Brandon Wu oversees research, advocacy, coalition building and campaigning work for ActionAid USA.
Leaders are supposed to lead by example. If you broke it, you’re meant to fix it (or at least pay for it). You’re supposed to do unto others as you’d have them do unto you.
These and any number of other tired cliches are actually incredibly useful for describing the seemingly interminable deadlocks at UN climate negotiations like COP30.
There is a set of rich developed countries that call themselves “climate leaders.” They caused the climate crisis through their emissions, and they should be fixing it by zeroing out those emissions and paying for poorer countries to do the same. They should be treating countries and communities harmed by climate impacts with compassion and solidarity.
News flash: they aren’t doing any of those things. And somehow we act surprised that the climate negotiations haven’t yet produced the massive breakthroughs the world needs?
No transition without concrete support
It might be easy to blame certain countries for being unhappy with a proposed roadmap to end fossil fuels, backed by 80-90 nations at the talks. But let’s not lose sight of the fact that the wealthy countries that are pushing for the roadmap – the European Union most stridently – are themselves not anywhere close to being on track to phase out fossil fuels.
Just as importantly, developed countries as a whole have consistently refused to provide meaningful amounts of climate finance in line with needs, despite their extremely clear obligations and the practical realities of the need for support in developing countries.
COP30 Bulletin Day 11: With talks in “crisis”, countries urged to unite for COP30 deal
Of course we need a roadmap to phase out fossil fuels – that is what many of us are here to achieve. But if the transition away from fossil fuels is not just, it will not succeed. And if there is no support from developed to developing countries, not only will the transitions there not be just – in many cases they will not happen at all.
Just transition mechanism close?
To that end, at COP30, negotiators are getting tantalizingly close to an outcome on “just transition” – a framework to support countries to ensure their communities and workers are lifted up rather than left behind as they transition to a new and more sustainable economy.
Civil society has been pushing hard for a “Belem Action Mechanism,” or BAM, that would embed just transition principles into a coherent, practical and actionable system. The guiding principle behind the push for the BAM, and for just transition more broadly, is that without justice, any massive economic transition will fail, as it will be impossible to garner the necessary political support to implement it.
The BAM was the major priority for many activists and developing countries coming into this COP, and a great deal of open and transparent negotiations have gone into trying to make it a reality. In contrast, the fossil fuel roadmap – necessary as some form of it is – was dropped into the formal negotiations late, without any transparent process.
Rich nations push back on calls for new just transition mechanism
Developing countries need a comprehensive package
Between rich country intransigence and undemocratic processes, it’s understandable – and justifiable – that many developing countries, including most of the Africa Group, are uncomfortable with the fossil fuel roadmap being pushed for at COP30. It doesn’t mean they are all “blockers” or want the world to burn, and characterizing them as such is irresponsible.
The core package of just transition, public finance – including for adaptation and loss and damage – and phasing out fossil fuels and deforestation is exactly that: a package. The latter simply will not happen, politically or practically, without the former.
If COP30 ends without a roadmap to phase out fossil fuels and deforestation, let’s make sure we keep the pressure on the real culprits: the rich countries that keep coming to these negotiations offering nothing but demanding everything.
The post Just transition, finance and equity – that’s how we get COP30 to act on fossil fuels appeared first on Climate Home News.
Just transition, finance and equity – that’s how we get COP30 to act on fossil fuels
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.
