Resistance from Italy and Poland to a roadmap for a transition away from fossil fuels is blocking the European Union from adopting a joint position, complicating its stance in crunch talks over the main COP30 decision in Belém.
Climate Home News understands that internal discussions within the bloc are still ongoing as of Wednesday evening, aiming to persuade the two countries to support the plan in Belém and allow the EU to formally push for a roadmap in discussions.
One EU negotiator told Climate Home that if the bloc cannot agree to a united position on the roadmap, it cannot formally advocate for it in negotiations, putting at risk discussions over achieving a strong outcome on the transition away from fossil fuels.
More than 80 countries want COP30 to start a process for crafting a blueprint for the world to transition away from fossil fuels, which would put the landmark COP28 deal into practice. Supporters of the idea include 25 EU member states, excluding Poland and Italy.
Calls to broaden support
EU Commissioner for Climate Wopke Hoekstra said on Wednesday morning that “we very much like it, even though we might not use the word roadmap in Europe”.
He added that the EU had spent “a lot of time consulting with others to make the group, across the globe, that can accept it as broad as possible, as large as possible”.
The EU Commission and the country holding its rotating presidency – currently Denmark – negotiate at COP30 on behalf of all of the bloc’s member states. Its general negotiating position for the UN climate summit was set by ministers from all 27 member states at the end of October.
They agreed to “reiterate the call for transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems” – the language of the COP28 deal in 2023 – and to call on countries, “particularly major emitters, to operationalise their contribution to the call”. But the mandate to the negotiating team does not include specific references to a roadmap.
The idea was first floated by Brazilian Environment Minister Marina Silva in June, but it has only been gathering momentum since governments arrived in the Amazon city for COP30. Rapid developments over the past ten days have caught many countries off guard.
Pushback from petrostates
A draft “Mutirão” decision – expected to be the main political outcome of the Belém summit – published on Tuesday morning mentions the transition away from fossil fuels among a wide sweep of options for how to find agreement on the thorniest issues.
One option would encourage governments to convene a roundtable aimed at supporting countries to develop “just, orderly and equitable transition roadmaps”, including for reducing dependency on fuels and stopping deforestation. However, that appears to refer to domestic blueprints and stops short of advocating for a global roadmap that over 80 countries are calling for.
COP30 president André Corrêa do Lago said on Tuesday evening that the text “opens the door” between two “extremes”. “Most of the countries are either very favourable [to the fossil fuel roadmap] or it is a red line,” he added.
Petrostates within the Arab group, led by Saudi Arabia, previously pushed back against following up to the Dubai deal and are expected to mount strong opposition against efforts to include reference to a roadmap in the text.
Not a “top-down” process
A Polish negotiator declined to comment on the matter, citing ongoing talks.
Early in November, Poland was among a handful of countries that opposed a new EU target to cut emissions 90% by 2040, from 1990 levels, which was adopted by the bloc through majority voting, Reuters reported.
A spokesperson for the EU Commission declined to comment.
Jennifer Morgan, climate envoy for Germany until earlier this year, told Climate Home News that supporting a roadmap to transition away from fossil fuels is clearly in the EU’s interest.
“Policy to support such a roadmap… is already in many directives, and you see the growth of renewables. And so I would expect them to throw their full weight into this,” she said.
She added that as the process is meant to be something that is “nationally determined” and “not some top down thing that’s coming to tell them to do something different than what they already have in law, I would expect that they could support it.”
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EU tables proposal for COP30 fossil fuel roadmap after settling internal rift
Next week, diplomats from around the world will descend on Yerevan, Armenia, to negotiate a series of decisions under the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).
Between 19 and 30 October, 196 parties will gather to hammer out the precise wording of the dozens of legal texts that make up the decisions under the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the CBD.
This year’s summit is particularly significant, as it marks the halfway point between the agreement of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework and the deadline for achieving its targets.
The CBD has found that countries are currently not on track to meet 22 out of the framework’s 23 targets.
During the fortnight, delegates will also be negotiating decisions relating to the two supplemental protocols to the CBD: the Cartagena Protocol, which covers biosafety; and the Nagoya Protocol, which covers access and benefit-sharing for the use of genetic resources.
(The Cartagena and Nagoya Protocols, which are each governed by a “meeting of the parties”, or “MOP”, have fewer parties than the CBD as a whole, with 173 and 141, respectively.)
Carbon Brief is tracking the progress of countries towards consensus on dozens of negotiating texts using the interactive table below.
The tracker includes texts from the COP, as well as the MOPs for the Cartagena and Nagoya protocols. It also includes draft decisions from the most recent subsidiary body meetings, as these form the starting point for the negotiations in Yerevan.
The CBD has three subsidiary bodies: the subsidiary body on scientific, technical and technological advice (SBSTTA), the subsidiary body on implementation (SBI) and the subsidiary body on article 8(j) and other provisions (SB8J).
SB8J focuses on issues related to the Indigenous peoples and local communities. It was established at COP16 in Cali, Colombia, in 2024.
The first two columns of the interactive tracker list the topic of each agenda item and the relevant body, with subsequent columns including dates, page counts and links to the original documents.
The table is searchable and can be sorted using the arrows in the header.
Areas of disagreement in UN draft texts are denoted by square brackets. Counting the brackets in a particular iteration of a text therefore gives a sense of how far parties are from reaching consensus.
The bracket column is colour-coded, with dark green indicating a low number of brackets and red indicating a high number of brackets remaining.
Texts can also present parties with choices using “options” or alternatives (“alt”), which are counted together in the sixth column of the table.
The key discussions in Yerevan will centre around two agenda items in particular. The first is the global review, which will assess progress towards the GBF and make recommendations for accelerating action.
The second is finance, which can be separated into two parts: resource mobilisation and the financial mechanism. On resource mobilisation, biodiverse global south countries are likely to push for an increased amount of international finance for conservation.
Disagreement over the creation of the financial mechanism led to the suspension of COP16 in Cali in October 2024, as parties failed to find agreement on the mobilisation of finance before the end of the summit.
Global south countries want the establishment of a separate financial mechanism under the control of the CBD; global north countries largely prefer to maintain the existing mechanism, which sits under the Global Environment Facility.
At the resumed session of COP16 in Rome in early 2025, countries agreed on a roadmap that would lead to the establishment of a permanent mechanism.
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The post Interactive: Tracking negotiating texts at the COP17 biodiversity summit appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Interactive: Tracking negotiating texts at the COP17 biodiversity summit
A beacon of love
On an outer island of Fiji, two thousand nautical miles from Sydney, is a shining light of hope and resilience for our troubled world.
The island of Kioa is home to a Tuvaluan community who migrated from their atoll of Vaitupu in the late 1940s. It is a land of warm hearts, big smiles, and deep cultural roots; a place where the sound of a conch still summons the island together, where islanders paddle out to fish in carved outrigger canoes, and healthy happy children walk barefoot to school.
Here, culture is life. Kioans live sustainably through their traditional knowledge and practices. The island is alive with song, dance and the rhythms of a life tied to the tides, the winds, and the seasons.
Facing the future
Greenpeace has been lucky to have a relationship with Kioa for a number of years now, and we are continually learning from this remarkable community.
Last week, as part of our Voyaging Oceania project, we returned to the island. Our purpose was twofold —- to carry messages from the island to leaders gathering in Nadi this week for the Pacific Pre-COP, and to support the Kioa community in their efforts to improve water security for the island.
Unlike Tuvalu itself, with its eight atolls, Kioa is a mountainous, forested and richly fertile island. It will remain habitable far into the future. Kioans did not initially migrate from Vaitupu due to climate change, but the move was prophetic. They now have a lifeboat.
However, even Kioa faces challenges on our rapidly warming planet, in particular when it comes to water. Climate change is shifting once reliable rainfall patterns. On top of this, the island is already feeling the effect of this year’s intensifying El Niño event, which for Fiji means reduced rainfall and prolonged dry spells.
Right now, fresh water has to be carefully rationed, and is only available for a few hours a day. During last week’s visit aboard our campaigning ship Oceania, Greenpeace was privileged to work with the Kioa community on a new solar-powered water distribution project for the island.
Designed and led by the island, the project involves using a solar pump to move water from a reliable source to a storage tank and then using gravity to distribute the water around the village.
It was a lesson in how local knowledge and ingenuity can be the backbone of today’s climate solutions. To build a dam around the source, the local community knew the exact spot where they could gather gravel at low tide to mix with the cement. They took only what was needed, knowing that all resources must be carefully conserved. Kioa has no roads and no machinery, and it was an all-of-island effort to carry the materials up to the project site, including many heavy bags of sand and rock.
Such projects truly bring to life the vision of a resilient, locally-led, fossil fuel free Pacific.
Gallery photos taken by Raeed Ali, Pacific Community Mobiliser at Greenpeace Australia Pacific
Voices of wisdom
During our four precious days on Kioa, Greenpeace’s Pacific team sat with the island’s elders as they shared stories and experiences for us to carry with us to the Pre-COP. During a fun filled morning at the island’s school, Kioa’s children shared what they love about their life on Kioa and what they want to see nourished and protected. They wrote these messages on flags which will fly proudly from Oceania in Nadi.
