COP30, THE AGENDA OF THE BRAZILIAN PRESIDENCY TAKES SHAPE
This year, the Brazilian presidency of COP30 published three open letters to define the key points of the upcoming COP, or rather, those on which it intends to focus most during the political week.
There are five points highlighted:
- just transition,
- the Baku-to-Belém roadmap,
- the Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA),
- the United Arab Emirates dialogue on Global Stocktake,
- and the Mitigation Work Programme.
Discussions on just transition, the UAE dialogue and the Mitigation Work Programme were all interrupted at COP29 due to difficulties in reaching an agreement, and will therefore have to be resumed at the interim negotiations in Bonn in order to reach conclusions at COP30.
The just transition will most likely be the issue most strongly pushed by the presidency. Although it is still a relatively new topic in the negotiations, it is already central: it formally entered the negotiating language with COP26, but quickly established itself as one of the keys to giving legitimacy and substance to the energy transition.
At COP29, the debate focused on how to make mitigation fair, but it stalled on the issue of finance – who pays, how much, how, with what guarantees – which was only resolved at the last minute at the end of the conference.
This year, the focus will also be on adaptation, which for many countries is a key issue for the next decade: we will have to adapt to a changing climate without increasing social inequalities and without leaving any community behind.
The EAU dialogue – United Arab Emirates dialogue on implementing the global stocktake outcomes – is concerned with defining how to integrate the results of the first Global Stocktake into the new NDCs (nationally determined contributions), transforming the balance sheet into action. The aim is to coherently integrate the GST recommendations into the new national plans, bridging the gap between ambition and reality. A final draft should be ready for COP30 (we left off at this point at COP29).
The Mitigation Work Programme, launched in Glasgow in 2021 to intensify climate action before 2030, should regain momentum after the stalemate in Baku. The interim negotiations in June should give a boost to the work, to arrive in Belém with a solid text on which to negotiate.
The Baku-to-Belém Roadmap is the path that should lead us to achieve the new collective quantified goal on climate finance (NCQG), according to which at least $1.3 trillion per year must be allocated to developing countries by 2035. Contributions have been received over the last few weeks: consultations will be held in Bonn in the coming days, and a report will then be drafted for COP30.
Finally, adaptation to climate change is this year’s key theme and will play a central role at COP30. In particular, the spotlight will be on the Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA): an integral part of the Paris Agreement since 2015 but so far poorly defined, it must be transformed into an operational framework, with quantifiable and measurable objectives, and with clear indications regarding the mobilisation of climate finance. Over the past year, the secretariat has reduced the initial huge number of proposed indicators (over 9,000) to 490, but there is still much to be done: the goal is to reduce this number to around 100 indicators by COP30. The work remains complex: the indicators must be global, but the different characteristics and vulnerabilities of each territory must be taken into account.
Last but not least, the Brazilian presidency has launched two initiatives, only apparently parallel to the formal negotiations but with strong political value: the global “mutirão”, i.e. the call for a major mobilisation of global civil society on climate change to support the ambition of COP30 (mutirão, in Portuguese, means joint action, campaign) and, for the first time since the 1992 Rio Summit, a coordination platform between the three COPs on climate, biodiversity and desertification, symbolically marking the historic return of the multilateral process to Brazil.
Article by Anna Pelicci, head of the Italian Climate Network delegation at the SB62 negotiations in Bonn.
Cover image: Rafa Neddermeyer/COP30 Brasil Amazônia/PR