As COP30 winds down in Belem, Brazil, there is considerable discussion about the future of the talks, which after 30 years have not delivered on their goals.
Reuters reported Tuesday that it had accessed an official UN paper in which a task force proposed dismantling the current structure for the negotiations, folding it into another department. There was also a question as to whether the COP process itself should be discontinued.
"The system is not working. We are literally drowning in paperwork," Panama's Monterrey
told Reuters.
Many described the U.N.-led process as needing an upgrade to become fit for the task ahead: turning years of COP pledges into action in the real world.
"We need to turn away from jamborees around negotiations, into really focused efforts to accelerate implementation," one European negotiator said. "This is probably the last of the old COPs and the beginning of the new."
-snip-
The U.N. is among those seeking a change. U.N. climate secretariat head Simon Stiell has set up a group of 15 former world leaders, diplomats, ministers, business and Indigenous representatives to advise on how to make COPs fit for the next decade. The group will submit its recommendations in the coming weeks, two members told Reuters.
Stiell told Reuters the COP process had delivered real progress, noting that countries' latest climate pledges would cut global emissions 12% from 2019 levels by 2035, marking the first steady decline.
"There are people that literally just benefit from going to COP to COP, from cocktail to cocktail, from side event to side event, while the world keeps burning," said Panama's COP negotiator Juan Carlos Monterrey.
Meanwhile, the Guardian reports that the “biggest faultline” at the talks is a division over transitioning from fossil fuels, as more than 80 countries demanded a roadmap to the transition be a major outcome. Opposition to this idea is rampant among petrostates that rely on fossil fuels.
“Not only is [the divide] binary, but it is two extremes: one very favourable [to a phaseout] the other very unfavourable. There aren’t many countries that are indifferent,” said Corrêa do Lago.
The rift between developed and developing countries regarding finance continues in the forefront of the discussions.
Oil-producing countries need to acknowledge the rise of clean energy, and rich countries will have to provide more assurances on finance if the chasm between negotiating nations at Cop30 is to be bridged, the president of the summit has said.
André Corrêa do Lago, the veteran Brazilian climate diplomat in charge of the talks, said: “Developing countries are looking at developed countries as countries that could be much more generous in supporting them to be more sustainable. They could offer more finance, and technology.”
This does not necessarily involve an increase in the headline amount of money to be provided directly from rich world coffers, set last year at $300bn (£230bn) a year by 2035. It could also come from better use of existing finance, Corrêa do Lago added.
“You don’t need more money. You don’t need public money from developed countries. You need to leverage more dollars from each dollar that you have,” he said in an exclusive interview with the Guardian as the talks entered their crucial stage.
x
At COP30 in Belém do Pará, more than 50,000 people made history with a clear, unified message:
“It is time to bury fossil fuels and build a clean, just future.”
Today, we symbolically laid fossil fuels to rest. ✊
[image or embed]
— 350.org (@350.org) November 15, 2025 at 12:42 PM
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