COP30 Outcomes: Wins, Gaps, and the Road Ahead

Presidency-led consultations on Article 9.1 finance obligations, concerns over unilateral trade measures, the widening 1.5°C implementation gap, and the synthesis of transparency reports under Article 13 became the centre of attention. While the Presidency’s consultations finally broke the weeks-long anticipated standoff over the agenda, they also underscored a sobering reality: without credible progress on public finance, accountability, and international cooperation, even the most ambitious bottom-up mobilization cannot compensate for the structural barriers that continue to hold back vulnerable countries’ ability to respond to the climate crisis.

With the Glasgow Climate Pact’s mandated to double adaptation finance running out at the end of this year, there was enormous pressure on COP30 to define what would follow. With expectations high, Belém was widely seen as the moment when negotiators might agree on a new adaptation finance goal—one grounded in explicit targets, clear timelines, and meaningful accountability, something lacking in the New Collective Quantified Goal on climate finance agreed at COP29.

Throughout the negotiations, developing countries and civil society pressed for a new goal in various forms; with USD 120 billion; 150 billion per year by 2030; or a full tripling of adaptation finance all being presented across the negotiations. Yet despite intensive discussions across multiple negotiating tracks, COP30 produced only a weak commitment to “at least triple” adaptation finance by 2035 and language that urged “developed country Parties to increase the trajectory of their collective provision of climate finance for adaptation to developing country Parties.” A five-year delay is far below the demands, with vague text—providing no baseline for tripling, no guarantee of public or grant-based funding, and no clarity on who must deliver it.

Still, the issue is far from closed: developing countries have made clear that the current gap in adaptation finance is indefensible and developing parties and civil society groups are already mobilizing to ensure that a robust, target-based goal remains on the table for 2026 and beyond. As climate impacts accelerate, pressure will only grow for developed countries to deliver the scaled, predictable, and grant-based finance that frontline communities urgently need.

Article 2.1(c) of the Paris Agreement calls for aligning finance flows with low-emission, climate-resilient development. The Sharm el-Sheikh Dialogue on Article 2.1(c) closed at COP30 with minimal progress after three years of this mandated dialogue. This is reflected as quoted in the final text that “Recognizes that there is no common interpretation of the scope of Article 2, paragraph 1(c), of the Paris Agreement or the manner of its implementation;” Developing countries consistently emphasized the need for systemic financial reforms, including action on debt and other structural barriers to climate implementation. Meanwhile, developed countries used the space to promote private finance approaches, often blurring Article 2.1(c) with the separate public finance obligations under Article 9.1.

COP30 did not bridge these divides. Instead, it launched a new two-year Veredas Dialogue, though its mandate remains vague. The outcome reaffirms an important safeguard—that Article 2.1(c) cannot replace Article 9 obligations—but offers little beyond that. An annual high-level Xingu Finance Talks will also be convened on aligning financial flows, but its scope is similarly limited and undefined. Crucially, the outcome contains no reference to international financial architecture reform, and no acknowledgment of the role of debt, MDBs, or systemic imbalances in blocking climate-aligned financial flows.

The central outcome for the Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA) is the adoption of a framework to assess progress in strengthening resilience and adaptive capacity to climate change. At COP 28, parties agreed on 11 targets and launched a two-year work programme to develop indicators for each. The aim was to finalize a globally relevant set of indicators by COP 30 to help guide and track adaptation action.

Ultimately, the COP presidency agreed on 59 indicators spanning seven sectors—including water, agriculture, health, and the broader processes of adaptation planning, finance, capacity-building, and technology support. The framework also incorporates cross-cutting issues such as gender equality and human rights.

However, the results were mixed. In the last days of the conference, many negotiators were caught off guard when a large share of the indicators—developed by 78 independent experts over two years—appeared significantly revised. During the closing plenary, several countries voiced concerns about the process and the substance of the GGA package. In response, the COP Presidency pledged to revisit these issues at the Bonn climate meetings in June 2026. Regardless, even an ideal set of indicators cannot drive meaningful progress without adequate resources. Assessment and monitoring alone will not advance adaptation efforts unless they are matched with the necessary funding to implement them.

With the Belem Action Mechanism now officially adopted at COP30, countries representing the vast majority of the world’s population have agreed to move beyond fragmented commitments and take concrete, coordinated steps toward delivering a truly just transition. What began decades ago in the US labour movement—workers demanding protection and fair treatment as polluting sectors declined—has evolved into a global framework that now formally requires governments to plan for and support all communities affected by the shift to a low-carbon economy, from fossil-fuel workers to transition-minerals communities to farmers and households facing agricultural reforms. While previous COPs referenced just transition principles in preambles and voluntary work programmes, BAM transforms these into operational obligations: countries must track progress, share best practices, coordinate policies, and provide targeted support—particularly for low-income nations with limited capacity—to ensure climate action does not deepen existing inequalities. For advocates, BAM’s adoption closes a long-standing gap in the UN climate regime by embedding fairness, decent work, and community protections into the core of global climate implementation.

The NDC’s set out the efforts made by each country to reduce national emissions and how they contribute to the fulfilment of the temperature target of the Paris Agreement. The launch of the next round of Nationally Determined Contributions—NDCs 3.0—together with the conclusion of the first Global Stocktake has underscored just how wide the world’s ambition gap remains. More than 60 countries are still yet to submit their NDCs, an economy-wide NDCs aligned with the latest science, the global stocktake made clear that current commitments fall far short of a pathway consistent with limiting warming to 1.5°C. Emissions trajectories, adaptation needs, and finance realities are all moving in the wrong direction, revealing that incremental updates will not be enough to close the gap. At COP30, negotiators acknowledged this shortfall but stopped short of adopting the transformative mandates that many developing countries and civil society groups called for—particularly on finance, capacity support, and accountability mechanisms that would enable NDCs 3.0 to be both ambitious and implementable. As the window for keeping 1.5°C alive narrows, pressure is now intensifying on major emitters and high-income countries to return in the next NDC cycle with commitments that reflect their fair share and to provide the resources needed for developing countries to raise their own ambition in a just and equitable way.

COP30 ultimately delivered important political signals but fell short of the structural shifts needed to put the world on a credible path toward climate justice and a 1.5°C-aligned future. While the adoption of the Belem Action Mechanism and progress on the Global Goal on Adaptation offered meaningful steps forward, negotiations were overshadowed by unresolved divides on finance, equity, and implementation. Adaptation finance commitments remained vague and delayed, Article 2.1(c) discussions yielded yet another dialogue instead of clarity, and the next NDC cycle began under the weight of a widening ambition and finance gap. As climate impacts intensify and trust in multilateralism erodes, the pressure on developed countries to deliver scaled public finance, systemic reforms, and action will only grow. The road ahead—toward COP31, Bonn 2026, and NDCs 3.0—will determine whether COP30 becomes a stepping stone toward renewed global cooperation or another missed opportunity in a rapidly closing window for meaningful climate action.