COP30: What Were The Key Outcomes?

In our first COP30 article we highlighted the difficult challenges facing the conference, amidst a backdrop of a general sense of retreat and pessimism in the international climate community. With an energetic presidency and aims of focusing on climate implementation and nature protection, COP30 was seen by many to be pivotal. So, after two weeks of intense negotiations at the mouth of the Amazon, what were the key takeaways?

This briefing explores the outcomes of COP30, and in particular discussions on a roadmap away from fossil fuels and agreements on implementation, finance and the natural world. We also examine some other interesting themes including:

• The state of negotiations following the US withdrawal from the COP process,
• Discussions on trade, in particular the EU CBAM, and
• The idea of a just transition.

1. What went on at COP30?

Tense negotiations amid global setbacks

As we noted in our initial briefing, COP30 took place during a year of setbacks for climate action, with global efforts to phase out fossil fuels stalling and climate legislation facing rollbacks globally.

At the outset of talks, the UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer acknowledged the loss of global cooperation on the need for climate action, noting that "that consensus is gone, with some arguing that this isn't the time to act and saying that tackling climate change can wait", while affirming that the UK is "all in" on climate action.

This mood was reflected at COP30, with fractious talks and mixed progress, and a reduction in attendance from industry. However, Brazil's presidency took an active role throughout negotiations; the COP30 agenda was agreed on the first day after pre-negotiations, avoiding the issues of previous COPs, and Brazil's President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva personally intervened in the second week of negotiations, organising several high-level diplomatic engagements in an attempt to push through agreements.

An absent US sparks criticism and opportunity

Perhaps the most notable 2025 setback on climate action had been the (second) withdrawal of the US from the Paris Agreement. As a result, the US, one of the world's biggest emitters, did not send a delegation to COP30. Some delegates saw the absence of the US as an opportunity. Christiana Figueres, former executive secretary of the UNFCCC, argued that this was "a good thing", allowing for the building of momentum on climate action.

However, no new global leader on climate action took the stand. Despite the dominance of Chinese renewable energy technologies, Wang Yi, the vice-chair of China's expert panel on climate change, stated during COP that China did not "want to take the lead alone", calling for "comprehensive leadership". Some countries took ambitious steps beyond the COP process, however, with certain nations announcing a parallel process for phasing out fossil fuels (see below).

2. What were the results?

No formal roadmap away from fossil fuels – but action continues

A significant focus of the talks at COP30 was the development of a roadmap for phasing out fossil fuels. In the second week of negotiations, over 80 countries, including the UK, demanded a roadmap as a key outcome of the negotiations, with some describing it as a potential "turning point". Expectations of a formal roadmap were high, and early draft texts included it – but references to fossil fuels, and any roadmap away from them, were absent from the final COP30 decision text.

However, the presidency did announce plans for two roadmaps, covering the transition away from fossil fuels and forest protection, to be developed outside of the COP30 text (due to the lack of consensus in the main negotiations).

In addition, 24 countries have backed a first global conference on the transition away from fossil fuels, with the conference to be planned for April 2026 in Colombia. Given that the need for unanimity at COP has proven an issue in the past, these voluntary and smaller-scale initiatives may yet prove to be significant.

An implementation COP?

COP30 was billed in some quarters as the "implementation COP", with the stated intent from the Brazilian presidency to focus on implementing existing pledges. Some progress was made with the launch of the Global Implementation Accelerator – an initiative to accelerate implementation of NDCs and adaptation plans - and the "Belém mission to 1.5°C", another voluntary initiative to enable ambition regarding NDCs. However, the effectiveness of these voluntary approaches is unclear.

122 New NDCs

A key element of concern prior to COP30 was the low level of updated Nationally Determined Contributions ("NDCs") submitted by countries as required by the Paris Agreement. NDCs are effectively national climate action plans for individual countries, typically setting emissions targets, and were required to be updated in 2025. However, only 13 countries (including the UK) had submitted by the initial February deadline and only 62 had submitted at the time of our last briefing.

Following COP30, however, over 122 countries have submitted new NDCs – a significant increase from before the conference but still short of the required unanimity among parties to the Paris Agreement.

Adaptation finance triples

One headline result of COP30 was the announcement of a tripling of the finance available from developed countries to help developing countries to adapt to the effects of climate change and extreme weather. This amounted to pledges of $120bn a year to be provided to developing countries by 2035. While an increase on the previous pledge to double the funds, many developing countries saw this pledge as unsatisfactory, with the deadline pushed back from 2030 and the amount offered viewed as insufficient.

Deforestation remains a key topic

A key expected theme at COP30 had been the natural world and the importance of forests for the global environment and climate action. However, the results of the conference were something of a mixed bag – attempts to include a roadmap on ending deforestation in the core agreement at Belém failed after being tied to the fossils fuels roadmap (see above).

Nonetheless, COP30 did make some significant progress on protection of the natural world. The launch of Brazil's Tropical Forests Forever Fund was a significant marker in economic efforts to protect nature, with $6.7bn raised in its first phase to deliver results-based payments to tropical forest countries for verified conservation of standing forests. In total, COP30 saw pledges of more than $9bn to halt deforestation, which accounts for around a tenth of global emissions. There was also the development of more novel initiatives, such as the RAIZ (Resilient Agriculture Investment for Net-Zero Land Degradation) initiative. This aims to support the 10 participating governments, which include Brazil, Canada, Japan and the United Kingdom, to map degraded landscapes and mobilise private capital to restore degraded land.

3. Other key takeaways and themes

Carbon markets – temperatures rise over the EU CBAM

While Brazil mostly kept trade off the COP30 agenda, carbon markets and trade formed a sticking point at COP30, with the EU's upcoming carbon border adjustment mechanism ("CBAM") (which would in effect expand the EU's carbon pricing to apply to imports from outside the EU) subject to specific criticism.

In particular, some country groups used COP negotiations to push for a COP30 outcome that singled out "unilateral trade measures" as a coded term for the CBAM, which requires businesses in non-EU countries to comply to trade into the EU and which is therefore seen by some as an unfair restraint on trade imposed by developed countries on those without carbon pricing mechanisms.

These attempts bore fruit and the final agreement at Belém set out that discussions next June would look at "opportunities, challenges and barriers" on trade. Although this is hardly a comprehensive repudiation, the discussions and disputes raised here are indicative of the issues countries – and trading blocs – face when trying to implement climate action.

For more information on CBAM, see our update.

A just transition

On Tuesday 18th November, the G77 and China, collectively representing about 80% of the world's population, announced a call in support of a "just transition mechanism", including backing BAM, the Belém Action Mechanism for a just transition. A "just transition" – i.e. a transition towards green energy and climate policy that is fair for all those affected – became a key theme of the talks, one reflective of the increased role of civil society at COP30.

A major outcome of COP30, therefore, was the agreement in the final text to establish a just transition mechanism ("JTM"), the purpose of which will be to "enhance international cooperation, technical assistance, capacity-building and knowledge-sharing, and enable equitable, inclusive just transitions". Although this is voluntary in nature, and early efforts to attach funding to the JTM failed, this was still a significant feature of the talks.

4. Looking ahead: COP31

Coming into COP30, it was not even clear where the next conference would be hosted, with Turkey and Australia engaged in a protracted standoff as to who would host COP31. On Wednesday, however, a compromise was struck, with COP31 to be hosted in Antalya in Turkey but with negotiations led by an Australian Minister, Chris Bowen.

With many decisions still to come, and negotiations proving as difficult to manage as ever, the results of COP31 will be interesting to see.

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