It can be easy to have a sense of deja vu about it all: talk is once again of how to \u201cturn words into action\u201d; Donald Trump is for the second time pulling the US out<\/a> of the key international climate treaty, the Paris Agreement; and emissions are continuing to rise year on year, despite this being the 30th time that countries have met with the intention of turning the tide on just that. <\/p>\n With the technical rulebook for the 2015 Paris Agreement now more or less complete<\/a> following Cop29 in Baku, it could be argued \u2013 given that we now have the structure through which countries are supposed to decarbonise \u2013 that Cop no longer serves a real function. Moreover, after deals agreed in recent years \u2013 to reverse deforestation<\/a> and reduce methane emissions<\/a> at Cop26 in Glasgow, and to triple renewables deployment<\/a> and \u201ctransition away from fossil fuels<\/a> in energy systems\u201d at Cop28 in Dubai (the first time, amazingly, that countries agreed to mention the main cause of climate change) \u2013 there is a sense that the ability of the conference to drive things forward may have stalled.<\/p>\n Last year, developing countries were bitterly disappointed<\/a> after rich countries committed to giving them some $300bn (about \u00a3227bn) a year in aid by 2035 to help them to both mitigate and adapt to climate change, which is far below the trillions that experts believe will be required. With the Trump administration putting pressure on countries to turn away from the climate agenda \u2013 and a serious resurgence in climate scepticism also seen among politicians in Europe<\/a> over the past year \u2013 could it be that the time is right to move on from the annual climate circus? <\/p>\n Not according to Debbie Hillier, who is the UN climate policy lead for the huge global humanitarian NGO Mercy Corps, and someone that has been closely following the Cop summits for many years. \u201cIt can be frustrating, and it\u2019s easy to throw sticks at the process. But this is a genuinely global challenge, and so we have to have a forum where we work this out together,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n \u201cEmissions are much lower than they would have been if we did not have Paris \u2013 but equally they are nowhere near reduced enough to actually stop climate change,\u201d she continues. \u201cThat\u2019s the world\u2019s messy reality, and so the work continues.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/p>\n Hillier\u2019s words on the importance of Cop, and of multilateral forums to tackle climate change, were echoed by Cosima Cassel, from the climate think tank E3G, when she spoke at a recent pre-Cop briefing. \u201cAt the UN General Assembly last month, we saw the vast majority of world leaders reaffirm that climate is critical to their security,\u201d she said. \u201c[Before the Paris Agreement] we were on track for 4C of warming, and now we are on track for 2.7C \u2013 so it\u2019s a huge reduction in projected temperature, but it\u2019s still way off where we need to be for the 1.5C goal.\u201d <\/p>\n For Cassel\u2019s colleague Rob Moore, it is important, too, not to feel that the conference loses legitimacy because the US federal government will not be present \u2013 despite the fact that the country continues to contribute 10 per cent of global emissions. <\/p>\n \u201cMany US states and private-sector actors do remain committed [to climate action], and many of them will be present at Cop. It\u2019s an economic imperative for a lot of them, because it creates jobs<\/a> and strengthens energy security,\u201d says Moore. \u201cThe Cop without the US is also still a larger share of global emissions than the G20… It\u2019s obviously a shame if the US is not present, but I don’t think it defines the legitimacy of the Cop.\u201d <\/p>\n The \u2018climate adaptation\u2019 Cop<\/p>\n While recent Cops have had a clear purpose tied to them under the terms of the Paris Agreement \u2013 Cop29 was based around the new climate finance target<\/a>, and Cop28 around the \u201cglobal stocktake\u201d<\/a> of climate progress so far \u2013 Cop30 has no such issue to anchor it. Recent weeks, however, have seen more and more experts suggesting that this could be the \u201cAdaptation Cop\u201d, where parties look to get a handle on just how countries are expected to adapt to the ever more severe impacts of the climate crisis. <\/p>\n Such a focus could not be more timely, with 3.6 billion<\/a> people now believed to be highly vulnerable to rapidly worsening climate events like storms<\/a>, floods<\/a>, wildfires<\/a>, or droughts<\/a> \u2013 while Hurricane Melissa recently demonstrated just how devastating climate-related extreme weather can be. <\/p>\n At the same time, the recent UN Adaptation Gap report found that foreign aid available for developing countries to adapt to climate change actually fell from $28bn (\u00a321bn) in 2022 to $26bn<\/a> in 2023, with the adaptation finance requirement being 12 to 14 times greater than what is currently available. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u201cBrazil has really made adaptation a core focus of Cop30,\u201d says Lily Hartzell, from E3G. Hillier agrees: \u201cAt the Bonn Intersessional Climate Talks<\/a> this year, more and more people were talking about adaptation. Then we had the [International Court of Justice] ruling on climate change<\/a>, which said all sorts of things about how developed countries need to provide funding for adaptation,\u201d she says. \u201cMore and more countries have also been producing national adaptation plans, and they are becoming more and more detailed and systematic.\u201d <\/p>\n One key achievement around adaptation that is set to be completed at Cop30 is the \u201cGlobal Goal on Adaptation Indicators\u201d, which is the framework through which countries are expected to measure adaptation under the Paris Agreement. \u201cIt\u2019s very easy to measure climate mitigation: you can just look at emissions,\u201d explains Hillier. \u201cAnd now, over the past two years, technical experts have developed 100 indicators of how to measure adaptation, which are set to be confirmed at Cop30.\u201d <\/p>\n The climate finance challenge following aid cuts<\/p>\n Any achievement in defining the measurement of adaptation will likely generate serious disquiet among developing countries, however, if it does not come alongside a new pledge to boost the amount of aid available to them to adapt. \u201cA set of indicators are not going to change the world on their own,\u201d says Hillier. <\/p>\n Adaptation finance has until now been dictated by an agreement made at Cop26 in Glasgow for rich countries to double adaptation finance over the following five years, effectively from $20bn to $40bn \u2013 but that deal is due to expire this year. \u201cThe doubling is still a ridiculously small target compared to the need, but it sends a political signal,\u201d says Hillier. \u201cIf that signal is not renewed, then it sends a very weak message.\u201d <\/p>\n Developing countries are calling for a new deal to triple the Glasgow pledge by 2030, which would go some way to meeting their climate adaptation costs, estimated at $300bn per year. Various groups have suggested different means of raising this money \u2013 from reallocating funds from fossil fuel subsidies in rich countries, to taxing pollution in sectors like shipping. But after a year of overseas aid cuts<\/a> and increasingly climate-sceptic discourse among politicians<\/a>, reaching any concrete financial settlement is going to take some serious diplomatic prowess. <\/p>\n \u201cThe donor side is really tricky in the context of aid cuts. No single donor or political leader has yet really had the courage to make a case that international support for climate action is actually a really good thing,\u201d says Moore. \u201cA lot more international investment is coming from China and the Gulf, and it\u2019s unclear what exactly that will mean.<\/p>\n \u201cAs with all climate finance, predictability is about to fall off a cliff, and there will be a lot of expectation from developing countries [of] some security on where future adaptation finance will come from. But we don\u2019t think the donors have particularly strong answers at the moment.\u201d<\/p>\n Climate mitigation \u2018looking like a failure\u2019 so far<\/p>\n Another major point of discussion at Cop30 will be around climate mitigation, which is all about decarbonising energy systems and reducing the carbon emissions that actually cause climate change. Ahead of the conference, all 195 parties were supposed to submit interim emissions targets for 2035, known as \u201cnationally determined contributions\u201d, or NDCs, under the terms of the Paris Agreement.<\/p>\n \u201cNDCs are really the backbone of the Paris Agreement,\u201d explained Silvia Ulloa, from the Stockholm Environment Institute, speaking at a pre-Cop30 briefing. \u201cThey are really the central mechanism through which countries communicate their climate ambition and also coordinate action.\u201d<\/p>\n As it turned out, however, only 64 countries \u2013 covering only 30 per cent of global emissions \u2013 actually managed them. A report produced by the UN ahead of Cop30 found that these plans fall far short of the emissions reduction required to limit global warming to a \u201csafe\u201d 1.5C: taken together, the plans would mean that global emissions of CO2 would only fall by around 10 per cent by 2035.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u201cBrazil has got to put some serious spin on this, because at the moment, it looks like a bit of a failure,\u201d says Hillier. \u201cIt may well be that they conclude the summit with a package that says, \u2018There\u2019s more to do on NDCs and mitigation, but look at what we have achieved on adaptation.\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n A slither of hope can be found in the fact that territories including the EU and China have announced pledges, even though they were unable to submit their NDCs in time. The Independent has also heard from sources that a new NDC synthesis report is expected to be released partway through Cop30, which would likely have improved mitigation results. <\/p>\n Pushing the forest agenda<\/p>\n While it remains uncertain just what the outcome of the UN-backed climate talks will be, one thing is clear: Brazil is set to launch its pet project, the Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF), at the world leaders\u2019 summit later this week. <\/p>\n The concept is for the TFFF to incentivise forest nations like Brazil to prevent deforestation, by providing annual payments to countries to aid their forest conservation efforts. A key milestone for the TFFF was achieved in recent days after the World Bank confirmed that it will run its administrative functions<\/a> \u2013 and Brazil is looking for $25bn in startup capital from governments, which is expected to leverage a further $100bn from the private sector.<\/p>\n open image in gallery<\/p>\n Aerial view of an area of the Amazon deforested by illegal fires in Amazonas State, Brazil (AFP via Getty)<\/p>\n![\"Aerial](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/GettyImages-2166920841.jpeg\")
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