COP30 – Week 1 Roundup – “a tragedy of the present”

“There is still time for humanity to avoid the worst of the impacts of climate change. But we need to act now, and we need to act decisively, just like we did a decade ago.

“This has the potential to be one of the most consequential climate COPs of the last decade.”

Ruth Do Coutto, Deputy Director of the Climate Change Division, United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)

The first official week of the 30^th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP30) took place this week in Belém, Brazil, with Brazilain President, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, describing climate change as being “no longer a threat of the future; it is a tragedy of the present”.

In what was billed as marking the start of “a decisive decade in the battle against climate change”, the conference began against a backdrop of rising global temperatures, extreme weather events, ongoing destruction of nature and biodiversity, and escalating geopolitical trade disputes and tensions.

The US, the second-largest carbon emitter globally, has not sent a delegation to the summit. Senior US politicians, including Gavin Newsom, headed an alternate US delegation and reportedly emphasised that “subnational jurisdictions in the US are still committed to tackling the climate crisis.”

A key focus of the summit is ensuring information integrity, with countries sealing a landmark declaration urging governments, the private sector, civil society, academia and funders to take concrete action to counter the growing impact of disinformation, misinformation, denialism and attacks on environmental journalists, defenders, scientists and researchers that undermine climate action and threaten societal stability.

The Global Initiative for Information Integrity on Climate Change calls on governments to ensure funds for research into climate information integrity, especially in developing countries. It marks the first time that information integrity has been prioritised at the UN Climate Conference. "We live in an era in which obscurantists reject scientific evidence and attack institutions.” Lula da Silva said. “It is time to deliver yet another defeat to denialism.”

COP30 themes

With the two-day Leaders’ Summit ending on Friday 6 November, delegates began work in earnest to find ways to prevent or mitigate the worst effects of global warming.

Each day of COP 30 has a specific theme focused on different areas of climate action and aligned with COP30’s six main Action Agenda pillars:

1. Energy, Industry and Transport;
2. Forests, Oceans and Biodiversity;
3. Agriculture and Food Systems;
4. Cities, Infrastructure and Water;
5. Human and Social Development; and
6. Cross-cutting issues.

COP26’s Glasgow Pact in 2021 committed signatory countries to double adaption finance. The ‘Baku to Belém Roadmap’ called for US $1.3 trillion in annual climate finance by 2035.

Despite this, the UNEP’s Adaptation Gap Report 2025 has identified a significant shortfall in finance currently available to developing countries. These nations are expected to need more than $310 billion each year to adapt to effects like flooding and wildfires.

It is no surprise, then, that finance – particularly innovative financing – was woven through all thematic areas this week, with some major announcements:

• The Tropical Forest Forever Facility aims to remove the financial logic for deforestation, with a proposal that seeks to compensate countries for preserving tropical forests, with 20 percent of funds reserved for Indigenous peoples. Described as “the biggest and boldest plan yet to staunch the loss of tropical forests that are a pillar of climate stability”, the mechanism would effectively see countries being paid to maintain forests through blended finance. It could become one of the world’s largest multilateral funds. However, its success depends on buy-in from governments and financial institutions to pivot from destruction to stewardship of tropical forests.
• A $2.5 billion plan aims to protect the Congo Basin, the world’s second-largest rainforest, received backing by European nations. The plan aims to end deforestation by 2030 through funding, technology, and capacity building.

   

• The Global Innovation Lab for Climate Finance rolled out nine new financial instruments designed to steer more capital toward climate solutions in developing economies.

   

• The Climate Investment Funds (CIF) received $100 million in initial funding from Germany and Spain for its Accelerating Resilience Investments and innovations for Sustainable Economies (ARISE) investment program, designed to strengthen the adaptive capacity of developing countries’ economies.

   

• The Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD), initiated at COP27 in Egypt, has officially become operational. It finances initiatives to help vulnerable communities recover from climate-related losses and damage. While praised as being a step towards achieving climate justice, the fund’s resources fall far short of what is needed, with only $788 million of the required $200–400 billion annually by 2030 being pledged so far.

   

• A new initiative launched that aims to transform National Adaptation Plans into investable, finance-ready projects that attract large-scale private and public funding. Fostering Investible National Planning and Implementation (FINI) for Adaptation & Resilience targets $1 trillion in adaptation project pipelines, with 20 percent from private investors and $500 million from multilateral and philanthropic partners to support risk assessment and local capacity building. Bringing together countries, development banks, insurers, investors, philanthropies, civil society and global organizations, it aims to strengthen collaboration between the public and the private financial sectors.

   

• The Greenhouse Gas Protocol (GHG Protocol) and the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) have also published an COP30 Action Agendawhich plans to accelerate carbon accounting solutions. It demonstrates how to unlock a critical barrier to enabling rapid decarbonization: the lack of harmonized, interoperable carbon accounting standards across corporate, product, and project levels. 

Podcast

COP30: Will this be the year for real change?
Irish Times Climate and Science correspondent Caroline O’Doherty joins the podcast from Belém to discuss whether this year’s climate negotiations will move beyond plans and into concrete action.
(In the News)
22 mins

Short video

Costing the Earth
Stephen Fry and Al Murray explain the thoughts behind the need to embed sustainability into organizations' DNA
(Accounting for Sustainability)
3.33 mins 

Articles

• “The COPs are slow, but they do matter” – Minister for Climate Darragh O’Brien tries to demystify the UN’s complicated annual climate conference and what they’ve achieved over the years (The Journal)
• Working together on climate efforts essential, COP to hear (RTÉ)
• Cop30 is not just another climate conference — it is a crossroads (Irish Examiner)

You can check Chartered Accountants Ireland COP30 coverage and resources on its Sustainability Centre.