The UN climate conference COP30 begins today in Belém, Brazil. It is now the 30th World Climate Summit, where representatives from almost 200 countries will come together for two weeks to talk about climate change and climate protection measures. Which topics are particularly in focus this time? What do the countries still disagree about? And how does the venue in the Amazon rainforest affect the negotiations?
The UN climate conference COP30 will take place in northeastern Brazil from November 10th to 21st, 2025. Around 50,000 participants from almost 200 countries are expected. It is the 30th conference of the member states of the UN Climate Convention and at the same time an anniversary of the historic Paris Climate Agreement, which was decided exactly ten years ago at COP21. At that time, the global community agreed to limit man-made global warming to a maximum of two degrees in the long term by the year 2100, but if possible to 1.5 degrees compared to the pre-industrial era, and to take appropriate measures to protect the climate. This includes a fundamental exit from fossil fuels and a shift towards renewable energies. Poorer countries that are particularly hard hit by climate change will also receive billions in aid to help them adapt. At the COP29 in Azerbaijan it was recently decided to increase this financial aid.
Lack of action
In fact, the Paris goal has already failed. The 1.5 degree limit will be exceeded by the beginning of the 2030s at the latest, and for at least a few years, as the latest studies show. That’s no wonder. There is an enormous gap between the agreed goals and the climate protection measures that have already been decided or implemented. More greenhouse gases are still being released worldwide every year than in the previous year, even though a reduction in emissions has been agreed in principle. As things currently stand and without further consistent action, the world is heading for warming of 2.8 degrees or more, as a report from the UN Environment Program recently showed. Even if all the measures announced so far for 2035 were implemented, the world would be around 2.4 degrees warmer at the end of the century. This would have fatal consequences for people and nature and would have far greater effects than the actual desired global warming of 1.5 or two degrees.
“Today we know a lot more about the climate system than we did ten years ago – and there is no all-clear. We are approaching critical thresholds, and in some cases we may have already exceeded them. Today, no one can say that he or she did not know about these risks,” says climate researcher Andreas Fink from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. The possible adjustment screws for reducing greenhouse gas emissions are already known. However, the dispute over concrete measures, cost distribution and responsibility continues. At COP30, the focus will once again be on who has to act and pay, when and how.
Lack of role models
A significant dampener is that the USA will not take part in the COP in Brazil. Although the economic power is the world’s second largest emitter, it is currently showing no interest in climate protection under President Trump. The country has withdrawn from the Paris climate agreement. The EU also plays an important role as the fourth largest emitter. In recent years, the European Union has been considered a pioneer when it comes to climate goals with the strongest national voluntary commitments (NDC, Nationally Determined Contributions). Their common goal is to be climate neutral by 2050. However, there is still disagreement about the interim goals until then and how they should be achieved.
It was only shortly before the start of the COP that this community of European industrialized countries, under pressure from business, agreed to massively weaken its previously envisaged climate targets for 2040. For example, the agreement now partially allows international CO2 certificates, which countries can use to outsource their climate protection to other countries for a fee instead of reducing emissions themselves. In addition, so-called carbon capture and storage solutions (CCS) are now permitted. This allows CO2 that has already been released into the atmosphere to be captured again. Although this is a sensible contribution to climate protection, it is very time-consuming. According to many climate researchers, it would be much more effective to release fewer greenhouse gases per se.
Critics fear that the vague political guidelines and loopholes in the climate protection regulations will encourage the fossil fuel industry to continue with its climate-damaging business model as before. Many researchers and experts are correspondingly disappointed with the EU as a supposed role model. Nevertheless, the EU now has the interim climate goal of releasing 90 percent fewer emissions by 2040 than in 1990. This value is now seen as a guide for the NDCs and climate protection in the individual EU countries as well as some other United Nations member states at the COP.
Venue with a signal effect?
The climate conference is taking place in the Amazon region for the first time. Belém is the gateway to the Amazon basin, the largest contiguous tropical forest in the world. This is a particularly symbolic place because the rainforest is considered the “green lung” of the world. It stores large amounts of the greenhouse gas CO2 and thus mitigates global warming. It is also home to countless species. But like many other habitats, the Amazon and the animals and plants that live in it are severely threatened by human intervention. Important factors include deforestation, slash-and-burn agriculture and fragmentation of the tropical forest. As a result, the Amazon can already absorb less and less CO2.
Even before the start of COP30, the heads of government of the countries will meet for the Climate Leaders Summit on November 6th and 7th, 2025. Among other things, this will involve a new type of fund to protect the Amazon rainforest and other tropical forests, the Tropical Forest Forever Fund (TFFF). “This fund is intended to invest in government bonds and return part of the returns to the depositors. In this way, countries should be financially rewarded for their efforts to preserve the tropical rainforest,” explains Lambert Schneider from the Öko-Institut in Berlin, who will negotiate for the EU in Belém. With the help of the targeted 108 billion euro fund, the forest is to be preserved as life insurance for all people worldwide. Host Brazil, which launched the fund, would also be among those who would benefit.
In contrast to the previously primarily technically oriented approaches, researchers hope that the fund could also create a general change of perspective. It could bring greater focus on the exploitation of nature and the overexploitation of the planet as a whole. “For many years, climate and biodiversity protection – including in international negotiations – were largely treated separately. Building bridges here and bringing the two together is of great advantage and benefit,” emphasizes Katrin Böhning-Gaese from the Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research.
Sources: United Nations, Science Media Center, Federation for the Environment and Nature Conservation Germany (BUND), Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research (UFZ)