A new draft decision text released today and outlining the main outcome of the UN Cop 30 climate summit has dropped any mention of a roadmap to transition away from fossil fuels.
The document only refers to "a Belem mission to 1.5°C", aimed at "enabling ambition and the implementation" of countries' climate plans. Cop 30 is underway in Belem, Brazil, and today is the final scheduled day, though the talks could run overtime. Delegations were in a closed-door plenary at the time of writing.
The current text is a "non-starter and we will need to significantly beef this up", EU climate commissioner Wopke Hoekstra said.
"If that doesn't happen, we are clearly facing a no deal scenario", he added. Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva "was right and we fully stand by his statement on what the world needs in terms of mitigation", Hoekstra said. Lula called on world leaders to overcome dependence on fossil fuels at a summit ahead of Cop 30.
Colombia has been vocal in its support for a roadmap outlining a shift away from fossil fuels.
"We must leave [Cop 30] with a global roadmap that guides, not symbolically but concretely, our collective efforts to phase out fossil fuels", Colombia's environment minister Irene Velez Torres said. She added that the phase out of fossil fuels "is not only necessary but inevitable".
Tina Stege, climate envoy for the Marshall Islands, concurred.
The roadmap is a red line for Colombia at this Cop 30, Velez Torres said. Panama's special envoy for climate change Juan Carlos Gomez echoed the comments. The lack of mention of a fossil fuel phase-out roadmap is "simply unacceptable and quite Orwellian", he said.
"A climate text that cannot mention fossil fuels is a climate text that refuses to speak the truth", he added. Gomez also pointed to what he said was a lack of scientific basis in the latest draft text.
The transition away from fossil fuels has become one of the main topics at Cop 30, after 80 countries — including developed and developing nations — backed a roadmap to address the issue. But the call faces resistance, mainly from some economies heavily reliant on hydrocarbon production. Almost 200 countries agreed to transition away from fossil fuels in a landmark decision at Cop 28 in 2023.
If the text does not mention action to move away from fossil fuels, there is a possibility that Cop 30 could end without a deal, French climate minister Monique Barbut said.
The countries opposing language on fossil fuels are the fossil fuel producing countries, including Russia, India, Saudi Arabia, she said.
Plenty of EU countries support a roadmap, the Netherlands' climate policy minister Sophie Hermans said. "We all know that for the climate, for our economy and for security, we have to realise this energy transition", she said. Spain's ecological transition minister Sara Aagesen said there is still time to improve on a text.
Red line for adaptation
Other developing countries have expressed support for a roadmap, while some small islands countries signalled "they could leave without it", as long as there is progress on adaptation — adjusting to the effects of climate change — Barbut said.
Developing nations are calling for adaptation finance provided by developed nations to reach a minimum of $120bn/yr by 2030, up from a goal of $40bn this year.
"We cannot take as good faith a text that fails to set a global goal on adaptation finance," Gomez said.
"We are not comfortable with the text", Evans Njewa, chief environment officer at Malawi's climate ministry told Argus. Njewa chairs the least developed countries (LDCs) group, which is calling for tripled adaptation finance, as well as $3bn/yr for LDCs and ambition towards a 1.5°C temperature limit. If demand are not met, "we have a challenge to accept the decision", Njewa said.
The EU, the biggest single climate finance donor, said it was "willing to be ambitious on adaptation" but reiterated that it would have to stay within the public finance goal agreed last year at Cop 29.
