This blog reviews the outcomes of COP30 against the demands of the Debt and Climate Working Group
COP30 in Belém has now come to an end. What was billed as the “people’s COP” was, in reality, a conference dominated by fossil fuel lobbyists and inaccessible to many affected by the climate crisis. Even so, after three years of restrictions by authoritarian government hosts, Indigenous peoples, local communities, movements, and civil society reclaimed the streets to demand climate justice – despite intense, militarised security.
But when it comes to debt and climate justice, did the COP30 “Belém Political Package” deliver?
Short answer: COP30 failed to deliver debt justice or public climate finance. However, it did create some openings we could use to continue pressing for change. This includes establishing the just transition mechanism – a major climate justice win which will help address the fragmentation and inadequacy of current global just transition efforts.
Below is a breakdown of the key outcomes, measured against the demands of the Debt and Climate Working Group.
Climate finance
Adaptation finance
Adaptation finance was one of the main finance issues at COP30. The group of Least Developed Countries and civil society called for adaptation finance to triple to $120 billion per year by 2030. However, firm resistance from the EU and Japan resulted in a weakened commitment to “at least triple” adaptation finance by 2035. This delay of five years falls far short of civil society’s demands, and the text contained no clarity on the baseline for the tripling, no requirement that the finance be public or grant-based, and no specification of who is responsible for delivering it.
A number of pledges to the Adaptation Fund were announced or reaffirmed during COP30, amounting to roughly $135 million. This is less than half of the Fund’s annual target of at least $300 million for 2025.
Finance for addressing Loss and Damage
During COP30, the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD) – a major victory of COP27 – launched its first call for funding requests under the Barbados Implementation Modalities. A total of $250 million has been allocated for this initial 6-month round, with countries able to apply for projects between $5-10 million. The Board of the FLRD’s allocation of $250 million for Loss and Damage is wholly inadequate, covering less than 0.5% of the $396bn Global South countries need in 2025.
Further, while the COP30 outcome text on Loss and Damage welcomes the $817 million that has been pledged to the fund so far, an FRLD board report shows that only $397 million of this has actually been paid. The fund will very quickly run out of cash if rich countries do not pay up! The COP30 text does not make any clear demands on rich, polluting countries to provide new finance or even pay what they have pledged. On the positive side, the FRLD will provide only grants, not loans, marking a small but important step forward.
False finance solutions
Although not formally on the agenda, the direction of travel for finance during COP30 continued to move towards inadequate and false solutions, including blended finance initiatives, debt swaps, and the expanded use of multilateral development bank (MDB) finance.
This is not surprising given recent trends and the stance of the COP President who stated that countries “don’t need public money from developed countries” and instead need to simply “leverage more dollars from each dollar that you have”.
Ahead of COP30, the Baku to Belém Roadmap was published outlining how countries are expected to deliver the deeply inadequate New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) on climate finance agreed at COP29. The NCQG aims to scale up climate finance to Global South countries to $1.3 trillion per year by 2035, while assigning rich countries responsibility for just $300 billion. Although the Roadmap promotes grants and debt reform as part of meeting the goal, it also strongly advances false finance solutions including blended finance, greater reliance MDBs, and debt swaps. These approaches have repeatedly failed and risk shifting the costs and risks of the climate crisis onto Global South countries. The outcome text merely “takes note” of the Roadmap, signalling neither its endorsement nor its rejection.
Several false finance solutions were launched during the conference, including:
- The Tropical Forest Forever Facility – a blended finance initiative aiming to minimise deforestation, with $7 billion pledged so far, far short of the $25 billion target
- A Public Development Bank Guarantee Hub designed to “unlock private capital” for climate and development projects
- The Debt-for-Resilience Joint Initiative, which leverages guarantees from multilateral development banks and private actors to scale up debt-for-resilience swaps in the Caribbean
The Debt and Climate Working Group has published a “False Finance Solutions” mini-series that explains why these approaches are inadequate and why they exacerbate inequality and climate vulnerability.
Public provision of finance – Article 9.1
As false finance solutions continue to gain attention, the need to reinforce the obligation of rich countries to provide public, grant-based climate finance under Article 9.1 of the Paris Agreement is more important than ever. This was underscored by the African Union, which issued the Addis Ababa Declaration during COP30. The declaration calls for climate finance with a strong focus on grants, to avoid worsening African countries’ debt burdens.
Despite this, Article 9.1 was not on the formal agenda. The Brazilian Presidency instead convened informal talks on Article 9.1 and other contentious issues, resulting in the Global Mutirão, a part of the COP30 political package.
The main outcome was a two-year work programme on climate finance, covering Article 9.1 alongside broader discussions of Article 9 – reflecting rich countries’ attempts to shift attention away from their legal obligations. A footnote clarified that the programme cannot be used to reinterpret or challenge the NCQG outcome agreed at COP29. A high-level ministerial round table was also established to “reflect” on NCQG implementation.
The Global Mutirão reaffirmed rich countries’ obligations to provide financial resources and recognised the need for increased public and grant-based finance for Global South countries, but without any concrete steps, mechanisms, or commitments that would make these obligations real or deliverable.
COP30 failed to advance the core demand for public, grant-based climate finance under Article 9.1 and fell short of ensuring rich countries meet their obligations. The work programme and ministerial roundtable create political opportunities to advance debt and climate justice demands, but are far from enforceable guarantees that finance will be provided.
Debt as a structural barrier to climate action
Throughout the conference, countries such as Egypt, Pakistan, and Cuba stressed that unsustainable debt is a barrier to climate action. Civil society echoed these calls, insisting that debt justice is essential for climate justice. Despite this, the COP30 outcome included very few explicit references to the need to address unsustainable debt.
Alignment of financial flows – Article 2.1(c)
The Sharm el-Sheikh Dialogue on Article 2.1(c) formally concluded at COP30 after making little progress over its three-year mandate. Throughout the dialogue, Global South countries highlighted the need for systemic reforms to remove structural barriers to climate action, including unsustainable debt burdens. In contrast, rich countries used the space to promote private finance solutions and repeatedly blurred the lines between Article 2.1(c) and the distinct obligation under Article 9.1, even as they continued financing fossil fuels.
COP30 did not resolve these tensions, but instead launched a new two-year Veredas Dialogue. The mandate of this process remains vague, although the outcome does state that it should incorporate safeguards, including that Article 2.1(c) cannot be used as a substitute for Article 9 obligations. An annual high-level “Xingu Finance Talks” will also be convened to exchange views on aligning financial flows, but its mandate similarly lacks depth and clarity.
Crucially, the outcome contains no reference to international financial architecture reform, let alone the debt reforms urgently needed to enable climate action.
Global Mutirão
The Global Mutirão acknowledges the need for international financial architecture reform and calls for continued efforts towards this goal, but did not reference sovereign debt, nor the transformational reforms demanded by many Global South countries and civil society, including the creation of a UN Framework Convention on Sovereign Debt.
COP30 failed to address debt as a structural barrier to climate action and missed a critical opportunity to promote systemic reform. The new Veredas Dialogue and Xingu Finance Talks may offer future spaces for engagement, but their effectiveness is uncertain. Movements must ensure these spaces are not co-opted and that debt justice is centred in discussions.
Just Transition and fossil fuels
Just Transition Work Programme (JTWP)
Climate justice groups have celebrated the JTWP outcome for its unprecedented inclusion of ambitious rights-based and inclusive language. From a debt and climate justice perspective, the outcome is also encouraging. The text recognises the need to dismantle financial barriers, avoid creating new debt burdens in the process of transition, expand fiscal space, and scale up new and additional grant-based finance for Global South countries.
Parties also agreed to establish a just transition mechanism – known within civil society as the Belém Action Mechanism – to address the fragmentation and inadequacy of current global just transition efforts. This is a significant victory for trade unions, communities, social movements, Indigenous Peoples’ organisations, civil society and Global South negotiators who fought to secure this outcome.
This breakthrough provides a tangible space for advancing equitable transitions. By actively engaging in this process, movements can help ensure that public, grant-based finance and debt justice are central to achieving a genuine just transition.
Transition away from fossil fuels
Although a coalition of 80 countries supported including a roadmap for phasing out fossil fuels in the COP30 outcome, all references were removed due to strong opposition from the UAE and others.
On the last day of COP30, Colombia launched the “Belém Declaration”, a process to phase out fossil fuels outside of the UNFCCC while strengthening efforts within it. Colombia and the Netherlands will co-host a conference in April 2026 to kick-start the process.
This process could offer a concrete pathway to tackle fossil fuel dependence – but it cannot succeed without addressing the debt crisis. Debt justice must be central to efforts in this process.
Where next?
COP30 failed to deliver debt justice or the public climate finance that Global South countries urgently need. Yet thanks to the determination of climate and economic justice movements and the leadership of Global South negotiators, the conference created several openings and new processes – such as the just transition mechanism – that can be leveraged to advance collective demands beyond Belém.
As we build towards these processes, we will continue strengthening power for grant-based climate finance across all areas of climate action, while pushing for debt cancellation and debt justice as essential foundations for climate justice.
If you would like to learn more about the Debt and Climate Working Group or get involved, please contact tess@debtjustice.org.uk.