From Urgency to Unity: COP30’s Belém Package Shows Collaboration, Commitments, and the Gaps That Remain
The recently concluded 30th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP30) was held in the Brazilian city of Belém from November 10th-21st and was dubbed the ‘COP of Implementation.’ This year, the global climate conference assembled in the hope to translate long-standing commitments into concrete actions – of the Paris Agreement and 2023’s Global Stocktake.
Here we look at some of the key outcomes from COP30 – the newly launched initiatives, revised pledges, and some missed opportunities that together will impact the trajectory of global climate and energy governance frameworks.
Belém Package: Leading with Consensus
The most notable outcome from the conference was the adoption of the 29-point Belém Package by 195 countries, which saw a host of agreements on subjects including just transition, adaptation finance, trade, gender, and technology, renewing the collective commitment to accelerated action, and a climate regime more connected to people’s lives. As COP30 President André Corrêa do Lago noted, “As we leave Belém, this moment must not be remembered as the end of a conference, but as the beginning of a decade of turning the game.”
Among others, some of the key initiatives approved by consensus included:
– Commitment to triple adaptation finance by 2035,
– Just Transition Action Plan,
– Gender Action Plan,
– More than 122 countries updated their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), renewing global commitment to the 1.5°C target, etc.
New Initiatives: Power of Collaborations
COP30 also witnessed countries joining hands to announce initiatives to lead the global energy transition towards renewables through a gradual phase out of fossil fuels. The shift from urgency to unity and from unity to collective action is exemplified with:
– More than 80 countries jointly endorsed the Belém Declaration on the Just Transition Away from Fossil Fuels, with Colombia and the Netherlands to co-organise the Santa Marta Conference on Fossil Fuel Phase-Out in April 2026. This conference is expected to build up on the momentum of COP discussions towards a just energy transition. Notably, South Korea, which hosts the world’s seventh largest coal fleet, said it would stop building new plants and phase out existing ones.
– In line with the same, focus was also on enhancing and building resilient renewable energy supply chains to facilitate and accelerate the global just energy transition. Ministerial meetings and the Climate Action Agenda at COP30 featured discussions on supply chains, which culminated with the launch of a new strategic partnership to address supply chain challenges affecting the power sector globally, jointly led by the Utilities for Net Zero Alliance (UNEZA) and the Global Clean Power Alliance (GCPA).
– Brazil, South Africa, and the United Kingdom jointly led the Belém Declaration on Global Green Industrialisation, signalling a collective resolve towards a global shift to a renewables-based economy. This Declaration places green industrialisation at the heart of climate and development policy frameworks, highlighting that renewable energy, energy efficiency, and sustainable value chains are key for decarbonising industries.
– Green grids were another prominent subject in the energy sector negotiations at COP30 and attracted significant pledges on expanding capacities. The UNEZA committed to increasing their annual investment by 20% to $148 billion a year, potentially opening a $1 trillion pipeline for grid and storage expansion. In the same vein, a pledge to quadruple sustainable fuel use by 2035 from 2024 levels was inked at the COP Leaders Summit.
– Other key climate initiatives launched included the Open Coalition on Compliance Carbon Markets – a joint effort led by the European Union and Brazil to improve the effectiveness of carbon pricing and markets mechanisms for supporting cuts in emissions, the EU endorsed Declaration on the Launch of the initiative on the Tropical Forest Forever Facility – a global innovative funding mechanism that rewards the conservation of tropical forests, and the Belém Call to Action for the Congo Basin Forests – which supports the target to reverse deforestation and reduce degradation by 2030 in the region.
The missing Fs: Case of Forgotten Fossil Fuels
One of the key gaps voiced by climate and clean energy enthusiasts was the missing explicit mention of the phase-out of fossil fuel use in the final summit declaration, signalling a major setback for the preceding COP negotiations on the subject. To this end, the energy space shall maintain a close eye at how the voluntary and collaborative initiatives – including the Declaration on the Just Transition and the upcoming Santa Marta Conference on Fossil Fuel Phase-Out – lead the shift towards renewables.
Besides the inking of new commitments, the African and European Commissions also facilitated high level dialogues and side events at COP30 to lead the global drive towards clean energy and climate action:
– The African Union Commission (AUC), in collaboration with the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) and the African Development Bank (AfDB) hosted the Africa Day high level dialogue on November 11. The theme for this was Africa at the Forefront of Climate Action: Sustainable Financing for Resilient and Inclusive Green Growth.
– The European Commission, in collaboration with the International Energy Agency hosted a ministerial roundtable on policy action and progress of the doubling renewables and tripling energy efficiency global pledge on November 12. It convened ministers, international finance institutions, and industry groups to take stock of global progress towards the 2030 goals on clean energy.
As the sun set in Belém following two weeks of climate-energy dialogue, urgency was translated to unity, and unity led action with the global community coming together. Calls for mutirão — a Brazilian term for collective, community-driven effort — gained prominence. It reflected a collaborative spirit rooted in a coordinated global push to drive the scale and speed of change needed this decade.
