COP30 ends with agreement on adaptation funding but no mention of fossil fuels : NPR
Global climate negotiations concluded this weekend in Brazil with a deal that increases funds for countries to adapt to climate change, but does not address phasing out fossil fuels.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
The countries that participated in the United Nations climate conference in Brazil agreed on something. They pledged to triple the money available to help adapt to a warmer planet. The countries also failed to agree on anything. NPR’s Julia Simon reports.
JULIA SIMON, BYLINE: Many countries came to this COP30 conference with a clear agenda item.
RALPH REGENVANU: I am very keen that COP30 will ensure that we have a roadmap for the transition away from fossil fuels.
SIMON: Ralph Regenvanu is climate minister of Vanuatu, an island nation already facing rising sea levels.
REGENVANU: Because we desperately need this multilateral pathway to say we’re moving away from fossil fuels.
SIMON: Ultimately, the final deal made no mention of fossil fuels, even though the burning of oil, gas and coal accounts for about 70% of the planet’s heating emissions. Kaveh Guilanpour works at the nonprofit Center for Climate and Energy Solutions. According to him, although the United Kingdom and many countries in the European Union and Latin America have supported a roadmap to abandon fossil fuels, states such as Saudi Arabia and Russia have not signed up.
KAVEH GUILANPOUR: And the problem we had is that the negotiations were split about 50/50. So there were about 80 countries that were in favor of a fossil fuel road map and 80 that were totally opposed to it.
SIMON: But even though the agreement didn’t mention fossil fuels, Regenvanu and other countries still left COP30 enthusiastic about the topic. As the conference drew to a close, Colombia’s Environment Minister, Irene Velez Torres, took the stage, surrounded by ministers from a dozen countries, and said this.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
IRENE VELEZ TORRES: The government of Colombia, in alliance with the government of the Netherlands, today announces the first international conference on a just transition away from fossil fuels.
SIMON: Colombia is a producer of oil, gas and coal, and co-host the Netherlands is the birthplace of Shell Oil. Torres told NPR that this conference in Santa Marta, Colombia, next spring will be explicitly about phasing out fossil fuels.
TORRES: The idea of the Santa Marta conference is to have this: first, a space in which we are absolutely clear that phasing out is necessary because it’s not easy. Nobody says it’s easy. But if we don’t face the problems, we can’t find solutions.
SIMON: One of the goals of this new conference is to begin work on a legally binding agreement to stop the expansion of fossil fuel production. Alden Meyer is part of the climate change think tank E3G. He is not surprised that this new initiative has emerged, given how countries including Saudi Arabia have blocked their climate ambitions at the COPs.
ALDEN MEYER: But I think it reflects the frustration of countries and NGOs who have seen very little action in this process.
SIMON: And action matters. Scientists say that if countries were able to halve their overall greenhouse gas emissions by 2035, the planet would return to lower levels of warming.
Julia Simon, NPR News Belem, Brazil.
Copyright © 2025 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit the terms of use and permissions pages on our website at www.npr.org for more information.
The accuracy and availability of NPR transcripts may vary. The text of the transcript may be edited to correct errors or match updates to the audio. Audio on npr.org may be edited after its original broadcast or publication. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio recording.
