COP30 is around the corner, and the world is watching to see what it delivers. Brazil’s Presidency has cast this moment as a chance to prove that cooperation remains possible even in divided times. The stakes are high: expectations are for COP30 to rebuild trust in multilateralism, reconnect climate policy with people’s everyday realities, and make a real difference to the world’s emissions and its capacity to adapt to increasing climate impacts. Yet what practical steps can countries take to accelerate implementation? And what are non-state actors bringing to the table in Belém? This blog explores what COP30 can do to meet these expectations—largely by shifting the focus from new pledges to real delivery, and by anchoring climate action in shared prosperity and social justice.
A critical COP in troubled times
As the world prepares for COP30 (10–21 November, Belém), its Presidency—held by Brazil—has framed this moment as one of both profound urgency and possibility. This framing takes into consideration current economic and environmental crises around the world and complex geopolitical context boosted by armed conflicts and trade wars amongst others. And recent developments in international environmental negotiations have highlighted the blocking strategies of a few countries and the inability to rally a critical mass of others to counterbalance them (IDDRI, 2025a). To all of these, the call from Brazil is clear: uniting and reaffirming faith in cooperation, even amidst fragmentation and fatigue.
The Presidency has therefore articulated three overarching priorities for COP30: restoring multilateral trust; connecting policy to people’s realities; and focusing relentlessly on implementation. While these priorities enjoy wide endorsement, views diverge on how to achieve them, particularly what an effective implementation of the Paris Agreement truly entails (IDDRI, 2025b). This diversity of expectations makes the interpretation of COP30’s success a highly subjective matter.
Enhancing multilateralism: Letting the Paris Agreement work
A decade after its adoption, the Paris Climate Agreement has proved its worth and remains the cornerstone of international climate governance (IDDRI, 2025c; DDP-IDDRI, 2025). By recalling the concrete achievements of the Paris framework to date and publicly embracing collective and individual obligations under the Treaty, despite potential difficulties, COP30 offers a unique opportunity to rebuild confidence in multilateralism—which, in turn, is a precondition for such a regime to deliver effectively.
For COP30, rebuilding trust means interpreting the latest submissions of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) not only as an assessment of progress, but as a diagnosis of the enabling conditions needed for acceleration. The current NDCs neither put the world on track for the 1.5°C goal nor, on their own, reflect a sufficient drive toward implementation1. It means building a shared understanding of the conditions required for countries to (over)achieve their targets, while acknowledging that major emitters—with developed G20 countries at the forefront—are the ones who collectively hold the capacity to deliver the near-term emission reductions needed to bring us back on track for 1.5°C. A constructive process to address the ambition shortfall should draw on existing nationally determined tools, such as countries’ Long-Term Low Emission Development Strategies (LT-LEDS), as well as the review and transparency mechanisms established under the Paris framework.
Finance is always at the heart of restoring this trust. Discussions in Belém must move beyond symbolic commitments toward: (a) concrete instruments—including those that enhance country-level planning and implementation capacity; (b) a commitment to connect Parties’ efforts to align finance flows with the Paris Agreement’s goals to their contribution to the broader global financial reform agenda; and (c) stronger transparency and accountability regarding countries’ financial responsibilities—both for developed countries to support developing ones, and for all countries to contribute to alignment of financial flows with climate goals. Furthermore, as the Glasgow pledge to double adaptation finance by 20252 is expiring this year, developing Parties are expecting a renewed commitment. Initiatives like the is an example of concrete instruments. The Baku-to-Belém Roadmap,3 as well as the recommendations from the Circle of Finance Ministers, should provide clarity on how to mobilize USD300 billion annually and reach USD 1.3 trillion by 2035, reflecting a spirit of shared responsibility—linking donor efforts, domestic reforms, and systemic transformations across financial institutions. COP30 must find ways to catalyze leadership around the numerous ideas to make these funds available, including with a continuous dialogue amongst Finance Ministers.
Connecting with people: Adaptation, just transition, and shared prosperity
For climate action to endure, it must resonate with societies. The Brazilian Presidency’s emphasis on connecting with people underscores that climate policy cannot be detached from social justice, equity, and inclusion. Under Lula's leadership, efforts to further integrate hunger, poverty, and climate agendas will be strengthened. Two themes at COP30—Adaptation and Just Transition—provide the backbone of this human-centred approach.
Historically, adaptation under the UNFCCC has been treated primarily as a finance issue. While access to resources remains essential, there is a clear shift underway. COP30 offers an opportunity to elevate adaptation in national and political agendas. The work under the Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA) track4 can result in adopting a set of indicators that will facilitate progress tracking in building resilient societies. The latest National Adaptation Plans (NAPs)5 reveal a positive trend: countries are increasingly addressing institutional, governance, and policy dimensions, rather than focusing solely on project-level investment pipelines. However, the Adaptation Gap Report 202556 highlights that lack of financial, technical and human resources are still constraining these efforts.
The Just Transition Work Programme (JTWP) contributes to this people-centric shift. It recognizes that just transitions are not optional supplements to climate policy but the foundation for sustained and ambitious action and that they necessitate whole-of-economy, whole-of-society approaches and international cooperation (IDDRI, 2025d). The JTWP at COP30 can define which functions this process could play and if they need new institutional arrangements to help countries safeguard just transitions and strengthen social resilience.
Focusing on implementation: Turning the Global Stocktake into action
The third Presidency priority—focusing on implementation—is both necessary and ambitious (IDDRI, 2025e). COP30 has to mark the beginning of a new phase for the Paris framework—a “post-negotiation era” —where the focus on the identification of barriers to implementation and gaps in collaboration is not perceived as a dichotomy of the ambition agenda, nor as a rebranding of means of implementation. COP30 can emphasize that existing instruments of the Paris Agreement must serve not just as compliance tools but as levers to identify opportunities and barriers, and create expectations for how this knowledge will be used. COP30 can also initiate a Presidency-led reflection process to explore governance innovations to enhance UNFCCC’s orchestration role to strengthen coordination across international organizations, streamline mandates and create feedback loop mechanisms with Non-State Actors. This process should deliver recommendations for consideration at COP31.
The Global Stocktake (GST)7 concluded at COP28 provided an unprecedented assessment of progress, gaps, and opportunities. While implementation will mainly be a national endeavour, to transform these insights into concrete action, COP30 must find ways to interrogate national plans and the international cooperation ecosystem against these objectives, gaps and opportunities, as well as encourage countries to engage in specific and practical collaborations.
For the transition away from fossil fuels objective, establishing such collaborations requires distinguishing between different types of fossil fuel, how they are used in national contexts, and the kinds of transitions needed at global, national or sectoral system level (IDDRI, 2025f). Of particular interest for COP30, and with growing political support, is the proposal for a dialogue among major oil consumers and producers as well as key economic actors, which is now under discussion.
COP30 can also strengthen the implementation focus with the upgrade of the Action Agenda platform, a helpful platform to mobilize and reinforce engagement of non-state and subnational actors. Aligning with the GST decisions and the Paris Agreement’s goals and embedding transparency, monitoring, and accountability are core elements of the Presidency’s ongoing efforts. Building on this effort, further systematic review of the initiatives under the Action Agenda and matchmaking with country needs will support identification of gaps to fill (IDDRI, 2025b). Progress will depend on setting clear milestones to sustain this effort, hence Parties should aim to agree on a five-year roadmap proposed by Brazil.
A moment for renewal
COP30 will test the world’s capacity to move from commitment to collective implementation. Amid profound crises and competing interests, it has no other option that presents itself as a moment of renewal—where nations reaffirm that climate action is not a zero-sum game but a shared investment in stability, dignity, and hope.
If Parties can strengthen multilateral trust, connect global processes to people’s realities, and make tangible progress to clarify how the international treaty might focus on implementation, COP30 will have set a firm foundation for the work during this next decade—and ultimately to keep Paris Agreement goals within reach.
A benchmark for COP30’s success would lie in making the implementation focus real and sustainable—and inclusive, with just transitions at its core. It means taking a practical approach to the NDC ambition shortfall discussion, distinguishing those with the capacity to bring the world back onto a realistic pathway to keep temperature goals within reach and those who should focus on development in a zero-carbon world; anchoring finance discussions in the broader transformation of economic and financial systems; delivering concrete and visible steps, including key decisions under the GGA, GST, and JTWP negotiating tracks; and valuing the mobilization and partnerships of Parties and other actors as a means to rebuild trust through genuine collaboration.
