COP30, THE ANALYSIS BY ITALIAN CLIMATE NETWORK
The COP30 in Belém closed on Saturday, 22nd November, confirming some expectations and disappointing others. The Italian Climate Network delegation followed the negotiations in person, closely observing progress, gaps, and compromises on all the main tracks: from mitigation to adaptation, passing through just transition, loss and damage, and gender issues.
From the Mutirão to the decisions on the Global Stocktake, the COP reaffirmed the 1.5°C threshold as the reference of the Paris Agreement, but without concrete tools to meet it. On the fossil fuels and NDC front, progress remains limited, as do the measures to fill the ambition and implementation gaps. Finance for adaptation grows only slowly, while the just transition makes strides on the social front, less so on the climate one.
«COP30 and Brazil wanted to send a strong signal towards the survival of the multilateral climate system», comments the President of Italian Climate Network, Jacopo Bencini «But what they called “the COP of truth” – scientific truth, political truth, the first in the new diplomatic context led by the BRICS, without the United States – collided with the truths of realpolitik and with an instrumental alliance with China that proved weak and flawed in the last 72 hours of the summit».
«COP30 reaffirmed the 1.5°C objective, but without the necessary tools to give real meaning to this threshold, which today is above all political: climate models in fact tell us that it is now practically doomed» underlines the Scientific Director of Italian Climate Network, Serena Giacomin. «That reference should indicate the direction and speed of the transition, that is, a credible action plan to move away from fossil fuels within the timeframes imposed by climate physics».Below you will find the detailed analysis of the main results, compromises, and critical issues of COP30, prepared by our delegation to offer a complete overview of the negotiation outcomes and the implications for the global pathway toward climate neutrality and climate justice.
Global Mutirão
The text of the Global Mutirão aimed to resolve four knots left outside the COP30 agenda: the ambition and implementation gaps of the NDCs, the implementation of Article 9.1 of the Paris Agreement, and carbon border adjustment measures. The intentions were good, but the result is not very ambitious.
For the NDC gap, two initiatives are launched: the Global Implementation Accelerator, voluntary and designed to support the implementation of NDCs and NAPs, and the Belém Mission to 1.5, which aims to accelerate implementation, cooperation, and investments. The Roadmap on transitioning away from fossil fuels proposed by Brazil does not pass: in the text the reference to fossil fuels disappears completely and the decisions of the Dubai Global Stocktake are only recalled as a whole, without citing the more advanced paragraphs.
On climate finance, a two-year work programme is established, also including Article 9.1 within the framework of Article 9. An effort is requested to at least triple adaptation finance by 2035, urging developed countries to strengthen their trajectory. The objective fits within the decision taken in Baku to mobilize at least 300 billion dollars per year from developed countries towards developing countries, including flows from multilateral banks and voluntary South-South contributions. It is a weak result compared to the request of the least developed countries.
On carbon border adjustment measures, subsidiary bodies are asked to organize dialogues in the June 2026, 2027, and 2028 sessions, involving Parties and other actors, to assess opportunities, challenges, and obstacles to international cooperation in trade. Paragraph 3.5 of the UNFCCC is also reiterated: Parties must promote an open and supportive international economic system, and climate measures – including unilateral ones – must not become tools of arbitrary discrimination or disguised restrictions on trade.
The text acknowledges the serious pre-2020 ambition and implementation gaps of developed countries, but the response remains completely insufficient. As of November 2025, only 122 Parties have submitted the new NDC, well beyond the February deadline: a clear sign of the growing gap between the needs of the Paris Agreement and national action. The negotiation notes the gaps without offering real tools to fill them, limiting itself to inviting countries to develop implementation and investment plans. Even weaker is the language on climate neutrality. The previous draft aimed at national net-zero by mid-century; the final text instead speaks of a generic alignment “towards global net zero,” a vague formula that offloads all responsibility onto collective outcomes and allows individual countries to avoid binding trajectories. Even on the operational level, little is done: some peer-to-peer workshops and references to capacity-building, but no follow-up mechanism, no indicator, and no minimum requirement for NDC quality. Here is a more in-depth analysis of the text.
Mitigation
In what for two years had been expected as the COP of adaptation, mitigation had returned to assume a central role in light of the leap forward by the Brazilian Presidency, committed from the very first days to the creation of a roadmap for the orderly phase-out of fossil fuels. In parallel, negotiations were held for two weeks in the Mitigation Work Programme, waiting to understand whether the possible roadmap would take its place. At the end of the COP, the roadmap did not find the necessary consensus to enter the texts, and from the Work Programme one goes home only with the indication to integrate the existing platform under Article 6.8, designed to share good practices on non-market approaches, with an additional component that countries will be able to use to share their experiences in projects improving upon NDC ambition. Although both the Mutirão text and the final decision on the work programme maintain adequate language on science, the IPCC, and the Paris minimum goal of 1.5°C, the absence of any textual reference to fossil sources, to the transitioning away of Dubai, to the proposed roadmap, and to new and more stringent tools to strengthen the NDC process marks the lowest point of this COP – especially given the suddenly high expectations. Finally, no decision was taken regarding any continuation of the Work Programme beyond 2026 – in the presence of a structured roadmap, its continuation could have been an avoidable duplication but, in its absence, we now risk losing even the last space for discussion on the central theme of the Convention and the Agreement: the reduction of climate-altering emissions.
1.5°C and IPCC
COP30 maintained the 1.5°C threshold in the texts as the objective of the Paris Agreement. It is an important reference, but risks remaining almost only nominal, because it was not accompanied by the tools needed to make it feasible. Continuing to refer to 1.5°C does not mean ignoring what science is telling us about its future overshoot, but recognizing that today the value of 1.5°C is above all political: it is the compass that should orient the direction and speed of the transition. Speaking of 1.5°C means setting the order of magnitude of the required change, not discussing the exact tenth of a degree at which we stand. But to complete this message, the 1.5°C threshold would have required a coherent step: marking an orderly transition away from fossil fuels, defining a clear, verifiable roadmap aligned with climate physics. This, however, did not happen. The threshold remains on paper, but the texts did not include the tools to reach the objective. And this weakens the ability of the multilateral process to guide emissions reductions within the timeframes imposed by the climate system. Tenths of a degree are not details: they are real risk differences, especially for the most vulnerable countries. For this reason, it is essential that the reference to 1.5°C become an operational commitment and not remain only a formal call.
In parallel, COP30 saw extensive discussion on the role of the IPCC, especially in view of the fact that the next assessment cycle (AR7) will arrive after the second Global Stocktake in 2028. It is a paradox often interpreted as a limit of science, but in reality it reveals the opposite: science is not slow, it is rigorous. IPCC reports synthesize tens of thousands of reviews and guarantee a level of quality impossible to replicate outside the scientific process. Certainly science can and must continue to include diverse perspectives, including local knowledge, provided it is integrated through the scientific method. The real problem is not the slowness of science, but that of politics: the data needed to guide effective mitigation and adaptation policies have been available for over half a century. And yet, in a COP where the reference to 1.5°C was maintained, no decision was taken on fossil fuels nor on the tools needed to strengthen the ambition of the NDCs. Questioning the IPCC means weakening the only shared epistemic infrastructure on which negotiations can rely. At a time when multilateralism is under pressure, defending the centrality of the IPCC means ensuring that political decisions remain anchored to the best available science: the only shared language capable of guiding choices that concern collective security.
Adaptation
Global Goal on Adaptation
The final text adopts the indicators, formally closes the UAE – Belém Work Programme, and opens the Belém – Addis Vision, a 2026–2027 process designed to harmonize methodologies, reporting, and objectives ahead of the second Global Stocktake. The result is a technically complete GGA, but politically suspended because finance remains delegated to the Global Mutirão and is very weak. On the technical front, we count just over 50 indicators: a lean, non-prescriptive, and much more political set. A package of disclaimers – voluntariness, non-comparability, absence of conditionality, respect for sovereignty – helped many Global South countries accept the adoption even while judging it premature. Developed countries would have preferred indicators immediately usable in national plans and transparency. The Belém – Addis Vision thus becomes the political-technical bridge that will have to stabilize the list, refine metadata and methodologies, and align adaptation plans, adaptation communications, and transparency reports.
The text also contains a historic element: the inclusion of people of African descent among vulnerable categories, alongside children, youth, persons with disabilities, Indigenous Peoples, local communities, and migrants. An important expansion showing growing recognition of the social and justice dimensions of adaptation. The text remains the same as the 21 November draft. The decisive knot remains: without finance, the indicators risk becoming a theoretical exercise.
National Adaptation Plans
The assessment of the National Adaptation Plans (NAPs) structurally reflects the text discussed during the negotiation weeks but is less incisive in some terms, especially regarding finance. The decision recognizes the needs and difficulties of developing countries in accessing financial resources, technology transfer, and capacity-building. It highlights the inadequacy and lack of predictability of the finance provided to them, and underlines that even delays in obtaining funds hinder progress on adaptation, including achieving the GGA. References to the nature and magnitude of necessary finance (public and/or private) and to differentiated responsibilities are not specifically mentioned. The importance of monitoring financial flows is emphasized, and an overview of those provided by developed countries to developing countries is requested. Technically, the text stresses the importance of better knowledge of climate impacts and adaptation solutions, as well as monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL) systems for NAP implementation and for a better understanding of progress in reducing vulnerability and increasing resilience. Explicit references to human rights are missing, though a gender-sensitive, participatory, and transparent approach emerges, with attention to vulnerable groups, communities, and ecosystems, and based on best available science. Indigenous populations are cited as a source of knowledge and for the importance of their involvement with local communities, in developing and implementing adaptation action. As noted in paragraph 19 of the Global Mutirão, 71 Parties have to date submitted NAPs, policies, and planning processes on adaptation. In 2025 the Least Developed Countries Fund records proposals worth 60.3 million USD for NAPs, while the Green Climate Fund approves 320 million for adaptation in 121 developing countries. The next assessment of progress on the formulation and implementation of NAPs will take place in 2030 at COP35.
Just Transition
The final text is a compromise: it advances on the ground of social justice but remains timid on climate. The draft strengthens language on human rights, participation, and decent work. The right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment is affirmed, along with health, development, and gender equality, while the role of Indigenous Peoples and free, prior, and informed consent is recognized. The text highlights the importance of education, skills, social protection, and care work, finally including sectors often ignored in negotiations. Importantly, it creates a Just Transition Mechanism aimed at increasing international cooperation, technical assistance, capacity-building, knowledge exchange, and enabling fair and inclusive just transition pathways. The mechanism will be complementary to other workstreams and instruments under the Convention and the Paris Agreement, and should be made operational at COP31. A victory for civil society, which had made it a flagship for this COP.
On the energy front, it recalls universal energy access, the scaling-up of renewables, and clean cooking solutions, along with the need for international cooperation on finance, technology, and capacity-building. So far, so good.
But when it comes to mitigation, the text loses momentum: references to key Global Stocktake paragraphs disappear, there is no trace of phasing out fossil subsidies, and the topic of fossil fuels is not even mentioned, nor the transitioning away agreed in Dubai in 2023. The role of the best available scientific evidence is also recognised, but without explicitly referring to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as a central reference point. The result is a text that captures the social breadth of just transition without actually pushing toward fossil fuel phase-out: a political balance that avoids confrontation but limits climate ambition.
Global Stocktake
Regarding the Global Stocktake, again this year there were three workstreams: the approved text encapsulates the results finally achieved after years of deadlock.
The text related to the UAE Dialogue definitively clarifies several political points left pending and, overall, stabilizes the function of the Dialogue, clarifies its usefulness for GST2, and strengthens the political dimension of the process while maintaining a non-prescriptive overall purpose.
On the purpose of the dialogue, Parties chose the more moderate option: the Dialogue will be “facilitative and non-prescriptive,” therefore without the stronger mandate some supported to accelerate implementation of the first Global Stocktake. On timing, the more ambitious option prevailed: annual dialogues in 2026 and 2027 in Bonn, until the start of GST2 in 2028. Another important step concerns inputs: the text opens contributions not only to Parties, but also to observers, technical bodies, international organizations, and non-state actors, greatly expanding the information base. The most significant novelty is the formal decision to use the summary reports produced after each dialogue as inputs for GST2: a request advanced for months and now finally confirmed, turning the UAE Dialogue into a true political bridge between GST1 and GST2. Finally, a high-level ministerial roundtable is introduced, scheduled for COP32 in 2027: a strong political signal that raises the profile of the process. However, the text removes references to ways of ensuring active interaction between Parties and other stakeholders, including virtual participation and attention to equitable access, guaranteeing only the possibility of submitting inputs three months beforehand. The risk is that the Dialogue loses the inclusive dimension that has always characterized the Global Stocktake and is essential for its political legitimacy. But after years of paralysis, this dialogue is finally operational.
The workstream on modalities for GST2 is the most important, and it finally reached its goal after risking failure due to disagreement among Parties, which would have led to using the same GST1 procedure without improvements. Scientifically, an important step forward is taken: the text explicitly recognizes the central role of the IPCC as a source of best available science while balancing it with the need to include more representative contributions from developing countries and regional institutions, so it will not be the only scientific source. Loss and Damage also enters with greater clarity, recognized among the dimensions that co-facilitators of the technical dialogue are encouraged to explicitly address. The entire section on the timing of the contact group disappears, making the duration and structure of the political phase of GST2 more uncertain. Similarly, the ministerial level is completely absent: no reference to high-level roundtables or strengthened governance of the process. Overall, the new draft focuses on general procedural aspects – inclusiveness, input availability, role of the secretariat – but leaves out important elements such as clear timing. After years of impasse, we can consider the compromise on the role of science and the inclusion of Loss and Damage a positive outcome given the Parties at the table, but we expect more for the next GST.
The third workstream introduces two significant changes to the annual GST dialogue. For the first time, Parties are explicitly encouraged to use the lessons learned and good practices from the summary reports in their national processes. Procedurally, the text confirms that the annual dialogue will close in June 2026 at the SB64 session, but opens a significant door: Parties will consider its possible resumption within the frame of GST2. This choice overcomes the uncertainty discussed already at COP29, where the workstream had been suspended. Overall, the text values the role of the dialogues as a concrete learning space for Parties while setting a clear end point for their duration and linking any reopening to GST2 dynamics. These dialogues are also cited in the Global Mutirão for accelerating ambition (paragraph 38), symbolizing their relevance.
Loss and Damage
At COP30, negotiations on the Fund marked the launch of the pilot financing phase through the Barbados Implementation Modalities (BIM), a first package of grant-based interventions for 2025–2026, with direct access also through national budget support and priority for the most vulnerable countries. The BIM are conceived as transitional measures pending definition of the long-term operational model and future replenishment cycles of the Fund. The final decision welcomes the first Board report, recognizes progress in defining funding criteria and direct access modalities, and urges rapid conversion of pledges into actual contributions. Some critical issues remain, including delays in adopting the resource-mobilization strategy, which the Board must complete “in an accelerated manner” in line with decisions on the new climate finance goal (NCQG).
On resources, new financial commitments bring announced contributions to about 817 million USD. These are useful funds for the start-up of the Fund, but not yet a stable pathway: that will be defined with the first replenishment in 2027. The decision asks the Board to define a long-term operational model ensuring rapid disbursement without excessive bureaucratic barriers, maintaining high fiduciary, social, and environmental safeguard standards, and strengthening collaboration with the Santiago Network.
On Loss and Damage more broadly, Parties also approved the joint report of the Warsaw International Mechanism (WIM) Executive Committee and the Santiago Network, recognizing progress in operationalizing technical assistance for the most vulnerable countries, including the first activation of support requests. The WIM review highlights the need to strengthen implementation – from data on non-economic losses to access to technical knowledge based on countries’ needs – and to improve its complementarity with the Loss and Damage Fund. However, no substantive decisions were taken on governance: debate on institutional arrangements is deferred to 2026, keeping for now a mainly technical and coordination role separate from the Fund’s financial flows.
Article 6
Although COP30 did not include negotiations on developing Article 6 itself (the entire package adopted in Baku will not be reopened until 2028), the COP hosted formal discussions on all sub-streams, particularly bilateral cooperation (Art. 6.2) and the Paris Agreement Crediting Mechanism (PACM, Art. 6.4). Previous meetings of the Art. 6.4 Supervisory Body had triggered controversy regarding technical decisions on permanence,f release into the atmospher post-project monitoring, and the definition of acceptable risk oe. The Supervisory Body had postponed any specific decision to the Methodology Experts Panel (MEP), which works behind closed doors, adopting an elastic and non-intrusive standard concerning each type of project. This decision was confirmed at COP30 despite attempts by some Latin American countries to overturn it, fearing that overly stringent methodologies on permanence and leakage could exclude forestry projects from the new Mechanism.
Another sensitive issue concerned the Supervisory Body itself, as some countries attempted a putsch to extend the mandate of each member indefinitely beyond the current two years, citing technical expertise. The proposal did not pass. Regarding bilateral transactions under Article 6.2, a proposal initially on the table to freeze any ITMO (mitigation unit authorized by the host country) on which “persistent inconsistencies” had been detected was rejected.
Finally, COP30 marks the definitive closure of the Clean Development Mechanism, the Kyoto Protocol mechanism now replaced by the PACM: although the deadline to transition remaining CDM projects and credits into the PACM has been extended to June 2026, it was decided to close the CDM in any case by July 2027, with disconnection of existing registries. Simultaneously, the CDM Trust Fund will lend the PACM 26.8 million USD to start operations, with the PACM transferring those resources to the Adaptation Fund once fully functioning. Outside negotiation rooms, as already at COP29, a growing number of countries signed bilateral agreements for Article 6.2 exchange projects; the government of Singapore was particularly active.
Gender Action Plan
With a final twist, the text of the new Gender Action Plan (GAP) also got somewhat back on track. Certainly, one cannot be satisfied in the strict sense, but in an era in which defending hard-won rights tooth and nail has become the priority, holding firm on certain points is already something. The final text adopts the renamed Belem GAP 2026–2034, with a first review and the Lima Work Programme on gender by 2029. The controversial notes on binary distinctions disappear, and some technical language is partly restored, with some novelties.
The preamble recognizes the differentiated effects of climate change on women and girls based on identity factors, implicitly recalling the concept of intersectionality, albeit in a milder form. This theme recurs elsewhere in the text, along with maintaining sex- and age-disaggregated data collection and the recognized role of the IPCC. The range of relevant subjects for climate policies is expanded to include women of African descent, as recorded in other negotiation streams.
In Priority A (capacity-building, knowledge management, and communication), a point is added on combating disinformation and misinformation to promote gender literacy, important given misleading narratives about women and girls. However, the text weakens the language: it speaks of a “gender perspective” instead of “gender responsive,” removes references to sexual and reproductive health and domestic violence, while gender-based violence appears only once. The mention of care work is also weak, deferred to the Just Transition stream.
Among emerging matters (“climate change matters”), women environmental defenders are mentioned only once under Priority B (participation and leadership), with a generic formulation that does not link the protection of activists to human rights obligations. Finally, there is no general reference to human rights, not even via preamble 11 of the Paris Agreement: a sign of reduced protections and dilution of consolidated international obligations, in contradiction with the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice.
Analysis by the Italian Climate Network delegation at COP30 in Belém.
Cover image: photo by Claudia Concaro, delegate of Italian Climate Network.