Andreas Sieber is the associate director of global policy and campaigns at 350.org. Stela Herschmann is Climate Policy Specialist at Observatório do Clima, a network of 130 Brazilian organisations.
Four work pillars. Sixteen possible negotiated outcomes. Three advisory “circles”. One “ethical stocktake”. Councils, roadmaps. There are so many shiny objects garnishing the agenda of COP30 that it’s easy to overlook one key absence: the preparations for the Belém climate change conference are simply not addressing the main cause of our current climate disruption.
Fossil fuels, the source of 75% of greenhouse gases, are nowhere to be seen in the negotiations. That must change if Brazil is really willing to make its mutirão – the term it is using to launch a global mobilisation – a turning point in the fight for a livable planet.
At COP28 in Dubai – hosted by a petrostate under the helm of an oil executive – the Global Stocktake (GST) delivered a breakthrough: a clear call to “transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems in an orderly, just and equitable manner”, with urgent action this decade. That this emerged despite, not because of, the host’s interests only underscores its significance.
The Global Stocktake may be dressed in the usual diplomatic language, but its message is unmistakable. It has set a new gold standard for climate action: putting the fossil fuel phaseout at the centre of the global response to the climate crisis.
A few weeks after the landmark Dubai decision, however, some countries started voicing what a top diplomat has called “buyer’s remorse”. At the G20 summit in Brazil last year, some countries led a rebellion against the GST, and managed to prevent the leaders’ declaration from doing as much as reaffirm the commitment from paragraph 28d.
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At COP29, in Baku, the bloody fight for finance, with rich countries’ intransigence denying many others the possibility of implementing the transition, meant that no progress was made on the crucial energy issue.
Some countries argue that the Global Stocktake is not a buffet where countries pick and choose what to implement; all of its provisions must be followed up, including those on finance, which are anathema to developed nations.
Furthermore, they say, the phaseout of fossil fuels outlined in Dubai must be delivered in each country’s climate plan, or NDC. The GST is but a guideline to better NDCs, and now it is up to each country to implement those guidelines as they see fit.
Voluntary plans won’t stop fossil fuel frenzy
Meanwhile, in the real world, a fossil frenzy is going on with no end in sight. Rich oil-producing nations such as Norway, Canada and Australia, are expanding their production like there’s no tomorrow (and at the current pace, there really won’t be).
Major developing economies like Brazil and the United Arab Emirates are using the Global North expansion as an excuse to “drill, baby, drill” themselves, each one betting on being the last seller of oil, all gambling with the future of humankind.
Not to say anything, of course, of the world’s top oil producer, the United States, which has become a rogue state under climate-change denier Donald Trump. To countries profiteering from the post-Ukraine invasion fossil orgy, that Saturday morning in 2023 when the gavel came down in Dubai is a hazy memory indeed.
Which brings us to COP30 and its host country.
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Brazil is the only major emitter so far to go beyond merely reaffirming the GST language in its NDC. There, it said it would “welcome the launching of international work for the definition of schedules for transitioning away from fossil fuels”.
That sentence captures one crucial thing about the Dubai energy decision that is lost to GST haters: it is not self-implementable. It needs timetables and a suitable definition of “orderly, just and equitable”. Who goes first, in which time horizons? What are the barriers? How to overcome them?
The world cannot simply commit to phasing out fossil fuels and expect every country to come up voluntarily with a plan on how to constrain its own fossil industries – especially considering the record profits of oil companies this decade. To be implemented, the Dubai text needs to be fleshed out. In short, it needs a COP decision.
What progress on energy at COP30 looks like
To be worthy of its historic billing, COP30 must deliver a formal outcome that accelerates the energy transition and implementation of the first Global Stocktake. There are calls to restrict the energy transition to the Action Agenda, where voluntary commitments are made (and as easily forgotten). This is not nearly enough.
Whether through a mandated process like the UAE Dialogue or a clear-eyed cover decision, COP30 must send a clear political signal and accelerate the energy transition and GST implementation. Here, the COP30 Presidency holds the pen – and the political responsibility – to secure a meaningful outcome on the energy transition that doesn’t tiptoe around hard choices.
What’s more, the COP30 leader-level moment must reinforce and accelerate commitments to triple renewable energy capacity, double energy efficiency, and transition unambiguously away from fossil fuels.
Brazil is well-positioned to lead a dialogue on protecting biodiverse areas from fossil fuel exploration and to initiate discussions on fossil fuel phaseout timelines, as indicated in its NDC. These deliberations should also lead to mandating the tracking of the transition away from fossil fuels and/or setting quantified goals for cutting fossil fuels, e.g. by a reduction goal in their share of the global energy mix by 2030.
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But Brazil can’t go it alone. Other countries also need to step up and put all their heart and diplomatic creativity to work. We are looking at you, Europe, whose leadership has been faltering.
In the case of the African Group of Negotiators, notably the fairly progressive position of the least developed countries (LDCs) has not always been represented by group negotiators on the topics of mitigation (emissions reductions) and fossil fuels.
There is a need to recreate the alliance that led to the successful Dubai outcome, while listening to the concerns of other countries that do not have the fiscal space to transition, in Africa in particular, or are concerned about meeting development needs, as in Asia.
In the coming weeks, two key moments for climate diplomacy shall test the will of the world to deal with the elephant in the room. This week, ministers and heads of delegation have gathered in Copenhagen to find political common ground for Belém. In June, technical UN negotiations for COP30 will take place in Bonn. At both meetings, fossil fuels need to be part of the conversation. We don’t have another 30 years to waste.
The post COP30 must heed the elephant in the room: fossil fuels appeared first on Climate Home News.
SYDNEY, Thursday 30 October 2026 — In response to reports that the Albanese government is set to introduce draft legislation this year that would seek to ban data centres in Australia’s suburbs, Joe Rafalowicz, Head of Climate and Energy at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, said:
“These reports are a testament to the growing community opposition to these completely inappropriate AI factories that have sprung up across our suburbs, and Big Tech corporations should take heed — the data centre build-out must not happen without the endorsement of the Australian people.
“But the government can’t simply ship this problem out to regional Australia without addressing the fundamental issues with this extractive new industry.
“We’re already seeing a trend of AI data centre proposals moving to the regions, in areas that are more water-scarce, more environmentally sensitive, and next to sources of fracked and coal seam gas to support their massive BYO gas-fired power plans — a pattern we’ve seen play out in the United States.
“From the Beetaloo Basin in the NT to the Western Downs in Qld, we’re seeing a wave of AI data centre proposals that would see new gas fast-tracked to support their massive energy demand, and threaten to completely derail Australia’s energy transition.
“Just as suburban Australians are asking, “what for?”, regional communities like Berry Springs and Dalby do not want dirty data centres setting up shop with absolutely no benefit to their communities. Greenpeace is calling for a moratorium on AI data centre developments until strict and enforceable safeguards are in place to protect our climate and our communities.”
-ENDS-
Media contact
Kate O’Callaghan on +61 406 231 892 or kate.ocallaghan@greenpeace.org
AI data centre ban in suburbs would not address fundamental issues: Greenpeace
In the thick of the COP29 climate summit in Azerbaijan in 2024, the UN climate talks were rattled by what can only be described as a major PR disaster. The BBC, Reuters and The Guardian all carried headlines, attributed to leading climate policy experts, that the COPs were “no longer fit for purpose”.
The articles outlined a series of reforms called for in an open letter signed by 22 eminent scientists and politicians, including a former UN secretary-general and previous UN climate chief, with a further 150 lending their support. The headlines shook confidence in the COP process, just as governments were wrestling over a new climate finance goal.
The Club of Rome – which handled the media relations for the letter – hurried to say that its “constructive, supportive ideas” had been “misinterpreted”. Negotiators kept calm(ish) and carried on, in the end landing the finance goal after some high-stakes drama on the final day.
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Early speakers’ list suggests few powerful leaders will attend COP31
Just 77 heads of state or government are scheduled to address the COP31 climate summit in Antalya, a third less than the COP28 peak -
Africa wants adaptation finance on COP31 agenda, raising risk of a fight
The African Group wants dedicated space on tripling adaptation finance, the Green Climate Fund and trade, setting up a possible clash
To my surprise, when I went back this week to read the letter again, I could not find the offending line about the COPs not being fit for purpose. The Club of Rome has yet to respond to my query about its disappearance.
Whatever happened to the wording, that sentiment has been widely shared. COPs have ballooned in size while the importance of their outcomes seems to have diminished since the 2015 Paris Agreement (with the exception of the 2023 COP in Dubai where countries agreed to transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems).
The same on the surface
Two years on from those painful headlines in Baku, has anything changed for the better? You might be forgiven for thinking not. Official decisions are still made by consensus rather than the majority voting some have called for to stop blockers.
Tens of thousands of officials, activists and business execs still scurry around the halls to an ever-growing list of side events, roundtables and dialogues, while deals still come down to rows, all-nighters and jargon-filled texts adopted to rounds of applause.
But it would not be true to say that COPs have completely failed to respond to the very real need to translate the words of the Paris Agreement into action in the outside world.
Global warming is projected to be around 1.3C lower this century than it would have been if the world had not committed to tackle the climate crisis under that accord. Developing countries have a valued space at COPs in which their voices have equal weight in decision-making, unlike in many other international fora. And most importantly, perhaps, there has been a subtle shift, tipping the balance away from negotiating towards doing.
Brazil branded last year’s summit in Belém as the “COP of Implementation”, corralling the sprawling Action Agenda into six axes. This was a bid to impose some structure on the mushrooming efforts between governments, UN agencies, cities, businesses and civil society to set targets and spur faster results on their pet issues, from methane emissions to health and adaptation in conflict zones. COP30 alone saw the launch of 120 “plans to accelerate solutions”.
COP30 roadmaps off the cuff
Meanwhile, as the formal negotiations drew to a close, it was clear that consensus decision-making was evolving into something a little more improvised.
With only around half of all countries on board with the idea of a roadmap to transition away from fossil fuels, COP30 President André Corrêa do Lago announced his team would put one together over the coming year, along with another on how to meet a global goal to halt deforestation by 2030. Those roadmaps will be launched next week, presented and discussed at COP31, though it’s still unclear whether or how they’ll be incorporated into the formal negotiating agenda.
Some leading policy-makers don’t think that matters too much. Speaking to journalists before the Antalya summit, COP30 CEO Ana Toni and Dutch climate minister Stientje van Veldhoven said “coalitions of the willing” can move ahead without needing consensus from the COPs. This, they said, was evident this year at the first global conference on TAFF, co-chaired by van Veldhoven and attended by 60 countries.
“Consensus or no-consensus in the general COP doesn’t make a difference for the choices I have to make in my country to get my country to phase out fossil fuels,” said the Dutch minister. The Netherlands recently became one of the first to publish a national TAFF plan.
COP31 banks on flagship voluntary initiatives
This thinking has permeated the management and expected outcomes of this year’s COP too. Earlier this year, Türkiye, supported by international energy agencies, floated the idea of a voluntary goal to boost electrification to 35% of the world’s final energy consumption by 2035 – and this is now being touted as one of the main results to be expected from Antalya.
Türkiye is also championing a pledge on AI and climate, while co-host Australia is pushing to ease access to climate finance for least developed countries and small island states.
COP31 presidency announces AI pledge as UN climate chief says Big Tech ‘on thin ice’
None of these needs consensus. But with a political cover decision already in the works, as trailed by the COP presidents, they – and perhaps the fossil fuel roadmap – may find a home in the official text if language acceptable to most can be found, giving them them additional weight.
UNFCCC reform process in the shadows
Formal reform is underway too, if quietly. UN climate chief Simon Stiell is leading a review informed by ongoing consultations with a group of 15 well-respected climate policy experts, three of whom signed the open letter in 2024.
Among them is leading Swedish climate and sustainability scientist Johan Rockström who has strong ideas about how to make COPs function better, including a switch to majority voting. He told the same press briefing nothing stands in the way of this, because the rules of procedure for making decisions at COPs have never been formally agreed.
Still, to get away from the default setting of consensus would require agreement on a new system that may be impossible to achieve given the rise in bullying tactics by fossil fuel heavyweights.
Comment: The UN climate process was built for negotiation – now it must support implementation
The deliberations with the high-level policy gurus, as reflected in a summary of June’s session in Bonn, largely echo what’s already happening organically, calling for stronger partnerships and accountability both in and between the Action Agenda and negotiations. It doesn’t mention voting.
A general overview of the reform exercise says that “improving and optimizing the [UN climate] process over the medium to long term… will be critical to fostering trust, enhancing collaboration, and catalyzing increased ambition”.
In the short term, don’t hold your breath for anything concrete on reform at COP31 but watch for signs in what ends up dominating the headlines from Türkiye.
The post Editor’s Desk: COP reform is happening quietly, behind the headlines appeared first on Climate Home News.
Editor’s Desk: COP reform is happening quietly, behind the headlines
With the COP31 climate summit in Turkey looming, all eyes are on China to see what the country will push for in the negotiations.
At COP30 last year, China helped to secure a “dialogue” on climate-related “unilateral trade measures”, as well as a two-year “work programme” concerning climate finance.
The nation also championed south-south cooperation throughout the conference and co-led a summit on methane, alongside Brazil and the UK.
In a recent press conference, China’s environment vice-minister Li Gao noted the need to “uphold multilateralism” and send a “clear political signal” that the global community is united around climate action.