Africa: COP30 Verdict – People in, Polluters Still In?

The high ambition articulated by the Brazilian COP Presidency at COP30’s opening had notably faded by the end of the second week, reflecting the sobering realities of consensus-based decision-making

Over 190 countries – with the notable exception of the US – convened in Belém, Brazil, to advance the Paris Agreement. COP30 ultimately adopted the Mutirão Decision (a term used by the Presidency to signify a collective, community-driven effort in Brazilian Portuguese), along with 28 additional decisions.

If anyone was in any doubt about the summit’s urgency, the elements will have provided a sobering reminder. Over two weeks, attendees reckoned with sweltering heat, torrential downpours and a dramatic fire (which symbolically underlined the climate destruction wrought by Hurricane Melissa only weeks before when it made landfall in Jamaica).

Yet, thanks to the influence of major polluters and petrostates, the Mutirão Decision still falls far short of what is needed to reverse the climate emergency. It does not reference “fossil fuels,” nor does it deliver the required ambition on forest protection.

There were, however, important advances on other fronts, including tripling adaptation finance and agreeing to mobilise $1.3 trillion a year for climate action by 2035.

Historic gains were also made for human rights, with the rights of land and environmental defenders and Indigenous Peoples expressly recognised in multiple documents.

COP30 remained a space of profound contradiction. The summit was heavily attended by agribusiness and fossil fuel lobbyists, yet it also showcased extraordinary leadership from Indigenous and community leaders around the world.

COP has been repeatedly obstructed by a coalition of nations with strong ties to oil and gas (reportedly led by Saudia Arabia, Russia and India), revealing the limits of consensus-driven negotiations. There is now growing global interest in accelerating climate action outside the formal COP process.

To break the stalemate at the end of the summit, the Brazilian Presidency announced two voluntary “roadmap” initiatives – one on deforestation and another on transitioning away from fossil fuels. Their impact will depend on whether they can catalyse genuine, urgent climate action.

It is an unsatisfying result for what was branded the “implementation COP”, with much action amounting once again to kicking the can down the road. But the mass mobilisation of civil society and defenders is one positive signal. We remain hopeful that climate solutions grounded in human rights, justice and equity will accelerate.

Now let’s dive into the outcomes.

Knock-backs to the fossil fuel phaseout

Following last year’s capitulation to some countries’ efforts to water down mentions of a fossil fuel phaseout, COP has once again failed to move the needle towards real action on ending the fossil fuel era.

The bar was set high when COP30 opened with President Lula da Silva’s call for “roadmaps” to transition away from fossil fuels. But within two weeks, that ambition was quashed by petrostates’ recalcitrant resistance.

The heavily negotiated and diluted final text does not even mention “fossil fuels” – let alone a roadmap – and simply acknowledges the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

A roadmap would have helped to initiate vital conversations about precisely how states can begin moving away from oil and gas. Without it, the private interests of fossil companies and petrostates will continue to impede those efforts, no matter the cost.

In a year when global temperatures once again hit 1.5°C above baseline levels – adding to 2024’s record-breaking temperatures – this outcome is disappointing, but not surprising, given the overwhelming presence of major polluter and fossil fuel lobbying interests.

It is telling that even Brazil, the summit’s host, has granted dozens of licenses for new major offshore oil projects in the Amazon basin. A serious conflict of interest still rests at the very heart of COP.

Though we welcomed the news of new disclosure requirements for attendees, fossil fuel lobbyists have continued to flood the conference, and the largest proportion of any COP analysed by KPBO.

Even so, there were promising signs of political momentum. More than 80 countries backed Brazil’s proposal for a fossil fuel roadmap, signalling a growing willingness among parties to confront fossil fuel pollution.

Responding to this support, the presidency announced the establishment of a new conference to address the phase out of fossil fuels, to be held in April 2026 in Colombia, a country that played a decisive and constructive role during the final stretch of negotiations.

Defenders raised their voices – but were they listened to?

Brazil presented COP30 as an inclusive summit where environmental defenders, Indigenous Peoples and traditional communities would take a central role in climate decision-making. Yet the reality in Belém revealed a more complex and often contradictory landscape.

In the early days of the conference, images circulated worldwide of armed security forces blocking Indigenous protestors from accessing COP zones, resulting in violent clashes.

Demonstrators were raising concerns – among other issues – about oil exploration in the Amazon and the urgent need for stronger community participation in decisions that shape their territories.

Inside the negotiations, defenders continued to face structural obstacles. They were largely absent from national delegations, received little institutional support for participation, and were offered limited avenues to influence discussions directly affecting their rights, territories and safety.

Yet across Belém, civil society created spaces that demonstrated what genuine inclusion can look like.

Global Witness supported the COP do Povo (People’s COP) at the Grassroots Movement for Climate Venue, a vibrant, community-led space where Indigenous Peoples, defenders, grassroots groups and social movements exchanged knowledge, articulated principles for a just transition, and presented local solutions to the climate emergency.

The inclusive environment of Cop do Povo stood in stark contrast to the restricted atmosphere of the official UNFCCC venue and showed the leadership that emerges when frontline communities are at the centre of the conversation.

COP30 also marked an important milestone with the launch of LEAD – the Leaders Action Network for Environmental Activists and Defenders – co-created by defenders, activists and civil society groups. LEAD establishes a platform to advance recognition, protection and meaningful participation of defenders in climate decision-making.

Another important outcome was the explicit inclusion of Afro-descendant communities in the final text. The mitigation decision further reaffirmed Indigenous Peoples’ essential role in upholding the Paris Agreement, backed by new financial commitments and strengthened territorial protections.

One of the most significant advances appeared in the preamble of the Mutirão Decision, which recognises not only the rights of Indigenous Peoples but specifically their land rights – a crucial acknowledgment that land demarcation is indispensable for keeping the 1.5°C limit within reach.

The Belém Gender Action Plan also marked a shift by recognising Indigenous and local women as “agents of change” rather than solely as vulnerable populations. The plan calls for stronger safety and support for women defenders.

Taken as a whole, COP30 exposed the persistent challenges that defenders and communities continue to face, while also revealing the growing strength of grassroots movements in pushing global climate governance towards justice.

Gains for a just energy transition

Too often, the renewable energy transition comes at the expense of defenders and Indigenous Peoples, whose communities are frequently displaced – and violently threatened – by mining for critical minerals. Coordinated global action is needed to ensure that these communities are not harmed by the push for clean energy.

Global Witness joined calls at COP30 to establish a just transition mechanism (the so-called Belem Action Mechanism, or “BAM”), which would create a set of shared values underpinning the just transition, encouraging collaboration between states, fostering knowledge-sharing and aligning finance with just transition goals.

We were delighted to see BAM pass and explicitly name Indigenous People’s rights – including to free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) – paired with their enshrinement in COP’s final text.

Over the past year, Global Witness has also led a coalition campaigning to land language in COP’s final text that is explicit about the material basis of transitioning to renewable technologies, and the need to avoid replicating the issues of the fossil age in critical mineral mining.

But while many countries and major negotiating blocs tabled strong proposals on minerals governance – including the UK, EU, the African Group of Negotiators and Colombia – China drew a red line against any reference, ultimately blocking inclusion in the Just Transition Work Programme.

Despite this setback, the issue has firmly entered COP’s agenda, giving us a strong platform for the year ahead. And the just transition text contains many areas of entry for future work on the question of minerals, while seeing groundbreaking language about rights and inclusion.

A lacklustre “tropical forests COP”

In keeping with the rest of the summit, what was hoped to be a transformative “tropical forests COP” (pointedly hosted at the mouth of the Amazon rainforest) has proven lukewarm, with the ambition of Brazil’s flagship Tropical Forests Forever Facility (TFFF) still to be matched by country pledges.

When the TFFF officially launched at the COP30 leaders’ summit, civil society organisations and defender groups expressed concern that it ties climate finance to financial markets and fails to prioritise Indigenous Peoples and local communities.

With around $6.6 billion pledged at COP – far short of the desired $125 billion – questions remain about how and when the fund can be operationalised, and key expected contributors, including the UK and China, did not pledge at all.

Yet while the TFFF is designed to address gaps in how global finance is mobilised to protect forests, even its potential impact will be undermined if governments continue to allow trillions from banks and investors to flow into activities that drive deforestation.

Global Witness’s call to end harmful finance may yet find life in ongoing negotiations, particularly in calls to make an open, fair, transparent economic and financial system that is aligned with climate goals.

The failure to agree a deforestation roadmap – in the heart of the Amazon, no less – is a dangerous step back, leaving forests and the communities defending them exposed to continued violence and destruction.

This risk of backsliding was mirrored in Brussels, where efforts to delay and dilute the bloc’s deforestation law were pushed forward during the summit.

Combatting climate disinformation

Brazil’s President Lula da Silva dubbed COP30 “the COP of truth” in his opening speech, setting the tone for a climate summit that rejects the disinformation spread by the fossil fuel industry and its allies.

That gauntlet was rapidly picked up by the Global Initiative for Information Integrity on Climate Change, which within days of the conference opening had launched the Declaration on Information Integrity on Climate Change – the first of its kind at the climate COP.

The declaration commits signatories to “[p]romote the integrity of information related to climate change at the international, national, and local levels,” and calls on governments, the private sector and civil society to coordinate efforts to combat harmful denialism and greenwashing.

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