Has COP30 delivered in giving the world a sense of direction in climate action?

Welcome back to Sustainable Views, the podcast looking at sustainability policy and regulation in depth. I'm Philippa Nosaul, editor of Sustainable Views. Today I'm talking with Florence Jones, one of Sustainable Views' reporters, about COP30, the climate summit that was running in Belém, Brazil for the last 2 weeks and which came to a close this weekend. Hi, Flo. Hi. So Flo, when we spoke on this podcast before COP30 a couple of weeks ago, you were telling us about the Tropical Forests Forever facility, which had actually been agreed by LEAD as the head of the main climate summit. Perhaps you could remind us a little bit about what this agreement was, because when I was writing the piece for Sustainable Views yesterday and speaking to various people about COP30, this was still one of the main things for most, for a lot of people that was kind of agreed during the summit. So yeah, remind us a little bit about kind of what it was and what it hopes to achieve.

Yeah, absolutely. So the TFFF is, as you say, the Tropical Finance Forever facility, and it's a financial mechanism seeking to drive private finance into the preservation of forests, particularly tropical forests. As you alluded to, it kind of was the flagship initiative of COP30. It was technically launched during COP, but everybody kind of knew about it beforehand, and it had been built up over a number of months. And it essentially is just a financial mechanism that rests on the principle that currently for people living in forests, whether they're local communities or indigenous people, it's more profitable profitable for them to cut down the forest and then sell that land to agriculture or industry. So the fund is essentially trying to compensate those groups for leaving the forest standing and keeping the forest acting as a carbon sink. It's an investment fund, so it's seeking to raise $125 billion total with an initial $25 billion investment from public, so governments, and that will kind of de-risk the portfolio. And private investors will get a return on their investment in a similar way that they would with any other kind of fund. And then there'll be an additional return of around 2.5% on top of that, which will then be distributed to tropical forest communities in exchange for keeping deforestation rates low.

Great. And so obviously finance is a big piece of this. I know when you wrote about the fund before COP, there was a couple of countries that had come forward with financing, but they were quite small amounts and sort of countries that have got less money perhaps to spend on these kinds of things. We don't think we'd really heard from any of the sort of big countries that tend to donate to these things, such as the UK or Germany. Was there any progress on that during COP?

So there was a little progress, but it's definitely not going as well as it could be. There's been a total of $6.738 billion pledged. Norway has donated the largest amount of $3 billion, but that is conditional on the total funding being at $13 billion by the end of 2026. So they've said once it reaches that point, then the $3 billion will come. We've also got contributions from France, Indonesia, Brazil, Germany, which was announced during COP, and Portugal has given €1 billion. It's definitely not nearing the €25 billion that Brazil is hoping for. The UK, controversially, I was talking on the podcast last time about how the UK has said it's not contributing to the funds. Nothing really changed on that during COP. Our special representative for climate, Rachel Kite, has kind of been hinting that it's more a not now rather than a never in terms of the UK contribution. But that being said, there hasn't been any kind of concrete signals from government that they intend to give money to the fund.

And did China come forward with anything on this? I mean, I know there was sort of— there's always this kind of, are they a developed, developing country, which obviously again was a discussion at COP30. Was there any movement from them on forests?

No, not especially. China haven't contributed to the GFFF yet. And yeah, we'll have to see if they do in future.

Okay, great. Yeah, and obviously finance was a big part of COP30, or perhaps the lack of finance is what we should say. There were various mechanisms as well as the TFFF that were agreed around, for example, the just transition, and the Bellum Action Mechanism was a big push from campaigners really to get the just transition in there and something that they hope can then be rolled out globally. But again, Yeah, very much depends on what countries come forward with and whether the financing is there for it. In the final text, we see this call to triple adaptation financing by 2035. But again, there isn't actually a figure there. There is this kind of aim to get to $1.3 trillion. So yeah, finance is definitely something that countries don't want to come forward with at the moment, given the sort of pressures that they're under domestically. So yeah, lots to keep an eye on there in terms of financing.

Yeah, and I know that you've been speaking to various businesses, investors, and nonprofit groups following COP. I wondered if you kind of were able to highlight some of the wins that came from the summit. There's been a lot of negativity, but maybe there's some positivity in there too.

Yeah, I mean, I think, and I think as I wrote yesterday, that given sort of, I mean, the US is obviously absent from the talks. There was lots of talk ahead of it about China China potentially stepping in as a global climate leader. But Seth, our Asia correspondent, wrote, you know, China very much sees the transition in terms of an industrial policy, I think, rather than necessarily a moment for them to stand as a leader on this. And the EU, we're having this sort of internal pushback in the EU. The EU found it quite difficult to agree its 2040 target and its 90% emissions reduction. So again, that was it. The bloc was a bit weakened in terms of its negotiating powers. But I think it was still interesting. A few people have sort of suggested this was kind of a new geopolitical reality. Linda Kelsher from Climate Strategies, for example, very much pulled out this as a change. We saw the leadership very much from Brazil and from other parts of the world. Colombia, for example, has said it will come forward with this fossil fuels conference next April with the Netherlands. So I think there was energy coming from other parts of the world, and perhaps this is something we will see in the future rather than sort of everybody looking to the US or the EU to lead, as has traditionally has traditionally been the case. There was obviously deep disappointment from a deforestation point of view and fossil fuels, that roadmaps in terms of transitioning away from fossil fuels and reducing deforestation were not in the final text. And as I said, Brazil has pledged, the COP30 presidency has pledged they will come up with roadmaps on these issues to be discussed at COP31 next year. So yeah, plenty of negativity, but I think, you know, there were some positive movements, if we can say that, within the sort of reduced ambition perhaps as we can see it. I was speaking yesterday to Gianpiero Nacci from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and he very much pulled out the idea that in terms of climate finance, there was the Accu to Bellum roadmap, so going from previous COPs to today, around financing and how countries can potentially get to this figure of $1.3 trillion by 2035. There was also this report from the Circle of Finance Ministers which fed into that, and also the report from the High-Level Expert Group on Climate Finance. I mean, I think all this shows basically that there's going to be a lot of private finance which is needed, and it's perhaps time to step away from this reliance on public finance. It's a lot of money that we're talking about. I think the just transition is definitely interesting. Just transition has been mentioned as a word for a long time without any kind of real action on it. So I think the fact that we have this bellum action mechanism now in place, definitely the trade unions were very enthusiastic that this is a win that they've been, something they've been pushing for for a long time. And it definitely raises this idea that the transition should be fair as a global issue and has very much put it on the COP agenda. So I think those things, I mean, whether they are small wins and they're positive, but I think for me, and I think as I wrote before COP, It felt this year it was almost a moment to just show that the world as a whole was still moving somewhere on climate action, even if it's not in line clearly with 1.5 and sort of with the opposition from the US in particular. I think COP showed that, you know, the rest of the world is not with Trump, even if there was this pushback from various petrostates like Russia and Saudi Arabia, who are clearly not on board with this this idea of transitioning away from fossil fuels, even though this has been mentioned now for years, not just at COP but also in the G20 and various other fora.

Yeah, absolutely. So some of those wins are kind of outside the main text of COP, even if the final COP30 text wasn't perhaps what people were hoping for.

Exactly. And I think that's perhaps increasingly what we're going to see. And I wanted to ask you whether in terms of the deforestation roadmap, whether you've heard anything in terms of, you know, kind of what needs to be in that. And a few people were saying to me that this is really important important as well for the implementation of the TFFF.

Yes. So as you mentioned, the roadmaps were kind of one thing that was in and out of the final text at various points in negotiations, ultimately ending up not making the final text. It was something that Brazil was really putting its weight behind. So a roadmap to phase out fossil fuels, which was really kind of the focus of much media attention. And then perhaps the slightly less focused on roadmap to phase out deforestation. As you said, Brazil has said they're still going to work on these roadmaps, but what that will kind of mean in terms of the wider UNFCCC process is not yet clear. In COP26 in Glasgow, there was more than 130 countries that pledged to halt and reverse deforestation by 2030. Now, the latest data shows that deforestation is no longer increasing, but we're still a long way off that 2030 target. 2030 goal. So I imagine that the roadmap will kind of focus on that goal as its North Star. And deforestation is hugely significant to climate change. And I think there was more widely some disappointment among some groups that I've been speaking to about the lack of focus on food, farming, land use change at COP more widely. Deforestation, which is the leading kind of driver of of emissions from land use change contributes around 12 to 20% of global greenhouse gas emissions. So I think it's kind of, some see it as a bit of the elephant in the room at COP. We're having these conversations about fossil fuels, but we should also be speaking about deforestation. And that was particularly highlighted in Brazil. It was billed as being this forest COP. We had more presence from indigenous people than we've had at any recent COP. And I think Many had hoped for clearer signals on deforestation. Some groups are saying the TFFF is all well and good for raising finance, but we also need the legislation. We need rules. We need a target to actually reduce the deforestation itself as well. So yeah, we'll have to see what comes of that. Brazil did say that the roadmaps would look to have some kind of financial element to them and signals for how finance can be raised. To support ending deforestation, but it's all very unclear at the moment given that it didn't make it into the final text what these roadmaps will actually look like.

Yeah, indeed. And I think a big thing that was also missing from my point of view was food and farming. The sector still contributes a third of global emissions, and at COP28 we have this sort of big food and farming declaration 2 years ago that this was something that countries finally signed up to, to agree to move on. I think then we've seen very little movement. I mean, certainly in the EU we've gone backwards in terms of sort of policies holding the agricultural sector to account in terms of emissions, environmental standards. Those have been relaxed. And again, I think there was one little mention of food, but it was definitely something that was not central to, to discussions and which will have to change. I mean, I think governments remain very confident now in terms of talking about renewables, even if fossil fuels are still very much in the room. But they are confident, they see that renewables are coming online. We've seen from the recent International Energy Agency report that the figures are fairly positive, even if there are slowdowns in certain parts of the world. But this idea of, yeah, forcing, calling on the agricultural sector, the food sector to change is a very emotional issue and something that I think lots of governments don't want to get involved in. We will have to see in terms of COP31, which we learned last week will be jointly hosted in some way by Australia and Turkey, whether they move on that. As you say, in terms of deforestation, exactly what this roadmap says. I think another thing that we need to perhaps keep an eye on, you mentioned what's happening outside of the main talks, is also what's happening in terms of the action agenda. Which is led by the High-Level Climate Champions. The renewables organizations were very positive about the movement that's happening around grids, around energy storage, which are really key parts of the energy transition that until now we haven't seen much movement on, have been underinvested in comparison to solar or wind. So yeah, I think seeing movement on those, seeing global agreement and investment going into those areas and how the High-Level Champions, which work with businesses, NGOs, subnational governments can also move forward the agenda. So perhaps this idea, a bit of a change as well of how COPs actually work and what's actually coming out of them, and perhaps to look a little bit beyond this final text which everybody sort of analyzes in minute detail and see what's happening elsewhere.

Yeah, and you mentioned there COP 31 in the next year's time. We have got this kind of joint hosting from Turkey and Australia. Do you think this is kind of a moment where we're looking at the COP system and what it means and how we're kind of reframing that? And will we see some of that at next COP, do you think?

Yeah, I think it's a really good question. I mean, there seemed to be fewer calls this year for a change in the COP system. There were still calls there, but I didn't feel it was as strong as it has been in previous years. Last year it seems particularly strong in terms of this idea that the system was broken and it couldn't achieve anything. I think that was perhaps partly to do with Brazil as the COP30 presidency and the way it was hosted. And this idea of— and now my Portuguese is going to be shown up in its hallows— but this Global Mutirão, which was the name of the final agreement, and this idea of working collectively and to try and get sort of some kind of momentum. So I think there is definitely a shift in the system, just as we've said previously in terms of who's in charge of it, who's moving, who are the leaders and not. As you say, these other issues now I think are firmly in COP in terms of deforestation, which before everything was very much more focused on emissions. I think there are still various questions to be asked in terms of, I mean, there was governments re-pledged, you know, their support for keeping global warming below 1.5 degrees if possible. I think we know climate science is fairly clear that, you know, we will go above 1.5 and kind of how much that now is almost just a political statement rather than something that's real, and what that means in terms of COP discussions. Fossil fuels, I think there's going to have to be some movement around that. You know, for years now we've heard the talk about the need to phase out fossil fuels without any kind of real movement, and how possible it is to move that forward even if there are certain countries like Saudi Arabia, I mean, which always objects to anything that sort of starts talking about fossil fuel phase-outs. And then the finance question and how you do bring private finance, um, into the mix, uh, much more than, than potentially has happened in the, the past. Because I think it's very clear that, um, and especially in terms of where geopolitics are at the moment, that countries are looking to, to bump up defense and to spend on other issues. They've got lots of domestic challenges, um, and talking about spending on climate finance to help countries in other parts of the world is perhaps not necessarily going to land, um, with electorates in, in, in the UK, the EU, or, or wherever. So, um, yeah, so I think this idea of a dual hosting Potentially. Let's see what happens. I think there's lots of skepticism around it as well as to whether it actually works, how it will work, and also how the power dynamics are going to play out between Australia and Turkey and who's kind of in charge of proceedings. But yeah, it's always good to see something different happening that can shake up the process a bit, perhaps. So yeah, let's see what happens in the coming months and yeah, and at COP31 next year.

Yeah, and we always have these discussions every year about who should be at COP, whether business should be at COP, and the presence of lobbyists. Do you reckon that we'll get any more discussion on that before COP31? Obviously it's being hosted in Turkey. Could that mean more presence from the oil and gas industry next time?

Yeah, I mean, it's a really good question and I think it's a really thorny question to answer. I interviewed Ani Dasgupta, the CEO of the World Resources Institute recently, and he was very clear that everybody should be in the room, that we need those fossil fuel companies in the room, we need businesses in the room because ultimately those are the ones that will have to deliver on the transition. Christiana Figueres, who was one of the architects of the Paris Agreement, obviously tried very hard. She really stood out against a lot of her peers and tried to work with the fossil fuel sector after Russia invaded Ukraine and sort of the fossil fuel companies seemed to jump on the bandwagon of, you know, let's go back to fossil fuels and dump the drop the focus on renewables. She sort of held up her hands and said, I tried, that's not worked. Annie Deskupta was very clear, is very clear, that that's something which needs to change. I think my personal opinion is as well that we need everybody in the room, because how do you get agreement? How do you get people to implement if they're not actually part of the discussions? Also, the fossil fuel companies obviously have massive amounts of money, so in terms of financing the transition, They're obviously key actors in terms of who's going to finance it. I think the other issue, and in terms of the people at COP this year, were the agro-food industries. So DeSmog, an investigative NGO, I think they found that there were 300 agro, big industrial farming lobbyist companies represented at COP30. We perhaps need to cast the net a bit wider in terms of asking who should be there and not just be focused on the fossil fuel companies, but also these other companies that are there and how can they be brought into the discussions or not in terms of making sure that they're there as part of the transition and as part of the need to reduce emissions and to meet those climate goals rather than as there as lobbyists to sort of change the discourse towards and to kind of focus on how they can get people to stick with the status quo. So yeah, I think there's lots of questions that need to be asked and I think it's good that these are questions asked clearly. COP now has been going for a long time and sticking with any system is probably not good. But when I sort of suggest to many people, you know, some people have called for COP to kind of be killed almost the other year and said this was the end, we need a totally different system. I think one thing which is very important with COP is it brings these different actors together, it brings different people. It is a moment when people from the NGO sector, business, governments can come together and discuss and very much in a very focused atmosphere, and that clearly is something which is super important if the transition is going to move forward in the sense we're not talking just about energy anymore. We're talking very much about the whole system, as we've said, deforestation, food, farming, energy, and the just transition. So people need to be very much part of this. And as you said, I think at COP as well this year, there was a— there were more people brought into the discussion in terms of indigenous peoples as well. And so that's something going forward that the organizers and the COP presidencies need to think about to get the best outcome for everybody. And it's not just a renewables target that needs to be in there.

Yeah, plenty for us to keep an eye on then.

Indeed. Yes, we're not going to be short of stories, but hopefully things might calm down a little bit in the run-up to Christmas. But yeah, thanks Flo for sharing your thoughts on all of that. And to our readers, if you want to read our stories around COP30 and to keep up with changes to sustainability laws globally, globally, and litigation risks for businesses, be sure to sign up for a free trial of Sustainable Views and our daily newsletter at sustainableviews.com. We'll be back with another episode next month.