By Saada Mohamed
NOV 26 – Three weeks before COP30 in Belém, Brazil, the summit President Amb. André Corrêa do Lago set an unusual but bold tone. In his eighth letter, he declared global climate adaptation “the first half of survival” and a critical component of human evolution. As such, adaptation could no longer be deemed a secondary concern to mitigation or development.
Climate-vulnerable countries globally and in Africa welcomed this stance, hoping that the presidency’s progressive outlook would translate to a strong and comprehensive adaptation package in Brazil.
This optimism was supercharged by Brazil’s branding of the summit as an ‘‘implementation COP’’, ready to steer the multilateral process from negotiations to urgent and scalable implementation of actions, including for adaptation, a decade after the Paris Agreement was established.
Africa went to COP30 expecting that its persistent calls for ambitious adaptation action and support would finally bear fruit. For the continent that is not only the worst ravaged by extreme weather events but also one that’s warming faster than the global average, the priority was clear: a new adaptation finance goal that would triple public, grants-based finance to at least $120 billion by 2030.
This was the logical next step from the initial collective pledge to double adaptation finance to $40 billion by 2025, a pledge that already appears to slip into the realm of other unmet promises by developed countries.
A missing negotiation track and a Strategy
But Africa’s optimism was immediately dashed. As soon as the discussions started, the continent and the rest of the developing world came head-on with the first challenge, namely, the lack of a negotiation track in the summit’s agenda, providing a dedicated space to demand a new finance goal.
Under such circumstances, a good strategy always prevails. For Africa, the tactic was to raise the demand for a new finance goal in every room where finance and adaptation negotiations were taking place, including at all ministerial huddles and presidential consultation forums. This relentlessness and boldness paid off.
The calls for a new adaptation finance goal were elevated and, in response, the Presidency included the ask among the outcomes in the ‘Global Mutirão. Africa and the Global South had secured their first early win.
Global Mutirão is the COP30 Presidency’s political package that covers crucial overarching decisions on critical issues such as finance that are usually political in nature and highly contentious. These issues are difficult to reach a consensus on at the technical level. A political package is, therefore, an approach used by COP Presidencies to address the deadlock and provide a balanced political outcome through an inclusive and transparent consultation process.
Regrettably, the political elevation and early wins for adaptation were short-lived. In the end, they failed to translate to a strong COP outcome.
Early win that vanished from the final text
When it landed, the Global Mutirão outcome featured a single and heavily diluted paragraph on adaptation finance that ‘‘calls for efforts to at least triple adaptation finance by 2035’’ in the context of the decision on the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG).
It further ‘‘urges developed country Parties to increase the trajectory of their collective provision of climate finance for adaptation to developing country Parties.”
This is not what climate-vulnerable countries fought for. The outcome undermined their demands. Its weak language also set one of the worst precedents in the history of the negotiations by, notably, failing to specifically refer to the legal mandate of rich countries to provide public finance for adaptation under the UN climate regime (the Convention).
Instead, the decision referred to ‘‘all efforts’’ which could imply mobilising resources from all actors and sources, including vulnerable countries themselves from their acutely thin national budgets, and loans. This shifts the burden of financing adaptation to poor countries, marginalises adaptation action, and blatantly ignores the voices of frontline communities.
The second part urges developed countries to do what they should already be doing by default, although it is somewhat disjointed from the first part, which supposedly speaks to the “ambition of tripling”.
Coming at a time when Official Development Assistance is shrinking, and the needs arising from climate impacts are mounting, developing countries needed a decision that reaffirms rather than obscures rich nations’ existing obligations to provide public finance for adaptation.
This framing by COP30 is dangerous as it exposes poor countries to further exploitation by the profit-seeking private sector and financial institutions by perpetuating loan-based and conditional financing instruments for adaptation, further driving them to the precipice of debt distress.
At the same time, the vague language not only disparages the urgency and scale of public finance needs for adaptation but also negatively affects its quality, accessibility, tracking, accountability, and transparency.
Did COP30 punish victims while shielding culprits?
This disastrous outcome was strongly pushed for by historical polluter countries, as it shields them from their obligation to progressively provide public grant-based finance for concrete adaptation actions to developing countries, predictably and transparently. They surely have tested the extent of multilateralism.
This move forces poor countries to bear a disproportionate financial burden of addressing climate-induced costs amid their prevailing sovereign debt and economic challenges. This is an outright violation of the foundational principles and values of equity and Common but Differentiated Responsibilities and Respective Capabilities (CBDRRC). This includes the right to develop, and do so sustainably, as enshrined in the Convention.
Still, the ‘‘COP of truth’’ glaringly unmasked the hypocrisy and doublespeak of the Global North and their misguided climate leadership. Having been expected to deliver dignity and prosperity to the most vulnerable in the world, COP30 just stripped them of their hope, dignity, and future.
Instead of correcting past sins, including the omission of an adaptation finance sub-goal in the unambitious climate finance deal adopted in Baku, Belém tripled climate finance troubles of poor nations drowning and scorching in climate impacts.
Heading Home with Empty Hands
Once again, vulnerable countries headed back home empty-handed, with not only unmet demands but also the worst outcome for adaptation finance and an uncertain future.
Even as communities around the world lose lives, livelihoods, homes, and heritage in the face of rising climate impacts, COP30 propagated climate injustice by ignoring these painful lived realities by offering nothing that matches the scale of the crisis.
“Tripling” finance by 2035, all without a baseline figure, without clear sources, without accountability and, worse, without an assessment of needs, wasn’t a sound commitment. It was a headline representing false progression of ambition for adaptation.
Headline outcomes are all about tripling low ambition, poor quality finance, driving inaccessibility, false delivery of adaptation support, disguised political will, and dishonest solidarity and hope. This raises a fundamental question: was Belém really the ‘COP of truth’?
Mohamed is a Climate Finance Associate at Power Shift Africa
