Ten years after the Paris Agreement, high stakes at COP30 in the Amazon

By Alexandra Sirgant in Belém

World leaders have gathered in Belém, the gateway to the Brazilian Amazon, for a high-level summit on November 6-7 linked to the COP30 climate conference, which opens on Monday.

For nearly two weeks, beginning on November 10, thousands of civil society representatives, scientists, NGO staffers, young activists, and businesspeople will converge on the city to coordinate global climate action.

In order to mitigate the logistical challenge of accommodating all these people, the summit of heads of state has been brought forward.

Some 140 delegations have been confirmed by the COP organizers, including around 30 heads of state and government, a figure substantially lower than previous COPs. The heads of state of the world's two most polluting powers, the United States and China, will not be attending, although China has sent its Deputy Prime Minister Ding Xuexiang.

At the leaders summit, Africa is represented by leaders such as Félix Tshisekedi, President of the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the President of the Republic of Congo, Denis Sassou N'Guesso, as well as the President of the African Development Bank Group.

The British Crown is being represented by Prince William, sent by his father, King Charles III, and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer. French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen are also crossing the Atlantic for the summit.

The Holy See, meanwhile, is represented by a delegation of about ten people, led by Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Secretary of State, assisted by the Apostolic Nuncio to Brazil, Archbishop Giambattista Diquattro.

Ten years of the Paris Agreement

Participants are also gathering to take stock of the 2015 Paris Agreement at COP21, where 196 parties agreed to implement measures to limit global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.

Back then, the signatory states committed to achieving a global cap on greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible and to communicating their intended nationally determined contributions (NDCs).

In Belém, they will therefore be asked to take stock of their actions and submit their new climate commitments for 2035. NDCs must be updated every five years, and each update must be more ambitious than the previous one in order to help the world move closer to the limit set by the Paris Agreement. That goal seems distant, given that the last ten years have been the warmest on record and that 2024 saw a temperature increase of around 1.55°C degrees compared to pre-industrial levels in 1850-1900. This is a first.

This update to national climate commitments comes at a time when global climate ambition is faltering.

“We are now in a world that is more geopolitically fragmented than ever, where we are seeing more and more populist governments disengaging from climate action, especially the United States,” observes François Gemenne, professor at HEC Paris and a specialist in environmental geopolitics.

For the second time in ten years, Donald Trump has pulled the United States out of the Paris Agreement, a decision that will take effect after COP30 in January 2026. The war in Ukraine and the conflict in the Middle East have also led to a certain degree of disengagement on the climate front, including among the countries of the European Union, which have historically been driving forces in climate discussions.

Then there are also the devastating environmental consequences of war on the environment.

“There is strong pressure for deregulation almost everywhere in the world,” says Gemenne, adding: “The main challenge for COP30 is to give new impetus to international cooperation in the current geopolitical context.”

The Belgian researcher also highlights two achievements stemming from the Paris Agreement. On the one hand, international cooperation over the last ten years has succeeded in reducing projections for global warming from 3.9°C to 2.6°C by the end of the century, according to UN environment programme.

Additionally, investment in low-carbon energy has grown over the last decade. “In 2015, when the agreement was signed, there was still more investment in fossil fuels than in low-carbon energy, but this ratio has been reversed since 2016,” he explains.

Climate finance for the Global South

Another issue at stake at the Belém conference is financing. Last year in Baku, COP29 ended with a promise: that developed countries would mobilise $300 billion per year by 2035 for developing countries to finance energy transition and adaptation to climate change.

This was poorly received by developing countries, who had hoped for much more. They pointed out that it is the richest countries who are responsible for the increase in greenhouse gas emissions: according to a 2023 report by the United Nations Environment Programme, nearly 80% of cumulative historical CO2 emissions between 1850 and 2021 are attributable to the G20 countries, particularly China, the United States and the European Union, while the least developed countries have contributed only 4%.

“Honestly, even though these pledges were extremely disappointing for countries in the Global South, we are not going to be able to raise them,” laments François Gemenne. “The United States has completely withdrawn from all international aid, European governments have empty pockets, and China does not want to contribute more,” she says, expressing her hope that countries would not back down any further.

The Loss and Damage Response Fund, created at COP28 in Dubai to finance the irreparable damage caused by climate disasters in countries in the Global South, will also be on the agenda.

Here too, funds are insufficient and difficult to obtain. “It will be even more difficult to convince states to mobilise financial resources because there is no return on investment from financing loss and damage, unlike financing the transition,” says Gemenne.

A COP on the edge of the Amazon

It was in Brazil, at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, that the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change was born and the COPs came into being.

Thirty-three years later, South America's largest country is once again looking to make climate history by welcoming diplomats and scientists from around the world to a city at the edge of its rainforest.

This choice is more than just symbolic, as the summit has launched the Tropical Forest Forever Fund (TFFF), a £100 billion investment fund aimed at rewarding the conservation of tropical forests around the world.

And as proof of the Brazilian presidency's interest in the ‘green lungs of the earth’, Belém will become the capital of Brazil for the duration of the COP.

Although this is just a symbolic transfer, proposed in a bill approved by the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies, it means that from 11 to 21 November the nation’s executive, legislative and judicial powers will conduct their activities in the capital of the state of Pará.

Ensuring a ‘just transition’

COP30 also plans to focus on the concept of a ‘just transition’.

The transition to a low-carbon society will inevitably lead to a decline in sectors that are heavily dependent on fossil fuels. Discussions will therefore focus on implementing measures to minimise the negative impacts on the communities most vulnerable to these changes.

“Social equity issues are not only a moral principle, but also a prerequisite for effective climate policies. If these climate policies appear unfair, they run the risk of being rejected,” says Gemenne.

“It is a question of linking social policy, particularly the reduction of inequality, with climate policies.”