COP30 – Briefing Paper

The 30th Conference of the Parties (COP30) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) will take place in Belém, Brazil, between 10 and 21 November 2025. This briefing paper provides a high-level explanation of the main themes of COP30, the legacy of COP29, the COP negotiating blocs and their aims, and COP30’s possible outcomes.

At COP30, the Parties to the UNFCCC (197 states plus the EU) will come together to take action towards achieving their collective climate goals under the 2015 Paris Agreement and the UNFCCC, including limiting global warming to 1.5°C or well below 2°C. Building on the progress made at prior COPs, COP30 is expected to further negotiations on climate finance and adaptation and provide an opportunity for scrutiny and debate over States’ decarbonisation plans.

What are the main themes of COP30?

Each year, the Conference of the Parties gives states and civil society organisations the opportunity to make representations on each article of the Paris Agreement, as well as on the development of mechanisms, alliances, working groups, processes, and rules thereunder. As a call to action, the host nation typically announces key negotiating focus areas. This year, as President Party of COP30, Brazil, has issued a number of formal letters from the Presidency and presented its Action Agenda containing six thematic axes: 

1. Transitioning Energy, Industry and Transport.
2. Stewarding Forests, Oceans and Biodiversity.
3. Transforming Agriculture and Food Systems.
4. Building Resilience for Cities, Infrastructure and Water.
5. Foster Human and Social Development.
6. Unleashing Enablers and Accelerators, Including on Finance Technology and Capacity Building.

Although progress on these themes will underpin a successful COP, reaching a Decision on adaptation will be the top priority for State negotiators. In the UNFCCC process, adaptation is a catch-all term for the actions States, private businesses and individuals take to respond to and alleviate the negative effects of climate change. Adaptation is therefore crucial for preventing extensive private sector losses caused by climate change. Negotiations on adaptation at COP30 are scheduled to finalise key structures of the Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA). The GGA is a mechanism by which countries will be able to strengthen their ability and capacity to adapt to climate change (i.e. lessen the impact of) the negative effects of climate change. The GGA was established in 2015, but the scientific and conceptual challenge of creating a universal framework for measuring how each country will evaluate and assess its adaptation efforts, means that no global adaptation goal has yet been agreed. The GGA work programme in September 2025 published a list of ‘adaptation indicators’. These are the proposed criteria by which all countries’ adaptation progress will be measured. A Decision by State Parties to adopt these indicators at COP30 will unlock the ability to understand which adaptation projects are the most effective. This, in turn, will be crucial for increasing the deployment of climate finance to adaptation projects. While negotiations around adaptation indicators have historically been the preserve of public policy experts and scientific and technical advisors, COP30 will bring adaptation negotiations into the political spotlight.

A significant feature of  the build up to COP30 has been the failure of many Parties to the Paris Agreement to publish their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). NDCs contain States’ commitments to reduce their emissions, including via regulation of the private sector. NDCs are submitted every five years to the UNFCCC Secretariat and the process is designed so that Parties’ emission reduction commitments become more ambitious over time/with each iteration. The importance of NDCs to the effort to prevent the worst effects of climate change was underlined this year by the International Court of Justice’s ruling on climate change, which confirmed that State Parties to the Paris Agreement were legally required to make an adequate contribution to mitigation efforts through their NDCs. The deadline for the latest round of NDC submissions was in February 2025. However, as of 6 November 2025, only 71 out of 197 States have submitted an NDC for review. The NDCs of major emitters and important negotiating Parties, including the EU, have been significantly delayed. It is in this context that the UN Secretary General stated in an interview in October 2025 that the world has already failed to meet the Paris Agreement’s 1.5 degree goal, a failure that will cause devastating consequences. Although NDCs will not be the subject of formal negotiations at COP30, a flurry of NDC submissions are expected before and during COP30 itself. There will be significant scrutiny of NDC announcements during the Conference. The ambition of these NDCs, or lack thereof, will set the tone for the wider negotiations.

Outside the formal UNFCCC process, a more immediate issue facing delegates at COP30 are the well-publicized logistical difficulties facing COP participants. The global gathering of some 50,000 attendees, is to be held in Belém, a city in the middle of the Amazon Rainforest. Critics have questioned the event’s impact on the local environment and the Amazon rainforest. Further, with only around 18,000 hotel beds available, accommodation prices have surged. Delegates from developing nations, Indigenous groups, and civil society organisations have warned that the cost and scarcity of accommodation could prevent the participation of those most affected by climate change and amplify longstanding criticisms of the effectiveness of the UNFCCC process. 

What is the legacy of COP29? 

As with all COPs, COP30 will build on the legacy of its predecessor, COP29, held in 2024 in Baku, Azerbaijan. The key outcomes of COP29 were an agreement on the long term foundations for international climate finance arrangements after 2025 (the New Collective Quantified Goal, or “NCQG”)  and agreements on the UN carbon market system established under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement. 

Although the NCQG was agreed at COP29, it is considered only a qualified success. The NCQG Decision contained an agreement by the Parties to the Paris Agreement to triple the annual commitment of climate finance, from USD 100bn to USD 300bn, by 2035. However, the NCQG Decision only “called on” Parties to meet the USD 1.3tn climate finance goal that is considered necessary by academic consensus and demanded by many developing country Parties. To ensure agreement on the lower number, the NCQG Decision included reference to something known as the “Baku to Belém Roadmap to 1.3T”. This “roadmap” aims to scale up climate finance flows to developing countries to facilitate mitigation and adaptation measures with a focus on non-debt based financial instruments. Of great importance to developing countries, the roadmap currently exists outside of  formal COP structures, and Brazil in its role as President has been busy reaching out to public and private sector actors, including multilateral development banks, to see how or whether they would be willing to contribute. Given the critical importance of climate finance to enabling action in the developing world, a concrete output from the Roadmap will be crucial to the success of Brazil’s Presidency and to retaining the faith of developing countries in the COP process. 

There were high expectations for Article 6 carbon markets in the first year after COP29. Key Decisions at COP29 finalised elements of the rule book for inter-state carbon trading under Article 6.2 and the registry acting as the market for the purchase and sale of approved emission reduction credits (the Paris Agreement Crediting Mechanism, or “PACM”) under Article 6.4. However, since then, progress in developing the structures required for a functioning market at the understaffed UNFCCC Secretariat has been slow. Significantly, the PACM registry, which will provide the foundation of the Article 6 regime, remains to be established. We can expect the carbon credit industry and civil society to be out in force in Brazil dissecting progress, failures and how best to make the Article 6 mechanism work. For a more in-depth explanation of Article 6 carbon markets and the outcomes at COP29, follow this link.  

What are the negotiating blocs at COP30 and what are their aims?

To strengthen their negotiating positions and to streamline negotiations, like-minded Parties to the UNFCCC often form negotiating blocs or groups. Membership of a bloc is not exclusive, and countries may join different blocs or represent themselves depending on their views on the issue under discussion. Some of these blocs and their respective aims are listed below:

What would success at COP30 look like?

Success at COP30 will be measured against Brazil’s six main conference themes (above) as well as the key negotiating topic of adaptation. Inevitably, success will be viewed subjectively, depending on the aims of participating nations and their negotiating blocs. The following are key areas for progress:

Logistics

There has been extensive criticism of Brazil’s decision to host COP30 in the Amazon rainforest. However, if Brazil can pull off COP30 without a logistical hitch, then the hope is that the intangible positive effect of hosting the conference in the world’s largest rainforest will inspire delegates to focus their minds and find compromise where needed in order to agree more ambitious outcomes. 

Agreement on Adaptation 

Adaptation will be the centrepiece of the negotiations this year. If a successful and fair outcome can be agreed on indicators and the GGA framework, it will offer proof that the COP process can successfully turn complex science and competing political interests into collective decisions, and real-world action. 

Consensus on Ambitious NDCs

Although not part of the negotiations, if a significant majority of States have submitted ambitious and comprehensive NDCs by the end of COP30 then the current pessimism around mitigation may turn. Almost as important will be whether climate vulnerable states are able to make and win the argument that mitigation is a crucial responsibility for all countries.

Concrete Proposals on Climate Finance 

Possibly the most anticipated element of COP30 amongst developing countries will be the Presidency’s unveiling of its framework for the Baku to Belém Roadmap to 1.3T. If Brazil unveils an ambitious, clear and realistic pathway to achieving USD 1.3tn of climate finance by 2035 towards the start of COP30, then the optimism and momentum such a declaration would inspire could be transformative for unlocking ambitious mitigation commitments from developing countries. However, should the Baku to Belém Roadmap fail to meet expectations, then expect longstanding grievances over funding and climate finance to once again inhibit agreement between the developed and developing world. 

Recommitment to Multilateralism 

The corridors and negotiating rooms at the June 2025 UNFCCC negotiations in Bonn echoed with the phrase “unilateral trade measures”. Referring to US tariffs, but more pointedly to the EU’s groundbreaking Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), developing countries were deeply unhappy with what they saw as unilateral measures taken by developed countries to impose financial penalties on the developing world’s industrial economies in the name of climate action. Belief in the effectiveness of multilateralism is breaking down, but perhaps nowhere will that breakdown have a more negative effect than with regard to climate change. Climate change is a global problem, and the International Court of Justice has this summer confirmed that States have a legal duty to cooperate to mitigate climate change and adapt to its effects. If developed and developing country Parties cannot come together at COP30 and reaffirm their belief in the COP process and take collective action to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement it could accelerate the trend towards unilateralism to the detriment of effective action benefitting everyone, but in particular smaller, poorer and more climate vulnerable countries who are given an effective voice at COPs. 

On 10 November 2025 the world’s eyes will turn to Belém and Clyde & Co will be covering events in the Blue Zone and reporting on potential impacts to our clients and markets around the world. Look out for further articles and please reach out if you have any questions.

Key Contacts: Wynne Lawrence and Nigel Brook.