B. Rosas:
I have been at Climate Generation for over a year now and have had the pleasure of meeting amazing environmental justice advocates, like Dr. Michelle Garvey, who teaches at the University of Minnesota. We first got to know each other during a campaign to shut down a harmful incinerator, the HERC, which has been polluting the Northside of Mpls for over a decade. These efforts are essential to the Twin Cities EJ movement and important to educate our students around, so they can see EJ lessons in real life and get activated.
Growing up in South Minneapolis, I did not receive much climate change education, let alone climate justice education. It’s not that my school didn’t teach anything about the climate crisis, but rather, that education remained shallow. Over a week or so, climate science was taught, but I wish the topic had extended beyond one unit in my 7th grade science class.
Even after learning about climate change and its effects on our lives and health, I still wasn’t activated to take action. It’s not that I didn’t care, but because my education was fear-based rather than solutions-based, I couldn’t see how young people could address it. Meanwhile, other challenges I saw my community facing, like housing insecurity, economic inequity, and racial injustice, seemed disconnected from climate change. This was because I was never taught climate justice.
I do believe that my teachers at the time did want to teach about Climate Change and Climate Justice, but didn’t have the resources to integrate these lessons into our daily curriculum. This is why our Climate Justice Education bill is crucial, as it will give educators guidance on how to teach climate justice and activate their students to not only care, but take action. Luckily there are already educators, of all grades, integrating Climate Justice Education into their curriculum.
As a UMN alum, I was pleasantly surprised to learn about the environmental justice course offered through the Sustainability Studies Program and taught by Michelle Garvey. I was sent the syllabus and in awe of the different topics that would be covered, along with the resources Michelle provided her students- it was the first time I actually saw a Climate Justice Curriculum in its entirety. When Michelle asked about a collaboration between her class and I, there was no hesitation in saying yes.
Michelle Garvey:
I’d been so impressed with B.’s environmental justice (EJ) advocacy work for Climate Generation in the Twin Cities long before we’d met. B. is dedicated, knowledgeable, and passionate about grassroots organizing, so I was delighted when they accepted my invitation to be our Spring 2024 SUST3017: Environmental Justice course partner. They brought firsthand experience as a frontline EJ leader, a youth and UMN alumni perspective relatable to undergrad students, and creative lessons on political change-making over the course of four months.
These are meaningful assets for our class community, because long before EJ is a scholarly pursuit, it is a social movement. This implies that in order to convey EJ truer to its values, I believe we must collaborate with frontline leaders and produce projects of benefit to the movement.
Further, in order to teach EJ effectively–creating lasting memories of connection and empowerment–experiential, place-based learning is critical. To that end, SUST3017 incorporates off-campus experiences, such as the bus tour of North Minneapolis we embarked upon with Community Members for Environmental Justice.
The centerpiece of this semester’s partnership with B. was a state bill Climate Generation helped conceive years ago: K-12 Climate Justice Education (House File 2297 and Senate File 476). I’ve tracked this bill with interest, and wondered whether a class of undergrads could both see it cross the finish line, and even help build out the climate justice (CJ) curriculum a Minnesota Department of Education taskforce would eventually develop. So I reached out to B., who was thankfully receptive!
To prepare both for political advocacy on the bill as well as to develop CJ lessons, we held in-class conversations with the current stewards of the bill–MN Rep. Larry Kraft and MN Sen. Nicole Mitchell–as well as climate literacy expert Nick Kleese, Community Engagement Director at UMN’s Center for Climate Literacy.
B. Rosas:
Michelle does a great job at taking her EJ lessons into the real world and connecting EJ to other social issues. During our partnership, her students and I covered:
- State and local EJ campaigns and how they could join each initiative. We discussed Climate Generation’s involvement with the Zero Burn Coalition to shut down the HERC, the coalition to implement the 2023 Cumulative Impacts Law, and the Twin Cities Boulevard initiative for highway removal.
- Legislative advocacy: We reviewed how a bill becomes state law, how students can locate their elected officials and potential bills of interest, and how they can advocate for or against issues of importance to them through letter-writing, Capitol rallies, and hearing testimonies.
Introduction to climate change education: To contextualize the CJ bill that embodied the focal point of our partnership, I introduced the Green Learning framework by the Center for Universal Education at Brookings. Then I facilitated feedback sessions on the CJ bill to explore what students could add to an eventual curriculum.
Michelle Garvey:
The final projects students produced are full of intelligent, creative, action-oriented, and hopeful ways to engage Minnesota’s elementary, middle, and high school students with the CJ movement. While no one in our class was an education major–so we could not be described as education experts!–we could indeed offer expertise in the history, leadership, challenges, and outcomes of climate justice. As such, our class was uniquely prepared to ideate activities true to the global CJ movement for lessons curriculum experts could eventually fine-tune to meet state standards.
We began by designing a more robust definition of CJ than the current bill utilizes:
Climate justice is:
A global movement to recognize the disproportionate impacts of climate change on those least responsible for it; resist the root causes of climate inequity; and repair the fractured relationships that perpetuate hierarchies among peoples, nations, and species; so ecosystems may be revisioned as commons—land, water, atmosphere—that support and sustain all life on Earth.
Then we developed a list of CJ learning objectives that each lesson plan would have to address:
Climate Justice Learning Objectives:
- Align one’s understanding of climate justice with the most contemporary consensuses on climate science
- Understand local-to-global case studies
- climate injustice
- climate justice
- Using an intersectional conceptual framework, appreciate both historical & contemporary drivers (i.e. systems, structures, norms) of global climate inequity
- Know the history of the climate justice movement: its vision, goals, and methods
- Critically evaluate
- measures to mitigate and adapt to climate change
- measures to deliver climate justice
- Imagine a climate just future:
- appreciate current projects and policies that deliver climate justice
- envision climate just projects and policies yet to be implemented
- Explore climate justice networks for:
- community building
- emotional & psychological support
- career building
- Know how to leverage one’s power to implement change
Students broke into pairs or small groups according to desired subject matter and grade level. They grounded their lesson plans in stories of frontline experiences. For example, Wangari Speaks Out was selected by Julius Mims, Max Pritchard, and Maddie Robinson:
From this foundation, lesson plans seemed to fall under the general categories of data analysis, creative approaches, interactive labs, and applied thinking. Below I share highlights within these categories:
DATA ANALYSIS
A Story Map was created by Will Arent and Jill Lonning to illustrate how certain historical decision-making processes result in segregation. Using Minneapolis as a case study, high school social studies students are invited to draw conclusions about how a dozen or so maps depicting data on how, e.g., redlining, tree canopy, industrial zoning, park space, or surface temperatures paint the picture of environmental and climate injustice.
CREATIVE APPROACHES
- Takyra Baugh and Shea Hildebrant facilitate a scrapbooking activity for a high school English lesson: students research a prominent CJ activist, then create the scrapbook in the first person point of view. This lesson familiarizes students with CJ history, while an accompanying lesson on reliable CJ resources builds critical thinking skills.
LABS
- Niko, Amara, and Jacob also offer a fire-burning STEM lab on the cultural and ecological import of controlled burns for Indigenous cultural continuance as well as restoration and resilience against climate change-induced wildfires.
APPLIED THINKING
- For a K-2 community health lesson, Lilly Stahr, Bijou Acers, and Pedro De Filippo Vannucci curated a list of books that address age-appropriate subtopics of climate justice. Teachers can consult the list and either adapt books to their own classroom needs, or apply a suite of accompanying activities developed by this group.
For example, Matt de la Peña’s book Last Stop on Market Street was selected to spur conversations on public transportation, access, and mobility. An optional field trip–a bus ride through town–can inspire children to reflect upon their own experiences with public transit, our need for efficient, zero-carbon mass transit, and what is revealed to them about their town as the bus transports them from place to place.
Each of these engaging activities demonstrate how broadly applicable, creative, empirically-driven, collaborative, and/or resiliency-building CJ education can be. I’m proud of this class of burgeoning “curriculum designers” for imagining ways to equip youth for our climate-changed reality with methods of understanding, analysis, community-building, and problem solving.
B. Rosas:
Although our Climate Justice Education bill did not obtain a hearing this legislative session, we will continue our efforts to get it passed in 2025. Thanks to Climate Generation partners like Michelle and her class, we are learning more about how we can improve the bill and create an impactful CJ program for K-12 students in Minnesota. We’re grateful for Michelle’s ongoing solidarity, and we are excited to keep working with her!
Michelle Garvey:
And I am excited to continue supporting your advocacy, B.! Because of you, Climate Generation, and the youth who continue to inspire the Climate Justice Education bill, Minnesota will one day have the most robust, cutting-edge climate justice curriculum in the nation.
One final thing: because my course focuses on leverage points to create social change, each project group added an “advocacy” component to their lesson plan designed to leverage the activity by bringing it to wider audiences beyond the classroom. Because we still need to advocate for the CJ Education Bill, these components are perhaps more useful than ever. So we encourage readers to either utilize, or gain inspiration from, the following ideas to leverage your power on behalf of the global climate justice movement:
- Take climate justice education into your classrooms and homes by consulting the Hennepin County Library EJ Books Guide for Elementary Children! Thanks to Lilly Stahr, Bijou Acers, and Pedro De Filippo Vannucci for developing this publicly accessible resource!
- Communicate the need for CJ education through social media outlets, as Zoe Freeby, Jackie Martinez, Will Herbek, Maria Hanson, and Isabella Crotteau demonstrate with these model Instagram posts:
- Create and disseminate zines to educate the public about various CJ topics, modeled here by Niko Ashpande, Amara Jackson, and Jacob Gontjes:
- Utilize this template, introduced to our class by B., to contact your elected official, informing them about the necessity of CJ education in our schools!
B. serves as Policy Manager for Climate Generation. They are a Minneapolis Southsider and first generation graduate of the University of Minnesota. B. has several years experience in community organizing and policy work and is excited to bring their experiences in voting rights and housing advocacy to Climate Generation’s climate justice work. They believe in investing in our young leaders to build a better future and sustain movement work and have centered the voices of young people in previous campaigns. B. is a participant in the Wilder Foundation’s Community Equity Program, a nine-month political leadership cohort-based learning journey for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color community leaders and change makers.
Dr. Michelle Garvey is an organizer and environmental and climate justice educator at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. There, she teaches with community experts on the frontlines of struggles, e.g., for zero burn, resilience hubs, community farms, just energy transition, and climate justice education.
The post Climate Justice Education, from the Capitol to the Classroom appeared first on Climate Generation.
Climate Justice Education, from the Capitol to the Classroom
Indigenous peoples, climate activists, feminist organisations, clowns, friars, cyclists and more came together on Saturday under Belém’s baking sun for the “Great People’s March”, a demonstration demanding climate justice and territorial protection.
Thousands joined the first march outside the COP venue in four years, as the last three summits were held in Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Azerbaijan, places where street protests outside the COP venue were not permitted by the authorities.
Week 1 of COP30 ends with uneven progress and many thorny issues still unresolved. Want clarity on what’s at stake? Sign up for our Monday event.
Saturday’s march in Belém ended peacefully at the Aldeia COP, a village designated by the Brazilian government to host the more than 3,000 Indigenous people who travelled to attend the conference.
During the first week of COP, it was mainly Indigenous people who led the two biggest civil society actions: a flotilla sailing on the Amazon River delta on Wednesday and a blockade of the conference centre’s entrance on Friday. Thousands also participated on Saturday.
The props seen at the march included a statue of US President Donald Trump riding on the back of a worker and a figure of Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva using a straw to drink “oil from the Amazon”. A network of green groups dressed in black staged a funeral for fossil fuels, carrying three huge coffins emblazoned with coal, oil and gas.
One of the Indigenous leaders present, Nelson of the Amazon Munduruku people – who organised the blockade of the COP venue entrance – said they were here “to fight, to bring the people’s vindication of resistance and struggle,” and reiterated their demand for a meeting with President Lula.
The soundtrack to the march changed from group to group of marchers, ranging from Indigenous chants and Brazilian music to shouts of Free Palestine and Free Congo.
Adaptation talks held hostage by finance
Finalising a list of 100 metrics to measure progress on adapting to more extreme weather and rising seas after two years of work may have seemed like a relatively straightforward technical win for the UN climate summit in Belém. The COP30 presidency were hoping they might even get it wrapped up in week one of the talks, which winds up on Saturday.
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Ahead of COP30, Brazil grants Petrobras a licence to drill for oil in Amazon region
Brazil has authorised Petrobras to explore for oil off the Amazon coast, a move campaigners say undermines global climate goals -
“It’s shameful”: Amazon Indigenous people call for oil drilling ban at COP30
Indigenous leaders representing dozens of Amazon ethnicities have signed a declaration calling for a COP30 roadmap to phase out fossil fuels -
Despite record turnout, only 14% of Indigenous Brazilians get access to COP30 decision-making spaces
Around 2,500 Indigenous people from across Brazil have gathered in Belém, with leaders demanding a bigger role in the negotiations
No such luck, as the negotiating groups for Africa, Latin America and the Arab countries have decided they want to use the talks on indicators for the Global Goal on Adaptation as a place to press for more funding from wealthy governments. Earlier in the week, as we reported, they asked for two more years to discuss the metrics, which include “means of implementation” – code for how adaptation will be paid for.
By the mid-point of the talks – when negotiators compile their work into texts that are either ready to be approved or need further refinement by ministers who arrive on Monday – the latest version of the adaptation text was entirely inside square brackets, meaning that none of it has yet been agreed among countries. It will now fall to the presidency to find a way forward.
The text they’ve been handed shows no sign of any convergence of views, and includes two main options on adaptation finance – one which would have nothing at all and the other which reflects developing-country proposals for a new quantitative goal of either $120 billion (from the Least-Developed Countries) or $150 billion (Arab Group) a year by 2030.
Under a current target set at COP26 in 2021, donor governments pledged to deliver at least $40 billion a year by 2025. But with aid budgets being cut by many, current predictions are that they are on track to deliver little more than $25 billion, which leaves a huge gap compared with needs.
Global South’s climate adaptation bill to top $300 billion a year by 2035: UN
Parts of the proposed text released on Saturday also aim to prevent developing countries from being expected to fund their own adaptation measures and say that the indicators would be voluntary and left to countries to decide how to use them, in a bid to avoid being told what they should do to make their agriculture, water and health systems and other infrastructure more resilient.
Debbie Hillier, Mercy Corps’ UNFCCC policy lead, noted that the new text brings together the full spectrum of positions raised by negotiators. “The large number of options and brackets underscores how much work still lies ahead and how crucial ministerial engagement will be in resolving the core political divergences,” she said.
She pointed to the reference to providing at least $120 billion in adaptation finance for developing countries as a signal that “pressure is mounting for a serious response to the scale of adaptation needs,” adding that the text “recognises the urgency of delivering additional and predictable public finance”.
On Friday, African Group of Negotiators Chair Richard Muyungi told Climate Home News that a two-year extension of discussions on the metrics may not be needed if there is political will to unlock more funding for adaptation.
“[If] we get the means of implementation in the indicators, I think we’ll be able to agree [them] within the shortest time possible,” he added.
While adaptation finance has erupted as an issue in the discussions on the metrics, negotiators on this track don’t actually have a mandate to decide finance matters. That is why the hot topic of whether and how to set a new target is also part of talks on the broader finance goal (NCQG) that was decided in Baku last year.
Sources told Climate Home News it may be more likely that adaptation could be allocated a share of the $300 billion a year developed countries agreed to mobilise for poorer nations by 2035 under the NCQG.
Future of $1.3-trillion roadmap uncertain at COP30
COP30 President André Corrêa do Lago today hosted a much-anticipated event on the Baku-Belém Roadmap, a document building on last year’s finance COP. It is meant to chart a way forward to meet a new goal to deliver $1.3 trillion-a-year for developing nations by 2035. But experts said the session failed to provide clear guidance and raised concerns that the roadmap could die in Belem.
The event, which is not part of formal negotiations, was originally scheduled for Tuesday but got pushed back to the weekend after countries failed to decide whether to start a conversation on finance at COP30.
Seven speakers – among them UN climate chief Simon Stiell – read statements for the first half of the 40-minute event, reiterating the roadmap’s main points — a shopping list of measures that could deliver the $1.3 trillion. A handful of governments and observers gave mostly positive feedback.
Ali Mohamed, special climate envoy of Kenya, proposed incorporating its short-term recommendations in the decisions made at COP30. One of those recommendations invites developed countries to consider working together on a delivery plan to achieve the $300 billion they are due to mobilise annually by 2035.
China’s delegate Chen Zhihua told the event that “greater clarity is needed on the implementation path” of that goal.
Corrêa do Lago emphasised that only the $300-billion core goal approved in Baku “is in the process of negotiation” and that the roadmap to 1.3T “is still something open”.
Roadmap to $1.3 trillion seeks to tip climate finance scales but way forward unclear
A representative of Colombia said, on behalf of the AILAC group of Latin American countries, that the report confuses actions to support developing countries with actions to transform all financing flows, and requested to discuss it formally in the UN climate regime.
Some observers were critical of the Brazil-led event at COP30, arguing that it risks leaving the formal negotiations with no clear guidance on finance.
“What happened today was not a conversation. It was not even a format that allows interaction with the presidency,” said Sandra Guzmán, director of the nonprofit Climate Finance Group for Latin America and the Caribbean (GFLAC).
She added that not enough developing countries were represented because at the time climate finance negotiators were in other rooms, attempting to carry the talks forward.
Joe Thwaites, senior climate finance advocate at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), said the risk of lacking clear guidance is that developed countries could fail to deliver the finance goal, as happened in the past with a previous $100bn goal that was delivered two years late. “I’m really worried that we’re going to be in the same position for the $1.3 trillion, which is a goal 13 times the size,” he added.
Azerbaijani lead finance negotiator Elmaddin Mehdiyev told Climate Home that the mandate to deliver the Baku-Belem roadmap has been completed and focusing on implementation is now “much more important”.
He added that getting the roadmap endorsed or welcomed formally by governments at COP30 was not key to taking it forward as it is a “non-negotiated document”.
Asked about this possibility after the event, Corrêa do Lago told Climate Home News: “There’s a movement starting, but we’ll see how the countries react. I think it’s unlikely to happen in Belém.”
Brazil launches flagship climate and trade forum
The COP30 presidency this Saturday launched a forum for countries to discuss climate and trade, seen by Brazil as one of its “flagship” initiatives outside of the formal talks.
Trade has been one of the most contentious issues at the summit in Belém, after the Like Minded group of emerging economies pushed for an agenda item on the topic at the start of the UN climate talks.
Several countries in that group – among them China, India and Iran – have been hit by US or European trade restrictions such as the recent US tariffs on solar imports. “Collaboration remains the only viable path to solving the global crisis; only through unity can we overcome it,” said Li Gao, China’s head of delegation at the launch event for the Integrated Forum on Climate Change and Trade (IFCCT).
After a week of consultations, countries have yet to agree on whether to hold such a conversation at COP30 and the first reactions to the IFCCT were lukewarm. A senior EU negotiator said on Wednesday that the bloc does not want to address trade disputes at COP that belong in the World Trade Organization.
For now, the Brazil-led forum is in a consultation phase, including on “modalities and thematic focus”, according to its official website. The IFCCT is intended to run for an initial phase of three years from early 2026 to end 2028 and is open for countries to join, it says.
The post COP30 Bulletin Day 6: COP’s climate march takes to the streets again appeared first on Climate Home News.
COP30 Bulletin Day 6: First week ends with a colourful march and much work left to do
Climate Change
DeBriefed 14 November 2025: COP30 DeBriefed: Finance and 1.5C loom large at talks; China’s emissions dip; Negotiations explained
Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
This week
Finance and 1.5C dominate talks
AGENDA ADOPTED: Negotiations at the COP30 UN climate talks began in the Brazilian city of Belém this week, attended in person by Carbon Brief’s Daisy Dunne, Josh Gabbatiss and Anika Patel. The Brazilian hosts scored an unexpected early win by dodging an “agenda fight” over proposals to add various contentious issues to the official docket. Despite the neat footwork, four issues kept off the agreed agenda – climate finance; emissions reporting; trade measures; ambition and 1.5C – still loom large, having merely been diverted into “presidency consultations”.
PRESIDENCY PROMISES: By Wednesday, the presidency was promising “good news” at a plenary later that day, which had been due to offer an update on progress with the four extra items. Instead, it ended abruptly, with COP30 president André Corrêa do Lago promising to say more at another plenary scheduled for tomorrow. It remains unclear how the presidency intends to deal with these thorny issues, leaving the COP rumour-mill in full swing.
MINISTERIAL MAGIC: Aside from the extra issues, the official agenda at COP30 already has more than 100 items to contend with, including how to track progress on adaptation and how to ensure a “just transition” as emissions-cutting measures are implemented. (You can follow them all via the Carbon Brief text tracker.) While draft texts have started to emerge, many items remain stalled, with persistent divisions along familiar lines (see below). Negotiators will be hoping that ministers arriving over the weekend are primed to unlock progress. Brazil has appointed pairs of these politicians to push for deals in key areas.
Around the world
- Ethiopia has said it will host COP32 after beating out a bid from Nigeria, Reuters reported. Turkey and Australia are still in deadlock over who should host COP31, with a decision due by the end of these talks, BBC News reported.
- China will not contribute to Brazil’s Tropical Forest Forever Facility, Bloomberg reported, while Devex said two multilateral development banks are considering paying in. More than $5.5bn has been pledged so far, which BusinessGreen noted is “well short” of a $25bn target. The fund was labelled a “false solution” by some Indigenous and civil society groups.
- After Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva called for a “roadmap” away from fossil fuels ahead of COP’s opening, rumours are swirling over how this might take shape. A new declaration spearheaded by Colombia and a roadmap with backing from a number of countries, including Denmark, the UK, France, Kenya and Germany, are being floated as possible options.
- China is currently among the countries pushing for “provision of finance from rich countries and unilateral trade measures” to be included on the agenda, reported Climate Home News. Chinese delegation head Li Gao told Agence France-Presse it is “crucial” for developed countries to fulfil their $300bn commitment.
- Dozens of Indigenous protesters forced their way into COP’s blue zone on Tuesday night, expressing anger at a lack of access to the negotiations, Reuters said. On Friday, a peaceful protest blocked the entrance to the blue zone, causing lengthy queues as delegates were forced to use a side door.
344%
The rise in the global use of solar from 2024 to 2035 under “stated policies”, according to Carbon Brief’s analysis of the latest World Energy Outlook from the International Energy Agency.
Latest climate research
- The 2025 Global Carbon Budget, covered in detail by Carbon Brief, finds that CO2 emissions from fossil fuels and cement will rise 1.1% in 2025 | Earth System Science Data
- In its November 2025 update, Climate Action Tracker says that its projections of global warming by 2100 have “barely moved” in four years | Climate Action Tracker
- The AI server industry in the US is unlikely to meet its 2030 net-zero goals “without substantial reliance on highly uncertain” carbon offsets | Nature Sustainability
(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)
Captured
China’s carbon dioxide emissions have “now been flat or falling for 18 months” since March 2024, analysis for Carbon Brief has found, due, in particular, to the transport, cement and steel sectors. The analysis has been covered widely in publications including China’s Global Times, the New York Times, Financial Times, Reuters, Bloomberg and on the frontpage of the Guardian.
Spotlight
What to expect from COP30 talks
This week, Carbon Brief’s expert team walk through what is happening with the biggest issues being negotiated at COP30.
‘Cover text’
Can you judge a COP by its cover text? At COP, the presidency has the option to pull together a new negotiated “cover text”, an overarching political overview of decisions agreed at the summit, along with other issues not on the agenda that it wants to draw attention to.
COP30 president André Corrêa do Lago might have dismissed a catch-all “cover decision” as a “last-minute solution” ahead of COP and dodged the question since, but other parties have been less shy in hinting that a cover text is, indeed, coming.
Cover decisions are often the product of fraught negotiations, high stakes, too little time and too many parties to accommodate.
This year, there is added pressure to address what is happening in the wider world outside the “negotiations” and to politically signal that the UN climate process is alive and making progress, despite the withdrawal of the US.
What elements could go into it? As a member of the “BASIC” group of nations comprising Brazil, South Africa, India and China, trade measures could find a place. But ideas pushed by Brazilian president Lula for new “roadmaps” away from fossil fuels and deforestation might find a place. Finance, however, could be much trickier to fit in.
Adaptation
One of the key expected outcomes of COP30 is agreement on a list of 100 indicators that can be used to measure progress under the “global goal on adaptation” (GGA). After two years of work by experts, negotiations got underway with a suggested list that had been whittled down from nearly 10,000 possible indicators.
Despite the focus on the GGA by the COP30 presidency and others, division has quickly emerged around the timeline for the adoption of the indicators. The African Group has notably requested a two-year work programme to further refine the list, while other parties are pushing for the indicators to be adopted in Belém as planned.
On Wednesday, an informal note was published that compiled elements for a draft decision. Significantly, for the first time under the GGA, this included a call for developed countries to “at least triple their collective provision” of adaptation finance by 2030, with a target to reach $120bn. This echoed a suggested target originally set out by the negotiating group of least developed countries (LDCs), supported by the African Group, Arab Group and the Association of Latin America and the Caribbean (AILAC) countries.
Just transition and mitigation work programmes
Over the past year, civil society groups have been calling for the establishment of a mechanism to enact the agreed UNFCCC principles of a “just transition”. This gained momentum on Wednesday within negotiations of the just transition work programme (JTWP), when the G77 and China called for the development of the “Belem Action Mechanism” (BAM).
Chile, the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), India and other developing countries supported the mechanism. However, Norway, the UK, Australia and Japan pushed back. Other long-standing points of contention have also raised their heads, including around unilateral trade measures and references to fossil fuels and aligning to global temperature goals.
Within the mitigation work programme (MWP) talks, negotiators are looking to build on two dialogues held this year. The main themes at COP30 are the links between the MWP and the global stocktake (see below) and the future of the programme itself.
Old divisions have emerged in negotiations, focused predominantly on the mandate of the MWP and the potential development of a digital platform as part of its continuation.
UAE dialogue
The landmark outcome of the first “global stocktake”, agreed at COP28 in Dubai, called on all countries to contribute to a “transition away from fossil fuels”. It also mandated a “UAE dialogue” on “implementing the global stocktake outcomes”.
Two years later, countries remain deadlocked over what this dialogue should discuss. Many want it to cover all parts of the stocktake, including the energy transition, while others want an exclusive focus on climate finance. They also disagree on whether the dialogue should have substantive outcomes, including a formal process to keep discussing the issues raised.
Having failed to reach agreement at COP29 last year, the latest draft text shows parties are just as far apart in Belém, nearly halfway into the summit.
Finance
Climate finance for developing countries does not occupy a high-profile position in the formal COP30 negotiations. Yet, as demonstrated by its role in adaptation talks and the agenda dispute, finance still has the potential to derail proceedings.
Ahead of the conference, the COP30 and COP29 presidencies released their “Baku to Belém roadmap”, exploring how finance could be ramped up to $1.3tn by 2035.
An influential group of experts also released new analysis showing a “feasible path” to this goal, leaning on private finance. They said this work would provide a “valuable signal” to those in the finance sector.
However, with no position in the Belém negotiations, it was unclear how – or whether – the roadmap would be taken forward by governments beyond COP30.
Instead, finance negotiators have been occupied with technical matters, but these still show signs of division. For example, some developing-party groups have pushed back against an EU priority goal to extend a “dialogue” about “making finance flows consistent” with climate objectives.
Watch, read, listen
UNDER THREAT: The Bureau of Investigative Journalism told the story of Kim Rebholz – an environmentalist who was threatened for his work curbing illegal logging in Democratic Republic of Congo’s mangrove parks.
SPOTLIGHT ON STARMER: YouTuber Simon Clark has published a video of himself interviewing prime minister Keir Starmer about the UK’s actions on climate and nature, at COP30 and domestically.
INSIDE COP:Outrage and Optimism is running a “special edition” podcast series in partnership with the COP30 presidency, bringing “exclusive, behind-the-scenes access” to the conference.
Coming up
- 14-21 November: UN Climate Change conference (COP30) heads into its crucial second week in Belém
- 15 November: Informal stocktaking plenary of COP30 talks by the Brazilian presidency
- 17 November: Launch of the Global Methane Status Report
Pick of the jobs
- International Energy Agency, intern, China programme | Stipend: €1,000/month. Location: Paris
- Channel 4, sustainability production executive | Salary: £48,125. Location: Bristol, Glasgow or Leeds, UK
- World Bank, environmental specialist | Salary: “GF” grade. Location: Yaounde, Cameroon
- Greenpeace, climate and energy campaigner | Salary: Unknown. Location: Bangkok, Thailand
DeBriefed is edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send any tips or feedback to debriefed@carbonbrief.org.
This is an online version of Carbon Brief’s weekly DeBriefed email newsletter. Subscribe for free here.
The post DeBriefed 14 November 2025: COP30 DeBriefed: Finance and 1.5C loom large at talks; China’s emissions dip; Negotiations explained appeared first on Carbon Brief.
For the first time in UN climate negotiations, countries attending COP30 in Belém, Brazil, are grappling with the implications of extracting minerals required to manufacture batteries, solar panels and wind turbines.
On Friday, a draft text on ensuring that the transition to clean energy systems is just and sustainable – a negotiation stream known as the Just Transition Work Programme – recognised “the social and environmental risks associated with scaling up supply chains for clean energy technologies, including risks arising from the extraction and processing of critical minerals”.
It also “recalled” the principles and recommendations of a UN expert panel, which called on governments and industry to put human rights at the core of the minerals value chain, from mining to recycling. The UN panel report, published last year, set out key principles to ensure that mineral supply chains benefit countries and local communities endowed with resources, create jobs, diversify economies and generate revenue for development.
“For the first time, minerals are on the main stage of COP negotiations – no longer a side show,” said Melissa Marengo, a senior policy officer at the Natural Resource Governance Institute (NRGI).
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Demand for metals such as copper, cobalt, lithium, nickel and graphite that are vital for manufacturing clean energy transition technologies is soaring. But extracting them creates both new economic opportunities, as well as social and environmental risks for resource-rich countries.
Around the world, increased mining activity has fuelled environmental destruction, deforestation and conflict with communities.
Last week, Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva told leaders gathered in Belém that it is “impossible to discuss the energy transition without talking about critical minerals, essential to make batteries, solar panels and energy systems”. Brazil has the world’s second-largest reserves of rare earths, which are used to manufacture permanent magnets for EV motors and wind turbines.
Developing countries have called for the impacts and opportunities of mining minerals for the energy transition to be included in the text. African countries, which hold more than 30% of the world’s critical mineral reserves, have been vocal on the issue. The African Group of Negotiators told COP30’s opening plenary that Africa’s resources “must translate into tangible benefits”.
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Earlier this week, the UK, backed by Australia and the European Union, proposed language on the importance of fair, transparent, traceable and environmentally sustainable mineral supply chains for the energy transition.
The whole draft text, which is described as an “informal note” and is meant as the basis for negotiations on the Just Transition Work Programme, is bracketed, meaning that none of it has yet been agreed by countries.
Yet, campaigners widely welcomed the inclusion of minerals in the document as “a real first step”.
Marengo said the draft reflected many of the priorities voiced by producing countries, communities on the frontline of mining projects and Indigenous peoples across developing countries.
“But the real test begins now,” she said. “Parties must hold the line to secure strong social and environmental safeguards, fair value creation, and a genuinely just approach to transition minerals” that focus “on prosperity for producing countries and communities, and not only on supply security,” she added.
The text notes that affected communities must be “central” to the design and implementation of climate measures and recognises the importance “of sustainable patterns of consumption and production”, including through circular economy approaches.
It also acknowledges “the importance of the rights of Indigenous Peoples” including self-determination and their right to free, prior and informed consent for development projects that affect them, in addition to “the specific rights and protections for Indigenous Peoples in voluntary isolation and initial contact”, which cannot give their consent to mining on their land.
More than half of energy transition mineral reserves are estimated to be located on or near Indigenous land.
“We are making history, as no previous COP decision has ever recognised the rights of Indigenous Peoples in Voluntary Isolation and Initial Contact so clearly,” said Bryan Bixcul, global coordinator of the Securing Indigenous Peoples’ Rights in the Green Economy (SIRGE) coalition. “Any attempt by countries to remove or weaken this text would represent a major setback for the fulfillment of those rights,” he said.
SIRGE has called for the text to go further still and establish exclusion or “no-go” mining zones on the land of uncontacted Indigenous groups.
COP30 could confront “glaring gap” in clean energy agenda: mining
Meanwhile, the inclusion of language on the “transition away from fossil fuels” remains deeply contentious, with references to fossil fuels only included as “options” in the text, meaning not everyone agrees to it being there. Saudi Arabia, large emerging economies such as India and China, and African countries opposed references to fossil fuels, according to observers present in the negotiating rooms.
To help deliver a just energy transition beyond COP30, the draft text includes a demand from an alliance of 134 developing countries – known as the G77 and China – to establish a mechanism that could act as a one-stop shop to provide countries with technical assistance and help foster international cooperation.
The idea has been resisted by developed countries, which argue that creating another institution would take a long time and risk duplicating the work of existing initiatives. Alternative options include “improving existing modalities”, “developing a policy tool box” and “developing guidance” to support countries deliver just transitions.
These alternatives amount to “tweaking”, Teresa Anderson of ActionAid International told reporters. “We know that if those modalities worked, we would not be in the crisis we are facing now.”
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COP30 draft text includes energy transition minerals in UN climate first
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