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Conference of the Parties

Cop30 marks the 30th conference of the participants to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which serves as the parent treaty to the Paris climate deal. This major event is will be held in Belém, adjacent to the mouth of the Amazon in the Brazilian Amazon.

Collaborative Gathering

In recent years, host nations have embraced traditional gatherings based on cultural traditions. This custom originated in the 2011 Durban conference, when delegates entered traditional Zulu gatherings, inspired by a Zulu gathering. Subsequently, the Dubai conference featured its majlis, and COP29 included a Turkic chieftains' gathering.

At COP30, delegates will be welcomed to a mutirão, a local expression coming from the native Tupi-Guarani that refers to a collective effort to work on a common goal.

Tropical Forest Forever Facility

Protecting forests undisturbed delivers significantly more value to the global community than deforestation, but conventional economic models do not reflect this fact. Marginalized groups inhabiting forested areas, along with the administrations of forested countries, often struggle to resist exploiting these natural assets for short-term gain through logging, ranching or agricultural expansion.

The Conservation Financing Mechanism aims to change these market dynamics by giving financial support to countries and communities to prevent deforestation. For the nation's head of state, Lula, this constitutes the primary focus for Cop30. He aims the initiative could expand to a value of 125 billion dollars (£95bn), with $25 billion potentially coming from wealthy states and government agencies, while the remaining balance would be raised from corporate funding and investment sectors. To date, the fund has reached about five billion dollars. The United Kingdom remains one large developed country that has declined to participate.

Ethical Progress Assessment

Under the Paris accord, comprehensive reviews serve as the system through which states are evaluated for their pledges – these assessments include an examination of development on meeting environmental targets and identifying what additional actions are needed. The Brazilian president is applying the same principle, but applying it to the moral aspects of the conference: evaluating how effectively worldwide emission strategies are serving the poor, marginalized groups, native communities and other underserved groups, while striving to ensure that they similarly become the key stakeholders of climate action.

Toward this goal, the Brazilian government has commissioned specialists and institutions from globally to direct and engage in its moral assessment. A study to be presented at Cop30 will focus on climate justice.

Loss and Damage

One of the most controversial subjects in environmental funding is permanent destruction. This addresses the most devastating effects of extreme weather, which are so profound that no amount of adjustment can mitigate them. Cases include hurricanes and typhoons, the catastrophic inundations that struck Pakistan in summer 2022, or the extended water shortages afflicting extensive regions of Africa.

Overcoming such destruction can need extended periods, if achievable at all, and the infrastructure of developing countries, vital operations such as medical services and schooling, and their capacity to improve people’s circumstances can suffer permanent damage. The most vulnerable states, which have played the smallest role in creating the climate crisis, are most vulnerable.

In the previous years, some experts described climate impacts as a form of compensation for low-income states. However, this proved unacceptable from industrialized and emerging economies, which resisted entering legal agreements that could create financial obligations for ongoing damages. So the debate shifted to viewing climate harm as a form of rescue and rehabilitation for the nations suffering the most, covering broader social and development issues as well as the immediate impacts of extreme weather.

Creative Financial Mechanisms

Emerging economies require more than one trillion dollars annually in environmental funding; industrialized nations have currently committed $300m. The large gap could be addressed through “innovative finance” – new sources of revenue that could help tackle the climate crisis.

Some of these options are clear – for example, taxing fossil fuels or carbon emissions. Some countries introduced extraordinary levies on fossil fuels during the revenue boom for fossil fuel companies that came after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and even the usually cautious IEA called for such steps.

A wealth tax on billionaires also has broad backing from activists, though numerous finance ministries are secretly cautious. South America's largest economy has put forward a wealth tax of two percent on the ultra-wealthy that it asserts would generate two hundred fifty billion dollars and impact just about one hundred households globally.

Air travel taxes could be created to affect only the wealthy, or the minority of the world's people who take more than one two-way journey annually. Flight emissions constitutes about 3% of international pollution and continues to grow. Applying a small charge on maritime transport could similarly produce billions, could be straightforward to administer, and is notably applicable as a large portion of maritime transport are high-emission and outdated, and move substantial volumes of petroleum products around the world.

Another suggestion is to redirect some of the hundreds of billions of public funding that routinely fund unsustainable cultivation, promote excessive fishing, or subsidize oil and gas.

Emission Reduction

Within the context of the UNFCCC|UN framework convention|international