Beyond the Headlines: A Cross-Sector Analysis of COP30's Outcomes — COP30

Belém, State of Pará, Brazil (Source: Roberto Huczek)

By Kate Potvin

The first "Amazon COP" in Belém, Brazil, was intended to catalyse climate action. Instead, COP30 revealed a fundamental flaw in global climate negotiations: the requirement for unanimous agreement among 200 countries. This consensus rule undermines progress on addressing the climate crisis.

Shared Planet Senior Consultant Megan Simpson said:

"Ten years after the Paris Agreement, COP30 failed to address the root causes and solutions to the climate crisis. Negotiators cowardly backed down from addressing fundamental questions like how to phase out fossil fuels and concretely mobilise the finance needed to meet the 1.5°C target.”

Tensions between Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who anticipated ambitious outcomes and global roadmaps, and COP30 President André Corrêa do Lago, who prioritised consensus, created gridlock at a moment when urgency is more critical than ever.

While a coalition of over 80 countries, led by the European Union, United Kingdom and Small Island States, pushed for formal commitments on the phase-out of fossil fuels, petrostates effectively squashed them.

Some Arab countries like Saudi Arabia refused to engage with countries pursuing a fossil fuel transition. American President Donald Trump did not attend the Summit, and the United States — one of the world’s largest historical emitters — did not send any federal delegates. Meanwhile, Russia opposed any discussion of a roadmap.

Instead, do Lago announced two alternative voluntary roadmaps to transition away from fossil fuels and combat deforestation outside the formal UN process, a procedural retreat that signals the weakening of binding commitments.

However, there were many critical moments to celebrate, including the establishment of the Tropical Forests Forever Facility (TFFF), a fund led by Brazil for countries that commit to preserving forests, and the recognition of 10 new Indigenous territories to be protected under Brazilian law.  

Following the end of COP30, UN Secretary General António Guterres said: “I cannot pretend that COP30 has delivered everything that is needed. The gap between where we are and what science demands remains dangerously wide.”

Today, national commitments put the world on track for 2.3° to 2.8°C of warming, which falls short of targets from the 2015 Paris Agreement. More than 115 countries have submitted new climate pledges, yet these will deliver less than 15% of the emissions reductions required by 2035 to hold temperatures to 1.5°.

At Shared Planet, we remain keenly aware of COP30’s outcomes, as they undoubtedly impact the work of our six practice areas. Our practices are connected by the climate crisis and recognise the importance of global climate commitments and agreements that embed social justice, economic transformation and the bold preservation of both people and planet.

Below, Shared Planet's consultants and researchers from across the practices areas share their brief analyses of COP30:

Climate and Nature Governance

COP30 achieved record levels of Indigenous Peoples' participation and secured new commitments for Indigenous land rights and resource mobilisation (see our latest article on Indigenous representation, rights and readiness at COP30).

At the Summit, there was significant progress on land tenure. The Intergovernmental Land Tenure Commitment (ILTC), which was led by Norway and Peru, aims to recognise Indigenous, Afro-descendant and local communities’ land rights for 160 million hectares by 2030. The Tropical Forests Forever Facility (TFFF) also committed 20% of funds to Indigenous projects. Building on pledges at COP 26, the Forest and Land Tenure pledge underwent a renewed pledge of $1.8 billion to support Indigenous, Afro-descendant and local community forest tenure rights while tackling deforestation by 2030.

Yet, Indigenous leaders remain sceptical of climate financing initiatives like the TFFF. More than 50 Indigenous leaders and civil society organisations from Latin America and the Caribbean wrote in a joint statement:

“It is, ultimately, the taxpayers of the Global South themselves who must finance the protection of forests historically deforested by corporations from countries in the North and, moreover, who will guarantee the returns for financial elites.”

Meanwhile, funding gaps continue to persist. The TFFF falls short of inclusive climate ambition and implementation. Despite $5.5 billion in commitments announced at COP30, including Norway's $3 billion pledge and $1 billion each from Brazil and Indonesia, the UK has still not contributed and the facility remains unfunded by donor grants. Its financing mechanisms remain unclear, relying on pledges from countries that are not already participating and private sector investors.

While COP30 marked symbolic progress on Indigenous rights, the gap between commitments and financing reveals the challenge of translating high-level pledges into tangible support, which undermines trust and delays the urgent action needed to protect both Indigenous communities and critical ecosystems.

Cultural Heritage

A key insight emerged from COP30: Heritage is a vital tool for combating climate change. For the first time, culture and heritage have been operationalised in international climate policy. Heritage offers a unique lens for understanding and responding to climate emergencies, especially as it encompasses Indigenous and Traditional Knowledge increasingly impacted by climate emergencies.

Efforts to integrate culture and heritage into climate adaptation discussions have been underway for years. Organisations like the Heritage Adapts to Climate Alliance (HACA) and the International National Trusts Organisation INTO have been leading this work. But COP30 marked a turning point — these efforts moved from the periphery to the centre of global climate action.

The Paris Agreement's Long-Term Global Goal on Adaptation (LTGGA) includes specific language on heritage. At COP 28, the Global Goal on Adaptation adopted five indicators to measure progress on cultural heritage (Target 9g), covering heritage site protection, collection digitisation, emergency preparedness, training and community engagement.

Heritage offers a unique lens for understanding and responding to climate emergencies, especially as it encompasses Indigenous and Traditional Knowledge increasingly impacted by climate emergencies.

This year, the Global Environment Facility's Green Climate Fund and Adaptation Fund committed to supporting countries in implementing the cultural heritage target. Additionally, the Heritage Adapts! 3000 x 2030 campaign was announced to support heritage places and cultural practices to implement adaptive strategies by 2030.

This represents a fundamental change at climate talks. While culture and heritage have historically been excluded from climate finance and viewed as something to protect rather than a strategic asset, COP30 recognised that heritage is not just vulnerable to climate change, but essential for climate resilience and action.

Digital Resilience

Technology emerged as a central theme at COP30. While previous climate negotiations largely treated technological innovation and emerging technologies as challenges to manage, this year’s climate talks marked a shift. The conference positioned technology as essential for achieving the scale and speed of climate action required, from renewable energy and carbon removal to climate adaptation and environmental monitoring.

In particular, COP30 announced two critical initiatives. The Green Digital Action Hub will support technological climate solutions in over 80 countries, and the Artificial Intelligence Institute is poised to help governments around the world develop tech-based and AI-oriented climate responses.

Being resilient in the digital age requires a shift from principles and concepts to concrete actions that enable sustainable, responsible and innovative digital transformations. The dual nature of technology, which can serve as both a tool and a challenge to climate action, became a recurring theme in negotiations. Governments and organisations have a critical duty and opportunity to leverage digital tools, systems, and platforms across the climate, energy and nature agendas to drive meaningful action.

COP30 also featured extensive debate on climate technologies across sectors. Discussions centred on accelerating deployment of renewable energy, advancing carbon capture and storage, scaling green hydrogen production and financing technology transfer to developing nations. However, tensions emerged over intellectual property rights and equitable access to technologies, echoing long-standing divides between countries about who bears the costs of innovation and who reaps the benefits.

Ultimately, COP30 appropriately elevated technology to a core pillar of climate action, but this success will depend on whether new technology-enabled initiatives and funding translate into effective, sustainable deployment at scale, and whether technology access becomes more equitable across the Global North and South.

Governments and organisations have a critical duty and opportunity to leverage digital tools, systems, and platforms across the climate, energy and nature agendas to drive meaningful action.

Food Systems, Nutrition and Health

COP30's Action Agenda demonstrated strong ambition for addressing agriculture and food systems in climate talks, but formal negotiations failed to adequately mainstream these solutions. While many countries recognise that agrifood transformations are essential to meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement, many national climate plans remain undermined by funding shortfalls.

However, some outcomes from the conference are promising. The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation launched key initiatives in Belém, including the Resilient Agriculture Investment for net-Zero land degradation (RAIZ) programme, which is a global effort to map and mobilise funding to restore degraded farmlands. The RAIZ programme implementation is supported through the Food and Agriculture for Sustainable Transformation (FAST) Partnership, which is a multi-stakeholder partnership that aims to transform agriculture and food systems and will serve as a mechanism to keep agrifood systems central post COP30. Yet without proportional finance flowing to degraded land restoration, resilient crops, sustainable livestock, and aquaculture, these frameworks remain aspirational.

The acknowledgment that agrifood transformations are essential to meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement marks important progress in elevating agriculture from a side discussion to a central climate strategy. However, persistent underfunding suggests that farmers and food systems may continue bearing climate risks without adequate support for adaptation and transformation.

Humanitarian

Among COP30’s most glaring failures was its neglect of conflict-affected and climate-vulnerable communities, as well as the painfully small presence of the humanitarian sector during conference discussions.

As climate disasters worsen, adaptation finance has been inadequate, with just $26 billion provided in 2023 to help lower-income countries prepare and live with climate impacts. Many countries that are already at increased risk of climate change, such as Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Chad and Sudan, are also simultaneously enduring armed conflict. However, negotiations at COP30 largely failed to discuss how climate disasters compound humanitarian emergencies.

And the situation has deteriorated since COP27. The Loss and Damage Fund, established at COP 27 and launched in Egypt in 2022, was created specifically to provide financial assistance to nations most vulnerable to climate change's severe effects. However, this fund remains critically underfunded despite beginning its pilot phase.

Without flexible and accessible finance designed for fragile contexts, climate adaptation efforts will continue to neglect those who need support most urgently: communities facing climate disasters and conflict simultaneously.

Just Transition

A just transition requires bold, structural and democratic shifts from long-standing systems of exploitation towards models that prioritise human well-being and integrity.

At COP30, the Belém Action Mechanism (BAM) was among the biggest wins aligned with just transition principles. BAM is an institutional framework that supports coordination and addresses current gaps to enable an equitable fossil fuel phase-out across sectors, countries, and communities. The framework draws on strong language on rights and inclusion, and recognises the rights of Indigenous Peoples, workers, and — for the first time at a COP — explicitly mentions people of African descent.

Organisations like Climate Action Network International and Women and Gender Constituency, which have both been on the frontline of driving action on a just transition towards a low-carbon economy for years, welcome this decision to prioritise people’s rights, inclusive dialogue and diverse cooperation within climate planning.   

However, there are still important questions remaining over how this mechanism will operate. There are very few binding commitments that have emerged from COP30 to fund the transition, and the conference concluded without clear commitments to finance a just energy transition. As such, the question remains: Who will pay for retraining workers, supporting displaced communities and building new economic opportunities in fossil fuel-dependent regions?

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COP30 revealed the growing tension between global climate ambition and the practical limitations of consensus-based diplomacy. While the conference delivered meaningful progress in some key areas — particularly, in Indigenous land rights, cultural heritage integration and just transition frameworks — it ultimately fell short in addressing core issues like the substantive steps necessary to phase out fossil fuels.

The retreat to roadmaps outside of formal UN procedures, combined with strong resistance from major economies, exposes a system where consensus has become a barrier to the urgent action that our planet demands. As climate impacts worsen, the gap between what was achieved at COP30 and the bold action that is necessary to avoid catastrophic warming levels grows more dangerous and imminent.

The question of whether COP30’s promise to deliver even fossil fuel and deforestation roadmaps will come to fruition remains. Shared Planet will continue to monitor the progress of these outcomes and, in the meantime, continue supporting our partners and clients as we seek to build a better future for both people and planet.