The decade-long alliance between developed countries led by the European Union (EU) and the developing countries most vulnerable to climate change – including small island states and the world’s poorest countries – frayed at COP30 in Belém, with both sides expressing disappointment.

On the penultimate day of talks, the EU said it would only offer more finance to help vulnerable countries adapt to climate change if there was an agreement to strengthen and speed up implementation of national climate plans, including a transition away from fossil fuels in the decision text.

This approach angered several negotiators from developing countries, who said efforts to cope with extreme weather and rising seas were too important to be traded off in this manner.

After COP, Least Developed Countries (LDC) negotiator Manjeet Dhakal told Climate Home News that adaptation was “not something to trade”. His native Nepal, for example, needs funding to put in place measures like early warning systems for flooding from glacial lakes and river floods, he said.

On the other side, EU negotiators accused climate-vulnerable countries of not giving strong enough support to Europe’s push for a roadmap away from fossil fuels.

Danish climate minister Lars Aagaard told a post-COP podcast in Danish that small islands and others had only supported the EU “in a half-assed way”.

This signals a weakening of the close relationship between the two sides that was cemented at COP21 in 2015 when they stood firmly together in the push for the Paris Agreement to include the lower global warming limit of 1.5C, as partners in what was dubbed the “High Ambition Coalition”.

Adaptation and fossil fuels linked

In Belém, after two weeks of late-night talks, governments at COP30 could only agree to a vague goal of at least tripling adaptation finance by 2035 and – instead of launching work on a fossil fuel roadmap – to create a “Global Implementation Accelerator” which may or may not include such a roadmap at some point in the future.

To get things started, Brazil’s COP30 president said he would draft a voluntary roadmap outside of the UN climate process.

Developed countries resisted a more ambitious call to triple adaptation finance by 2030 to $120 billion a year. The EU noted that an overall climate finance goal – of $300bn a year by 2035 – had been agreed only last year at COP29 and said they did not want to set an additional goal outside of its scope.

At the same time, a coalition of around 80 countries was pushing for COP30 to agree to launch a roadmap away from fossil fuels. This coalition included both developed and developing nations – particularly many LDCs, small islands and Latin American nations.

On the second Friday morning of the talks, the EU’s top climate official Wopke Hoekstra linked the two issues, telling a closed-door meeting of ministers: “if we deliver on the mitigation [emissions reductions] here together, yes you can ask the EU to move beyond its comfort zone on the financing of adaptation”.

Later that day, the African Group’s lead negotiator Richard Muyungi put out a statement saying that “some want [tripling of adaptation finance] deleted unless we trade it for a fossil-fuel phase-out deal. That is unacceptable. Adaptation is a right, not a bargaining chip.” He added: “This is an implementation COP, the continent has compromised enough. Africa will not leave with nothing.”

Thibyan Ibrahim, a negotiator for the alliance of small island states (AOSIS), told Climate Home News that climate-vulnerable countries were “disappointed and frustrated that developed countries aren’t taking the initiative to fill the gap in leadership after the withdrawal of the US”.

“While they [the rest] are not leaving the Paris Agreement, it is frustrating to see rolling back of ambition and commitments, rather than stepping up and becoming a partner of choice for developing countries,” the Maldivian negotiator said.

“Half-assed” support from small islands

On the other side, some EU negotiators expressed disappointment in the LDCs and AOSIS, accusing them of not being vocal enough in supporting a roadmap away from fossil fuels – something both groups deny.

Lars Aagaard, the climate minister from Denmark who led the EU’s negotiations, told the Danish Broadcasting Corporation (DR) in Danish that “those who normally support us” like the “small island states etcetera” only stood up for us “in a half-assed way” on moving away from fossil fuels. He added that the EU could “feel that the alliances that were there before were not so strong”.

He speculated that the US may have played a role in making countries that would normally support the EU on fossil fuels “conspicuously silent”. In October, after US threats to restrict visas and sanction nations, many Caribbean countries voted with the US and Saudi Arabia to postpone a green shipping deal at the International Maritime Organization in London. The US did not send an official delegation to COP30.

Former Colombian environment minister Susana Muhamad told a Climate Home News event halfway through COP30 that “we have countries in the Caribbean that have been leaders on the finance that cannot speak any more globally about [it] because they have been threatened” by the US.

Some negotiators and observers have said the EU could have got more support for a fossil fuel transition roadmap if the bloc had come with a compelling offer on adaptation finance. But Aagaard dismissed this argument, telling DR in Danish: “There is not a day on Earth when I give any money to Tuvalu or Jamaica, then the Saudis think ‘Oh, how sweet they are… now I vote for us to get off fossil fuels’.”

Some LDC and AOSIS negotiators also denied that their support for a fossil fuel transition plan would have been stronger with more adaptation money on the table. “Not necessarily,” said AOSIS’s Ibrahim while the LDCs’ Dhakal said both mitigation and adaptation are important, and Sierra Leone’s environment minister Jiwoh Abdulai insisted “the two are not mutually exclusive for us”.

But Li Shuo, director of the China Climate Hub at the Asia Society Policy Institute, said that at both COP29 and COP30 there had been a “disenchanted vulnerable group of countries”, adding “this dynamic is likely to persist if Western nations remain distracted from climate finance”.

“Faced with diminishing climate aid from the West and the availability of cheap solar panels from China, they are likely to find the latter far more attractive,” he added.

The lesson Aagaard said he had taken from COP30 was that Europe needs to pursue its own interests more relentlessly and not be naive. “The thing about being the moral one and doing the right thing and hoping that others will follow suit – that dream has pretty much been wrecked for me,” he told DR.

The post EU alliance with climate-vulnerable nations frays over finance trade-off appeared first on Climate Home News.

EU alliance with climate-vulnerable nations frays over finance trade-off

In contrast to COP30’s disappointing outcomes on finance, adaptation and fossil fuel transition, governments in Belém agreed to an ambitious Just Transition package. It combines the strongest language on rights and inclusion yet seen in the UN climate process with a new global mechanism to support countries reshaping their economies in a cleaner and fairer way.

Delegates described the win as a rare convergence of political will, technical facilitation and years of groundwork by civil society.

For Indian women workers, a just transition means surviving climate impacts with dignity

“This decision brings the highest level of commitment we’ve ever seen on rights, inclusion and cooperation in climate planning,” said Anabella Rosemberg, Just Transition lead at Climate Action Network International.

“In a COP where many other rooms were struggling, this shows what is possible when the people who have been carrying Just Transition for years finally get heard.”

Civil society kept the issue alive

The work programme on Just Transition, launched in 2022, remained low-profile across several COP cycles. During that time, unions, youth networks, feminist groups, Indigenous advocates and NGOs continued refining their proposals and pushing negotiators even when political attention was limited.

As momentum built toward COP30 this year, these groups began referring to their proposal as the Belém Action Mechanism – the “BAM” – signalling the level of institutional ambition they believed the process required. “There would be no Just Transition mechanism without civil society,” Rosemberg said.

She noted how different groups kept the issue alive over the past three years – drafting text, feeding ideas into consultations, and staging actions – from June’s ‘picketnic’ in Bonn to demonstrations in Belém.

“The strongest rights and inclusion language ever agreed at a COP comes directly from that sustained work,” she added.

Governments shifted faster than expected

A key moment arrived on day two of COP30, when the G77+China group of developing countries signalled its support for establishing a Just Transition mechanism. Negotiators from several regions described this as the turning point that made an ambitious outcome possible.

This was followed by the EU at the end of the first week and then by the UK. Behind the scenes, civil society groups in Canada, Australia and Switzerland pushed their governments to align with the emerging consensus.

COP30: Spain’s unions say just transition means renewing communities beyond jobs

Facilitators and ministers closed the gaps

The technical co-facilitators of talks on the Just Transition Work Programme, Joseph Teo (of Singapore) and Federica Fricano (Italy), were credited with producing a clear, workable draft text that helped bridge divides. Delegates said its readability – unusual for UNFCCC text – helped maintain trust.

Last year at COP29 in Baku, the Just Transition track of the negotiations ended without an outcome, partly because no ministers were mandated to land one.

Belém took a different approach: Mexico’s Alicia Bárcena and Poland’s Krzysztof Bolesta were appointed as ministerial leads and played a central role in balancing strong rights language with the institutional detail needed to implement it.

UNFCCC secretariat staff supported the process with rapid revision work through the second week.

Brazil’s presidency and the significance of place

As the COP host nation, Brazil made Just Transition one of its three priorities, ensuring the track remained visible amid wider disputes. The presidency directed parties toward “institutional arrangements” – the diplomatic route that made a mechanism possible.

Belém’s context also mattered. The region is a long-standing focal point for debates around livelihoods, extractivism of natural resources and environmental protection, grounding the negotiations in a real-world context.

“Water is worth more than lithium,” Indigenous Argentine community tells COP30

“Brazil was the right place for this breakthrough,” Rosemberg said. “Here the tension between social protection and environmental protection is lived, not abstract. A mechanism agreed in the land of trade unionist and environmentalist Chico Mendes – that means something.”

What the Just Transition decision changes

The final text approved at COP30 sets out principles for rights-based, inclusive transitions and decides to develop a global mechanism to support countries in implementing those principles – elevating it to a structural component of how climate action will be delivered in the Paris Agreement era. The mechanism is due to be operationalised at COP31 next November.

The COP30 agreement also reinforces the expectation that social and economic dimensions must be central to national climate plans, not appended to them.

The work starts now

The mechanism’s impact will depend on the operational details agreed by governments in the months ahead. Key questions include the design of the mechanism’s committee, what form secretariat support will take, and whether civil society and trade unions will have a formal role in its work.

Parties also need to decide whether the mechanism should help convene a wider network of practitioners. Its first workplan, the identification of support needs, and clarification of how it will interact with existing UNFCCC bodies will shape how effective it becomes – decisions that are expected to be taken at COP31.

A just transition for renewables: Why COP30 must put people before power

“What comes next is making sure this mechanism speaks to reality,” Rosemberg said.

“It has to work for workers facing job loss, for communities left out of climate decisions, and for governments trying to shift economies away from extractivism. If those voices shape it, this can be an eye-opener rather than a repetition of old conversations.”

Social justice at the forefront

COP30 will likely be remembered for its unresolved debates and for outcomes that fell short in areas many countries consider essential. Against that backdrop, the Just Transition decision stands out as a rare instance of coordination between civil society, governments and the presidency.

It marks the first time the UN climate process has created an institutional structure dedicated to ensuring that social and economic justice is embedded in the shift away from fossil fuels and other high-carbon sectors that must change.

The Just Transition outcome may not resolve the broader challenges faced by the UN climate process, but it establishes a foundation that many negotiators and observers say could shape climate policy for the better in the years to come.

The post How Belém built a new Just Transition mechanism appeared first on Climate Home News.

https://www.climatechangenews.com/2025/11/27/how-belem-built-a-new-just-transition-mechanism/

Over the past few weeks, over a thousand of you took the time to write to the Senate Inquiry on the overhaul of our national nature law. I read every single submission.

It was genuinely inspiring to see the heart, clarity and courage you poured into your messages. You came from every age group and from communities all over the country. You are students, farmers, grandparents, bushfire survivors and scientists. Many of you told stories of the places you love, the wildlife you want to protect and the future you want for the next generation.

Your submissions showed that when we act together, shoulder to shoulder, we are powerful. You are part of a community that refuses to accept the destruction of our forests as normal. You reminded decision makers that environmental protection laws have one job: to protect the environment.

In reading your submissions, one theme stood out. Our shared love for forests runs deep, and the care you expressed for wildlife, a safe climate, and future generations was clear. You spoke of powerful owls, quolls and gang-gang cockatoos. You spoke of the loss of old growth forests and the heartbreak of watching them destroyed for low value products like toilet paper and woodchips.

Near my own home, ancient trees continue to fall and threatened species lose what little habitat remains. Our current nature law allows agricultural deforestation and native forest logging to continue without proper oversight. With your support, we are hopeful that will finally change.

Your messages to decision makers

Here are just a few of your powerful submissions:

Please have the foresight and the courage to improve the laws protecting our environment.

Younger generations are losing faith in their future, and who can blame them? We have shown them that inaction is acceptable, and that profit outweighs protection. If we are to restore hope, we must model it through positive action and courageous, prosocial policymaking.

I cannot expect everything to go our way, but I do expect change. I do expect the extinction rates to go down, even by a bit. And I do expect you to review the reform and help not just us, but the koalas, the corroboree frog, and the famous tazzie devil.

The consequences of deforestation are far greater than any short term rewards. Please take urgent action to protect our forests and the wildlife that depend on them. I speak on behalf of my generation and the generations to come when I ask you to put an end to deforestation and its destructive impacts.

Your voices matter

Australia remains a global deforestation hotspot with one native animal killed every single second due to deforestation. Closing the loopholes that allow deforestation is essential if we want laws that actually protect nature. Parliament must now work together to fix the significant shortcomings in the proposed nature law reforms and deliver an environmental law that lives up to its name.

Thank you for everything you do for people and the planet. Your submissions showed leadership, compassion and determination. They reminded us that change is possible when communities refuse to stay silent.

Stay tuned for the outcome of the final reforms to the nature law. Greenpeace will continue to hold the government accountable in their implementation of these reforms, and we will keep pushing for strong nature protection in every forum and every avenue we can: on the streets and in the halls of parliament. 

Together, we can keep forests standing, wildlife thriving and the Great Barrier Reef protected. Taking action to halt the climate and nature crises will help secure a safe and liveable future for all of us.

A Message to You: Thank you for speaking for our forests