar invested in climate solutions brings multiple dividends; jobs, cleaner air, better health, resilient supply chains, and stronger energy and food security,’ he said.
Supporters hailed the roadmap as an ambitious but necessary step to close the gap between climate pledges and real-world funding.
Mukhtar Babayev, Azerbaijan’s Minister of Ecology and President of last year’s COP29, said it offers ‘a rare opportunity to transform promises into tangible progress.’
Brazil, hosting COP30 under President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, described the roadmap as ‘a blueprint for collective resolve.’ The Brazilian delegation urged negotiators to focus on fairness and delivery rather than rhetoric.
‘The science is clear, the moral imperative undeniable. What remains is the resolve,’ they said.
Mohamed Adow, the founder and director of Power Shift Africa, said, ‘COP30 must deliver the priorities for Africa and the wider developing world which are clear: we need a fair deal that delivers finance for adaptation in vulnerable countries and supports a just transition to renewable energy.’
He added that these are not acts of charity, but investments in a stable, liveable planet. ‘We need to see the sharing of clean energy technology by the global north with the global south, and we need to see more national climate plans published by all countries, laying out how we are going to accelerate the momentum towards a safe and prosperous planet for us all,’ he explained.
Speaking on the adoption on the agenda, he added: ‘It is good to see the agenda formally adopted and the start of the COP underway in a reasonably orderly fashion. It suggests that countries recognise the importance of this summit and the need for international cooperation if we are going to tackle the climate crisis.’
Adow stressed that saving the multilateral UN process does not mean we are guaranteed to save the planet. To do that, we need to see actual steps taken in Belem to boost climate finance to help vulnerable countries adapt to the impacts of the climate crisis. ‘We also need countries to commit to the just energy transition by moving away from polluting fossil fuels and investing much more in clean renewables. The world has spent the last ten years agreeing to the rules of the international climate regime. We now need to see countries acting on the regime they signed up to, not just speaking warm words,’ he noted.
Fatigue and distrust
Sandra Guzmán, the Director General of the Climate Finance Group for Latin America and the Caribbean (GFLAC), warned that ‘private and philanthropic funds must complement, not replace, the obligations of developed countries.’
The COP30 Presidency is understood to be positioning the summit as a political reckoning that will test whether the Paris Agreement, the crown jewel of international climate diplomacy, can still deliver results at scale. Since 2015, global emissions have plateaued but not fallen fast enough.
The 1.5°C target, the threshold scientists warn the world must stay below to avoid catastrophic consequences, is slipping out of reach.
The Belém conference comes amid growing fatigue and distrust in the global climate process, particularly over financing and equity.
The Baku to Belém Roadmap aims to restore faith by setting a long-term financing goal, but key questions remain unanswered: who pays, how much, and under what terms. Omar Elmawi, the convener of the Africa Movement of Movements, noted: ‘We cannot keep sailing blindly into a climate apocalypse while pretending everything is merry. COP30 must be the turning point, where words become action, and promises become justice. Over eight billion people globally are looking at Belém to be the moment we will all look back to and celebrate, not one we curse.’
Brazil’s Presidency of the COP is attempting to shift the focus back to justice and implementation, linking climate action to forests, energy transition, and sustainable industrialisation.
Hosting the talks in the Amazon, the planet’s largest carbon sink, is both symbolic and strategic, a reminder that global climate progress hinges on protecting ecosystems and empowering the communities that depend on them.
For Africa, COP30 is a moment of reckoning. The continent contributes less than four percent of global emissions but bears the heaviest costs of climate change, from droughts and cyclones to collapsing agricultural yields and energy insecurity.
African negotiators have consistently argued that without predictable, affordable finance, developing nations cannot deliver on their commitments. The Baku to Belém Roadmap could be transformative if implemented fairly, ensuring that new funds reach life-saving adaptation projects in vulnerable communities, not just emissions reductions in middle-income economies.
African countries are also demanding a rebalancing of the climate finance equation to include more grants, fewer debt-driven instruments, and direct access for local governments and institutions. The hope is that the roadmap will address long-standing inequalities that have left Africa sidelined when it comes to green investment.
Optimism
Across Kenya, Rwanda, Morocco and South Africa, governments are already investing in electric mobility, renewable energy, and green manufacturing, practical examples of how climate action can drive growth and jobs if backed by finance and technology transfer.
Despite the challenges, Stiell insisted the Paris framework remains valid.
‘The framework created by the Paris Agreement is still sound. But the next decade will determine whether it delivers in full. History will not ask what we intended. It will ask what we achieved,’ he said.
How the world was affected
The India-Pakistan heatwave began unusually early, in April this year. By June, temperatures had reached a peak of about 48C (118.4F) in the Indian state of Rajasthan. Hundreds of lives were lost, and crops were decimated. Europe also faced extreme heat this year.
Over the summer, the region endured a heatwave that pushed cities like Lisbon past 46C (114.8F). In London, a prolonged period of elevated temperatures in late June caused an estimated excess 260 deaths.
Turkiye suffered one of its worst droughts in decades, hitting agricultural areas. Rainfall dropped by up to 71 percent in some areas compared with the previous year, stressing ecosystems and energy and food production.