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1 What is COP30?
The 30th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties ("COP30") is being convened in Belém, Brazil between 10 and 21 November 2025. COP30 will be attended by high-profile heads of state and members of the business community from some of the 198 signatories to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change ("UNFCCC"), along with climate and sustainability experts, NGOs and campaigners.
Following setbacks in international progress towards climate action, notably the USA's (2nd) exit from the Paris Agreement, and slow progress by the international community to produce their required nationally determined contributions ("NDCs"), COP30 represents an important opportunity to reset and escalate ambition in an attempt to safeguard the pledges made by the signatories to the Paris Agreement.
The Paris Agreement, which was agreed at COP21 in 2015, is the most important international treaty on climate change – with a focus on climate change mitigation, adaptation and finance. It sets legally binding obligations for signatories to substantially reduce global greenhouse gas emissions in order to hold the global average temperature rise to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels, and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.
This is in addition to creating funding mechanisms for less developed countries to implement climate change mitigation and adaption policies, along with financial support for communities who are the most physically and financially vulnerable to the climate crisis.
2 What is at stake?
COP29, widely billed as the "finance COP", had as its key outcome the agreement of a new climate finance goal: the "new collective quantified goal" ("NCQG"). This target of "at least USD 300 billion per year by 2035 for developing countries" was widely criticised as insufficiently ambitious and falling short of the financial commitments necessary to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement.
2025 has seen several setbacks to climate action. Current efforts to keep to global warming targets are considered to be in jeopardy, with the Secretary-General of the United Nations, António Guterres, stating this month that attempts to limit global warming to 1.5°C have failed. International co-operation on climate change is also faltering; in January, the United States once again withdrew from the Paris Agreement (an action due to take effect in 2026). In addition, while parties were supposed to submit new NDCs by February 2025, efforts have fallen short.
The Paris Agreement (Article 4, paragraph 2) requires each party to the Paris Agreement to prepare, communicate and maintain successive NDCs. NDCs are the national action plans for individual countries which relate to tackling climate change, including policy measures to mitigate and prevent global warming. While NDCs are determined at a national level, they are set within the framework of the UNFCCC (including agreements flowing therefrom, like the Paris Agreement and the Consensus). Parties to the Paris Agreement were required to submit the first round of NDCs in 2015, and every five years thereafter (i.e. by 2020, 2025, 2030).
Only 62 countries have submitted new NDCs thus far (with only 13 submitting by the February deadline), and those submitted have been criticised for a lack of ambition. In particular, the European Union has also failed to submit an NDC amid a wider simplification of environmental regulation.
The last two COPs, held in the United Arab Emirates and Azerbaijan, respectively, faced criticism for being hosted by major oil and gas producers. COP30 therefore takes place within the broader context of criticism of the COP process, failures by parties to meet their obligations and wider retreats from climate action. The COP30 Presidency has even acknowledged "ongoing calls for COP[s] reform" and in its third letter to parties invited "all Parties to consider the future of the process itself". A key challenge for COP30 is therefore to ensure the continued implementation of countries' climate targets and to revitalise the COP process.
3 Key themes at COP29
Brazil has outlined an agenda for action for COP30 built around six themes:
(i) Transitioning Energy, Industry and Transport
(ii) Stewarding Forests, Oceans and Biodiversity
(iii) Transforming Agriculture and Food Systems
(iv) Building Resilience for Cities, Infrastructure and Water
(v) Fostering Human and Social Development
(vi) Unleashing Enablers and Accelerators, including on Finance, Technology and Capacity
In addition to these key overarching themes, several specific areas have been highlighted as areas of relevance for COP30:
The Global Mutirão approach – a call from the COP30 presidency
In its communications to parties, the Brazilian COP30 Presidency has reiterated its encouragement to the international community to join in a global "mutirão", a concept inherited from Brazilian indigenous people which refers to a community coming together on a shared task. As such, the COP30 Presidency has invited the international community to join a "a global effort of cooperation among peoples for the progress of humanity", bringing in not just formal UNFCCC parties but also civil society, the private sector and individuals.
Cutting emissions and NDCs
As noted above, many countries have failed to submit NDCs, with many of those submitted (including Brazil's) receiving criticism for being insufficiently ambitious. At COP28, the first "global stocktake" of progress since Paris found that nations were off track to meet their Paris Agreement goals. A central focus of the talks is therefore likely to be how to move forward with new NDCs and ensure they are sufficiently ambitious.
Implementation
In its communications to parties, the Brazilian COP30 Presidency has repeatedly emphasised the importance of ramping up implementation of existing initiatives, pledges and goals, referring in its Third Letter to moving "from a negotiation-centered to an implementation-centered era". Negotiations on steps to effectively implement existing initiatives, rather than simply announcing new ones, are therefore expected.
Finance
As noted above, the finance goals negotiated at COP29 were widely criticised as being insufficient. Regardless, to meet those goals, current finance pledges need to be upgraded. A "Baku to Belém roadmap" was launched at COP29, intended to support parties in scaling up climate finance The Roadmap sets out the ambition to mobilise 1.3 trillion US dollars annually by 2035 for developing countries' climate action.
Natural world
Given that COP30 will take place in close proximity to the Amazon rainforest, discussions on forests and biodiversity are expected. Brazil is set to launch the Tropical Forests Forever Fund, a multilateral fund committed to providing funding to countries which commit to preserving tropical forests, during COP30.
Carbon markets
In the lead-up to COP30, the Brazilian Ministry of Finance has developed a proposal for an Open Coalition for Carbon Market Integration, an initiative aiming to harmonise standards and link existing carbon markets. This would be voluntary in nature, and would also introduce technologies and decarbonisation solutions, enabling sharing of best practice and new production standards.
4 What is the UK doing in the run-up to COP30?
At COP29 the Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, announced the UK's new NDC target: to reduce all greenhouse gas emissions by at least 81% by 2035 compared to 1990 levels.
The UK's Climate Change Committee's 2025 progress report sets out that this net zero target is "within reach, provided the Government stays the course". This is among the most ambitious of NDCs, and the UK has emphasised that "British leadership matters". More recently in October 2025, the UK Government published its revised Climate and Clean Energy Plan outlining the steps it intends to take to achieve its emission reduction targets.
The UK has also been involved more closely in the run-up to COP30. The Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, Ed Miliband, has met with the Brazilian Government in both Brazil and the UK. In August 2024, the UK Government, in collaboration with the Brazilian Government, published a joint statement on climate cooperation, which set out how they would work together in the run-up to COP30. The statement covered the Brazil-UK Green and Inclusive Growth Partnership, collaboration in the lead-up to COP30, the intention by both parties to lead by example in their NDCs, taking action on both forest protection and energy transitions away from fossil fuels, implementation and finance, and an agreement to intensify dialogues in the lead up to COP30.
Despite some initial uncertainty, the UK Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, recently confirmed that he will travel to Belém to attend COP30.
5 What's next?
COP30 will see most Paris Agreement stakeholders discuss progress and efforts to transition from fossil fuels and to reduce global emissions. At a time when multilateral global climate action is facing setbacks, and the COP system itself faces criticism amid inaction, COP30's focus on ensuring implementation and a renewed multilateralism will be a pivotal moment for global climate co-operation.
As the COP30 Presidency, in its first letter to parties, put it, "COP30 will mark the midway in humanity's critical decade in the fight against climate change as our common enemy. Now is the time we leave behind inertia, individualism, and irresponsibility ... Let us pull the levers together. Let us move the world".
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