By Chandra Bhushan, CEO, iFOREST
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva had declared the 30th Conference of Parties (COP30) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) as the “COP of truth”. And truth, indeed, was unmistakable in Belém. The meeting made it clear how fragmented and fragile the global consensus on climate action has become. Decisions that countries had once celebrated as historic achievements were rejected outright. Commitments that were hailed as breakthroughs only a few years ago suddenly appeared to have evaporated.
The most prominent example was the decision to “transition away from fossil fuels”, which had been agreed at the Dubai COP in 2023. That phrase—hailed then as a diplomatic triumph—did not even appear in the final text at Belém. Countries that had supported it earlier refused to accept it now. A similar retreat occurred on deforestation. At COP26 in Glasgow, over 130 nations pledged to halt and reverse deforestation by 2030. At COP30, a road map to achieve this was quietly dropped. The symbolism was striking: a climate summit held at the edge of the Amazon was unwilling to reaffirm the world’s most widely supported forest pledge.
The question, then, is what COP30 actually achieved. The honest answer is: very little. Ten years after the Paris Agreement, instead of accelerating climate action, the world found itself postponing decisions and shifting difficult conversations away from the UN climate process. The most contentious issues were not resolved; they were simply moved elsewhere.
Confronted with the deadlock, the Brazilian COP presidency took a significant step. It removed the two most sensitive matters—the phase-out of fossil fuels and the road map to halt deforestation—from the formal negotiation track. Brazil now intends to craft road maps for both issues outside the COP process and present them at the next summit. This marks a profound acknowledgement: the world’s central climate negotiation forum no longer has the capacity to broker consensus on the most important questions. The UNFCCC is signalling that some of the hardest decisions must be made elsewhere.
This pattern extended to other unresolved issues. Climate-related unilateral trade measures, such as the European Union’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), were among the most divisive. CBAM will apply a carbon price on imports of carbon-intensive goods like steel, cement, and aluminium starting January 2026. Many developing countries see it as protectionist, inequitable, and imposed without genuine consultation. But at Belém, countries could not agree on a collective position or a negotiating route. Instead, the final decision merely launched three dialogues involving governments and institutions such as the WTO, stretching until mid-2028—long after CBAM has begun affecting global trade flows.
Adaptation—the issue of greatest urgency for the developing world—was no exception. Developing countries had demanded a trebling of adaptation finance from rich nations. The headline outcome seemed to meet this demand, but the substance fell far short. The additional funds are not new; they will be drawn from the $300-billion pledge announced last year. Worse, the financing will only be available after 2035, even though developing countries had sought support by 2030. For nations already enduring increasingly destructive floods, cyclones, droughts, and sea-level rise, money arriving more than a decade from now will offer little relief.
One of the few bright spots at COP30 was the agreement to create a Just Transition Mechanism. Its purpose is to provide support to regions undergoing transitions away from fossil fuels and other carbon-intensive sectors. If the mechanism becomes operational and well-funded, it could provide substantial benefits to coal regions of India. Yet a mechanism on paper is only the first step. Making it effective—designing its functions, ensuring financing, defining eligibility, and delivering real outcomes—is the true test. COP30 has created a container, but its contents remain undefined.
The broader truth emerging from COP30 is that the UNFCCC is struggling to adapt to the current phase of climate action. The UNFCCC is fundamentally a treaty negotiation body. For 33 years it has done what it was built to do: deliver international agreements such as the Kyoto Protocol, the Cancun Agreement, the Paris Agreement, and hundreds of smaller decisions.
But the global climate challenge has shifted from negotiation to implementation. The world is no longer debating broad goals; it now faces the far harder task of transforming energy systems, restructuring industries, reforming trade rules, mobilising finance, and conserving ecosystems at scale. These are deeply political, economic, and sector-specific tasks. Yet the COP still operates as though stronger wording in a negotiation text will somehow cut emissions or save forests. It cannot. This is not a failure of ambition or diplomacy; it is a structural reality. The UNFCCC lacks both the authority and the tools to make decisions on critical issues like fossil fuels, trade, finance, forests, or industrial transitions. Nor can it enforce or implement the decisions it does take.
To move forward, the world must recognise that the next phase of climate action requires specialised implementation platforms that focus on real-world levers of change. For instance, a fossil fuel phase-out road map should be negotiated among the largest producers and consumers who regulate fossil energy. Trade and carbon border measures should be handled by institutions such as the WTO and national trade ministries, which already negotiate tariffs, subsidies, and regulatory alignment.
Halting deforestation should be discussed at a platform of major forest- and biodiversity-rich countries, along with indigenous groups and forest alliances. Industrial decarbonisation should similarly be pursued at platforms driven by major producing countries. For example, 15 countries produce more than 90% of the world’s steel and cement; a road map developed and agreed at this platform will yield quicker and more substantive results than negotiations among nearly 200 countries at a COP. This doesn’t mean we are jettisoning multilateralism; we will instead strengthen it.
In this new architecture, the COP should evolve into a high-level political stocktake held once every two to three years to assess progress, identify gaps, and provide direction. It should remain the moral anchor for global climate action.
The truth revealed at COP30 is uncomfortable but unavoidable: the climate crisis has outgrown the UNFCCC system. It now demands rapid implementation and hard political choices. For this, multiple specialised and implementation-driven platforms are essential. The sooner we build and activate them, the faster we can move from words to action.
