The Bitter (COP of) Truth: Belém 2025 Climate Conference Not Up to the Challenge

This article reviews outcomes of the thirtieth session of the Conference of the Parties (COP30) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and of the seventh session of the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement (CMA7) in the areas of mitigation, forest protection, finance, trade, just transition, voluntary cooperation under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, adaptation, loss and damage, and gender. While Brazilian President Lula da Silva opened the conference labelling it the ‘COP of Truth’, the bitter truth is that the outcomes of the Belém COP were highly disappointing and not in line with the challenge of staying within 1.5°C or at least 2°C global warming, nor with the challenges of adapting to climate change and responding to loss and damage. More positively, discussions in Belém increasingly engaged with sectoral transition questions, such as on energy and forestry, which are necessary to achieve the comparatively abstract emission targets linked to the temperature goal of the Paris Agreement that had been the focal point of negotiations so far, though still only in general terms. Future conferences as well as processes beyond the UNFCCC should continue on this trajectory.