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BELEM, Brazil – World governments agreed Saturday at the COP30 conference in Brazil to a compromise climate deal that increases funding for poorer countries to combat global warming but makes no mention of the fossil fuels that drive warming.
In securing the deal, countries sought to demonstrate global solidarity in tackling the effects of climate change, even after the United States, the world’s largest emitter in history, refused to send an official delegation.
But the deal, reached in after-hours negotiations after two weeks of contentious negotiations in the Amazonian city of Belem, exposed the rift between rich and developing countries, as well as between governments with opposing views on oil, gas and coal. After sealing the deal, COP30 President Andre Correa de Lago acknowledged that the negotiations had been tough.
“We know that some of you have greater ambitions on some of the issues at hand,” he said.
The European Union had been the main vocal holdout on the transition away from fossil fuels, but eventually agreed to reverse it after a coalition of countries, including Saudi Arabia, the biggest oil exporter, said it was prohibited.
“We should support it (the deal) because at least it’s moving in the right direction,” European Union Climate Change Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra told reporters before the deal was signed.
Some countries had harsher words.
“Climate decisions, which cannot even be said about fossil fuels, are not neutral, they are complicit. And what is happening here is beyond incompetence,” said Juan Carlos Monterrey, Panama’s climate change negotiator.
The agreement calls for rich countries to at least triple the funding they provide by 2035 to help developed countries adapt to a warming world, launching voluntary efforts to accelerate climate action to help countries meet existing commitments to reduce emissions.
Scientists say that while existing national commitments to cut emissions have significantly reduced projected warming, they are not enough to prevent global temperatures from rising 1.5 degrees Celsius above industrial levels, the threshold that could trigger the worst effects of climate change.
Developing countries, meanwhile, have argued that they urgently need funding to adapt to impacts that are already occurring, such as rising sea levels, heat waves, droughts, floods and worsening storms.
Avinash Persaud, special advisor to the president of the Inter-American Development Bank, a multilateral financial institution focused on Latin America and the Caribbean, said the agreement’s financial focus is important as climate impacts increase.
“However, we are concerned that the world still lacks faster subsidies to help developing countries respond to loss and damage. This goal is as difficult as it is urgent,” he said.
An impasse between the European Union and a group of Arab states over fossil fuels pushed negotiations past Friday’s deadline and sparked all-night negotiations before a compromise was reached.
Prime Minister Correa do Lago said on Saturday morning that the presidential administration had released a sub-document on fossil fuels as well as forest protection, excluding them from the main agreement due to a lack of consensus.
But he called on countries to continue discussing the issue.
“I know that most of you are tired, but as the President of this conference, it is my duty to recognize some very important discussions that took place in Belém, even if they are not reflected in this document that we have approved, which must continue throughout the Brazilian Presidency and into the next COP,” he said.
Saturday’s agreement will also begin a process for climate groups to consider how international trade and climate action can be linked, according to the agreement text, amid growing concerns that rising trade barriers are limiting the deployment of clean technologies.
(Reporting by William James, Lysandra Paraguas, Kate Abnett and Sudarshan Varadhan; Editing by Katie Daigle, Kevin Liffey and Toby Chopra)
