- Formal negotiations
- Finance
- Global review
- Global report
- Digital sequence information
- Harmful subsidies
- Marine biodiversity
- Planning, monitoring, reporting and review
- Article 8(j) implementation
- Biodiversity and climate change
- Links with other bodies
- Around the COP
- Armenian presidency
- Protests
- Lobbying and influence
- Carbon and biodiversity markets
Standing in the Blue Zone in Belém, Brazil, surrounded by thousands of negotiators, activists, scientists, and Indigenous leaders, I’m struck by how profoundly location shapes conversation. This is the first COP held in the Amazon rainforest—not symbolically nearby, but actually within it.
Through Climate Generation’s support, I’m able to spend two weeks here building strategic relationships and supporting mission-driven organizations. Their partnership — rooted in a mission to ignite and sustain the ability of educators, youth, and communities to act on systems perpetuating the climate crisis — enables Terra40 to deliver strategic event campaigns that include comprehensive Event Planning, Marketing, and Delegation Management to organizations like HBCU Green Fund at COP30.
Here’s what the first week has taught me.
The Beautiful Congregation
One of my favorite aspects of global forums is the congregation itself: diverse nations, peoples, and languages weaving together in one space. You hear Portuguese, Spanish, French, Chinese, Indigenous languages, Arabic — all at once. It’s a powerful reminder that we’re interconnected yet unique, each bringing something distinct to the table, yet all here for the same urgent purpose. But that diversity isn’t just poetic — it’s strategic. Different cultures approach negotiation, relationship building, and decision-making in fundamentally distinct ways. Understanding these differences determines whether you can build coalitions that actually drive policy change. For Climate Generation’s work with educators and youth, teaching students about these diverse approaches prepares them to be more effective climate advocates.
Indigenous Leadership Takes Center Stage
The most significant shift at COP30 is the centrality of Indigenous voices. In previous COPs, Indigenous peoples often felt relegated to side events. Here in Belém, they’re in the negotiating rooms, leading pavilions, and setting the agenda.
Indigenous leaders from Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, and beyond are presenting traditional ecological knowledge that challenges and complements Western scientific frameworks. They’re not asking for a seat at the table — they’re reminding everyone that this is their table, their land, their knowledge systems that have sustained these ecosystems for millennia.
This directly connects to acting on systems perpetuating the climate crisis—one of those systems is the marginalization of Indigenous knowledge in climate solutions. For Minnesota classrooms, this means teaching students that climate solutions already exist in communities worldwide. Our job is to listen, learn, amplify, and support.
The Unglamorous Reality
Let me be honest about what Week One actually looked like: jet-lagged client meetings, navigating a massive venue, negotiations stretching past midnight, building relationships over coffee in crowded corridors, and adjusting strategy in real-time. Global forums look polished from the outside. Inside, they’re an organized chaos that requires flexibility, cultural competence, strategic thinking, and stamina. But this is also where the magic happens — where an environmental justice leader from Louisiana connects with an Indigenous forest guardian from Acre, where relationships form that outlast the two-week conference.
This messiness matters for climate education. Real climate action isn’t always tidy. It’s a mix of coalition-building, compromise, setbacks, breakthroughs, exhaustion, and hope. Preparing young people for this reality — while sustaining their ability to act — is precisely what Climate Generation’s mission describes.
Connecting Global to Local
What does COP30 mean for Climate Generation’s work with Minnesota educators, youth, and communities?
- Local solutions matter globally. Minnesota’s work on agricultural climate adaptation and renewable energy transition is part of conversations happening here. Small-scale innovations can influence international policy.
- Relationship-building is a strategy. Just like at COP30, meaningful climate work requires cultural intelligence, trust-building, and long-term relationship investment—not just data and messaging.
- Diverse voices strengthen solutions. Climate Generation’s vision of ‘a just and abundant world beyond climate crisis’ requires centering voices often marginalized: Indigenous communities, communities of color, rural communities, and young people.
- Personal connection drives action. The most effective negotiators here connect abstract targets to individual experience. This transforms information into action—exactly what Climate Generation does in Minnesota classrooms and communities.
Looking Ahead
As we head into Week Two, negotiations intensify. I’ll continue sharing insights through this partnership — because understanding how global climate policy happens should be accessible to everyone, from international negotiators to teachers in Minnesota. The climate crisis is global. But so are the solutions, relationships, and movements being born here in Belém. When educators, youth, and communities in Minnesota learn from these global convenings, they’re better equipped to act on the systems perpetuating the crisis — right where they are.
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Fuzieh Jallow is the Founder & CEO of Terra40. This blog was written in partnership with Climate Generation
About This Partnership: Climate Generation provided COP30 credentials to Terra40 in exchange for on-the-ground insights and educational content. Learn more at climategen.org. Follow Terra40 @terra40global for real-time COP30 updates.
The post Week One at COP30: Reflections from the Amazon appeared first on Climate Generation.
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Prepared by a coalition of nine Western Australian union, industry, conservation, and community organisations—including UnionsWA, the Conservation Council WA, and the Smart Energy Council—the WA Clean Energy, Jobs & Industry Plan provides a practical roadmap to transform Western Australia into a clean energy powerhouse while creating thousands of secure local jobs.
Western Australia stands at a pivotal crossroads: lead the global clean energy economy or watch investment, future industries, and secure jobs go elsewhere. The WA Clean Energy, Jobs & Industry Plan outlines a transformative blueprint to harness the state’s world-class solar and wind resources. Discover how legislated renewable targets, green iron manufacturing, and a dedicated regional training strategy can generate tens of thousands of local jobs, lower household bills, and build a resilient, net-zero future for all Western Australians.
WA needs a clear and forward-thinking plan if it is going to become a competitive renewable energy powerhouse and maintain its economic strength through the energy transition.
“Western Australians know a faster renewable energy transition will lower their household expenses and prevent harmful climate pollution. But the community also needs clear direction to ensure this transition will create jobs, lower costs and not cause undue environmental harm.
“Here, sectors representing a broad range of interests have laid the groundwork for those outcomes, clearly outlining what is needed to create a future for WA that is good for the environment, for the climate, for workers and for the economy.
Summary
The WA Clean Energy, Jobs & Industry Plan sets out a strategic roadmap to position Western Australia as a global clean energy superpower while creating thousands of secure local jobs.
The report establishes three overarching goals:
- Creating local employment.
- Maintaining industrial competitiveness.
- Lowering household energy costs
To realize this vision, the framework details actionable measures to follow on from the recent WA Government announcement of a 75% Renewable Energy Target by 2031 for the South West Interconnected System. This includes developing a statewide Renewable Energy Target, coordinating statewide workforce and training pipelines, strategically planning regional infrastructure to safeguard high-value biodiversity and cultural heritage, and ensuring equitable benefit-sharing through household electrification incentives and First Nations equity partnerships. Ultimately, the plan highlights that establishing clear policy and regulatory certainty will unlock lower energy bills, boost power reliability, and secure the state’s global competitiveness in emerging green commodity export markets.
Key Findings
- Statewide Renewable Energy Target and Emissions Reduction Targets: The report calls for a statewide RET and 1.5°C aligned emission reduction targets to remove policy risk, lower capital costs, and attract clean energy investment.
- Transformative Job Creation: Accelerating the transition offers massive employment prospects, including up to 8,800 solar and battery jobs by 2050, as well as 24,000 ongoing and 11,000 construction jobs in a commercial green iron industry.
- Industrial Electrification & Competitiveness: Requiring large gas users to adopt binding electrification timetables and providing concessional financing will protect existing energy-intensive manufacturers from rising energy costs and impending domestic gas shortfalls.
- Green Commodity Export Leadership: Western Australia can build new export markets in green iron, green ammonia, and offshore oil/gas decommissioning by constructing shared common-user infrastructure and setting dedicated Green Commodity Export Targets.
- Coordinated Workforce & Training Pipeline: To address critical skill shortages the plan recommends establishing a WA Clean Energy Jobs Plan 2050, three regional training hubs, and dedicated pathways for female and under-represented apprentices.
- Environmental Safeguards & Community Benefits: Fast-tracked development must be paired with State Planning Policies that avoid high-biodiversity and cultural heritage lands, mandate new data centres to run on additional renewable power, and deliver household electrification rebates and First Nations equity partnerships.
What you can do
WA has an opportunity to lead on sustainable, clean energy and associated industries. You can help by:
- Sending an email to Environment Minister Murray Watt and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, calling on them to reject Browse.
- Sharing this story to help more Australians understand what’s at stake.
- Encouraging your friends and family to take action.
Countries have completed the first “global review” of their progress towards reversing nature loss by 2030 at the COP17 biodiversity talks in Yerevan, Armenia.
The review “notes with deep concern” that, unless action is “rapidly accelerated”, the goal to reverse nature loss and meet a set of 23 targets by 2030 “will not be achieved”.
It “urges” countries to accelerate action, including by “increased ambition in addressing the gaps”.
Much of the discussions in Yerevan focused on how to raise the necessary funds to help developing countries protect nature.
Some major economies pushed to expand the range of nations that are expected to provide finance, with countries agreeing at the end of the two weeks of talks that non-donors that want to contribute can “signal interest” before COP18.
This came after developed countries failed to meet a target to significantly ramp up nature finance over the last few years.
It also came as a landmark fund agreed at COP16 in Colombia to pay communities for the genetic resources derived from nature stands nearly empty two years on.
The Yerevan talks marked the halfway point of the “Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework” (GBF), the “Paris Agreement for nature” first made in 2022 and due to be achieved by 2030.
During the nearly 12-hour-long final plenary, countries voted for Quito, Ecuador, to host the COP18 nature talks, which will be held in 2028.
Countries managed to sign off on all the major negotiation texts, marking a stark contrast to COP16, which ran so far over time that the Colombian presidency lost “quorum”, forcing talks to resume in Rome months later.
Below, Carbon Brief has detailed analysis of all of the key outcomes from COP17.
Formal negotiations
Finance
Finance, predictably, was at the heart of the discord and deadlock at the Yerevan talks.
At COP17, discussions on finance had to achieve several outcomes.
The first part – to take stock of biodiversity finance mobilised so far to meet the nature deal’s goals – fell under the global review.
As the global report noted, developed countries failed to meet their commitments to raise “at least $20bn a year by 2025” for nature. Delegates pointed to falling aid levels and a sharp 27% decline in environmental funding for the 2026-30 period.
The second part was to agree on how to mobilise resources for the next four years, to meet the GBF’s goals and targets.
Calls to “broaden the contributor base” of who pays to protect nature – and whether that should include emerging economies – became the most fraught element of the talks.
Eventually, countries agreed on what Switzerland described as a “super, mega-delicate” text. It hinged on major “political compromises”, with “no major winner or loser”, according to Kenya.
Per the decision, countries that want to be included on a list of developed country donors can “signal interest” through bilateral, confidential consultations before COP18 and every alternate COP after.
Finally, countries also agreed on criteria to shape and resource a new, permanent financial mechanism to protect nature after 2030.
However, this did not immediately take the form of a new fund under the COP that biodiverse countries have demanded since 2022, deferring the mechanism’s institutional structure to COP18.
Resource mobilisation discussions at the GBF’s halfway mark were supposed to agree on how to close the “biodiversity finance gap” and to “increase resources from all sources” to “at least” $200bn per year by 2030, as set out in target 19 of the GBF.
The talks were largely dominated by a push, led by the JUSCANZ bloc of developed countries, to “broaden the contributor base”. This could see emerging economies, such as Qatar, China, Saudi Arabia and India, being added to the list of countries that pay to protect nature.
Article 20 of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) states that developed countries “shall provide new and additional financial resources” to developing countries to meet the costs of implementing measures to protect nature.
The text states that other countries – including emerging economies – may “voluntarily assume” these obligations to pay. However, it adds that this list of developed countries “shall” be reviewed periodically and amended “if necessary”.
The list was last amended in 2006.
(See this “jargon buster” which explains the specific meaning and legal weight of various terms and verbs used in UN formal documents.)
Discussions around this fraught subject had reached a dead end at intersessional talks this year, but resurfaced in Yerevan.
The first “non-paper” had four different options for expanding the contributor base. These ranged from using the World Bank’s country income groups “as a proxy” to identify high-income countries, to commissioning a study on the impacts of being included on the list.
By 21 October, the number