BELEM: Brazil’s COP30 presidency on Saturday (Nov 22) pushed through a compromise climate deal that boosts finance for poorer nations but omits any reference to phasing out fossil fuels, despite pressure from Europe and several Latin American countries.
The agreement, adopted in overtime after two weeks of tense negotiations in the Amazon city of Belem, was forged without the United States, which sent no official delegation.
COP30 President Andre Correa do Lago acknowledged the divisions as he gaveled the deal through, telling delegates: “We know some of you had greater ambitions for some of the issues at hand.”
Several countries objected that the summit was ending without stronger plans to curb greenhouse gases or address fossil fuels, the single largest source of global warming.
FOSSIL FUEL LANGUAGE SPARKS BACKLASH
Colombia, Panama and Uruguay led the objections, insisting the final package could not ignore the scientific consensus on fossil fuels. Colombia’s negotiator warned that “a consensus imposed under climate denialism is a failed agreement”.
Their grievances centred on one of the technical negotiating texts due to be approved alongside the headline deal, not on the political declaration itself.
The three joined the European Union in demanding language on transitioning away from fossil fuels, while a coalition led by Saudi Arabia said such references were unacceptable.
The EU ultimately agreed not to block the deal on Saturday morning, with climate commissioner Wopke Hoekstra saying that although the outcome was not ideal, “we should support it because at least it is going in the right direction”.
Panama’s climate negotiator Juan Carlos Monterrey was more blunt, saying: “A climate decision that cannot even say ‘fossil fuels’ is not neutrality, it is complicity.”