Brazil, hosts of the 2025 annual UN climate conference (COP30), is attempting to pivot the focus away from negotiations to implementation. Ten years after the Paris Agreement, the rule book finally complete, shifting the focus to implementing the agreement and decisions is logical. Brazil’s move is shaped by two other equally important factors—the need to demonstrate multilateralism works and delivers and that negotiating agenda it must deliver on as COP30 presidency has no big-ticket items.
“There is less of big flashy negotiation topics. But that’s a good thing and should not been seen as a problem because we are in a different phase,” said Ana Toni, COP30 CEO. The “hardest is the detail of implementation that is the phase we are in now”.
As COP30 presidency, Brazil has been in listening mode travelling to capitals since the beginning of the year, meeting governments and other stakeholders. Listening is what they have been doing at Bonn during the subsidiary bodies meetings as well. Ana Toni described her week in Bonn as “very intense” but one she and the incoming presidency team appreciates “because we had the chance to sit with each of the groups and understand their expectation for COP30.” Implementation is the demand: “What all the constituencies have been asking is to accelerate implementation. Even in the issues being negotiated, countries are getting into the details of implementation. We need to start this new decade of accelerated implementation,” reiterated Ana Toni,
Brazil’s focus on implementation is underpinned by its effort to demonstrate that multilateralism remains relevant and delivers. Thus, the absence of “a big flashy negotiation topic” does not in Brazil’s view minimize the importance of this year’s mandate. “We don’t have a star, but it is important because if you get decisions across the mandates, it shows that the climate regime works for the countries. This is an opportunity to strengthen the multilateral regime by showing capacity to agree,” said Brazil’s chief negotiator Liliam Chagas. Demonstrating that the multilateral process delivers and enables all countries to individually and collectively act to tackle climate change takes on added urgency given the counternarrative being pushed by the current US administration.
This determination to demonstrate that multilateralism works underpins COP30 president designate Andre Correa do Lago’s third letter with its call on negotiators to progress work in Bonn and not leave it all for Belem and an explicit request not to bring new issues for inclusion in the intersessional meetings’ agenda. Yet, some of Brazil’s negotiating partners from the BASIC and BRICS opted to introduce to new agenda items—on the obligations of developed countries to provide public funds for developing countries to undertake climate action and unilateral trade measures such as CBAM. Issues that Brazil has raised in the past and more recently at the BRICS, which it also chairs this year. Chagas talks about the “the web of negotiating groups” and the five outcomes of the recently concluded BRICS climate meeting, indicating an understanding of the importance of these issues for developing countries including Brazil. But “the UNFCCC is another ball game,” said Brazil’s chief negotiator, “this is the largest UN multilateral negotiations with more than 190 parties. It's a different forum, different dynamic”.
For Brazil, it all leads to implementation. Demonstrating that 190-odd countries can work together for a common good like tackling climate change and their decisions at this multilateral forum have resonance and meaning in the lives of people.
It appears that Brazil is taking a risky bet. Two key elements of the Paris Agreement—ambition and finance—will be in the spotlight in Belem. Countries are supposed to submit their nationally determined contributions (NDCs) or national climate targets for 2035. There are concerns about climate finance given current geopolitical situation, the economic impacts and geoeconomic fragmentation as well as the demands of domestic politics in many countries as well as the climate finance outcome in Baku. If interventions in the meetings in Bonn are an indication, for many developing countries lack of certainty on support particularly finance inhibits delivering higher targets for ambitious NDCs. That major economies like the EU, China, and India have yet to submit their NDCs suggests that collectively the targets for 2035 will be less than required to restrict temperature rise to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.
Neither the NDCs nor the $1.3 trillion roadmap is part of the negotiation but if less than adequate could throw a spanner in Brazil’s efforts. “It is not just Brazil’s problem, it is all our problem,” said Ana Toni stressing on the collective nature of the fight to tackle climate change. But the COP30 CEO acknowledges that as presidency, Brazil has an important role. “Our role as chair is to create the environment so that we can advance. Brazil is doing as much as possible. President Lula is himself involved in this at the highest level of diplomacy. We are all doing our bit, and as chair we are very concerned, but is collective responsibility.”
Recognising that implementation at the required speed will not be possible without finance, Brazil embarked on an innovation drawing on their experience as G20 presidency in 2024—the circle of finance ministers. A group with representation from 36 countries created by the Brazilian presidency to get advice. “Many of the finance decisions are taken outside of the UNFCCC, that is why, for Brazil, it is so important to bring finance ministers and central banks to the table, otherwise we are not going to move a needle just among us. This innovation is that is to bring the people that have the right pen to the table,” explained Ana Toni. The advice of the circle of finance ministers will feed into the Baku to Belem roadmap for the $1.3 trillion. The task of preparing the roadmap was entrusted to the COP 29 Azerbaijan and COP 30 Brazil presidencies. Though not a negotiated roadmap, the two presidencies have for inclusivity and relevance held consultations with countries and other stakeholders. “The level of detail that we saw it coming from the 116 submissions and the debate in the consultation in Bonn is really incredible,” said Ana Toni.
Even as the Brazilian incoming presidency engages through bilateral meetings and other engagements, it points to the progress made in the ten years since Paris. “It is not a glass half empty”, said Chagas. “We don’t know what will emerge from the NDC synthesis report, there is a possibility that it is not globally aligned with the 1.5C temperature target. However, ten years after the Paris Agreement, climate action is global. The quality of NDCs is much better, every country, particularly major economies have their emission reduction targets in place. We are in a much better place in 2025 than we would have been without the Paris Agreement.”
As someone who has been part of the civil society efforts, Ana Toni argues that environmental and climate movement must consider the climate action that have been taken in the decade since Paris particularly in countries like Brazil, India, China. “We are moving fast but unfortunately; our biggest enemy is time. we need to move faster”.
Brazil hopes its innovation to revamp the climate action agenda and draw explicit connections with the outcomes of the global stock take will give implementation the much-needed speed and direction.
Over the last ten years, the climate action agenda that brings in efforts by stakeholders, who are not in the negotiating rooms but are directly involved in implementation, has grown exponentially. There are now more than 400 plans, pledges, and programmes, with each COP presidency bringing in new participants. In an innovation that can help harness these efforts for faster and better implementation Brazil has reimagined the action agenda as the implementing instrument of the agreed outcomes of the global stock take in Dubai.
“The structure of using the globe stock take as something that brings us together, that we all need to deliver, has been very well received,” said Ana Toni. Brazil is working with stakeholders on the five-year plans for the action agenda to create a structure that will last beyond the Belem COP. “What Brazil has done is to focus the action agenda on implementation of the GST and invite all corners of the world to bring solutions rather than bringing new plans and pledges. We hope this new idea will last,” said Chagas.
Even as Brazil navigates the tricky and difficult task of accelerating implementation while demonstrating the power of multilateralism, it must deal with another, in some ways more immediate challenge: concerns about Belem’s capacity to host an event like the UN climate conference. “We are talking about an issue that will only work if we bring people to the centre of that discussion. Belem, a city in the Amazon, is where we have the most vulnerable people, and yes, it is a city that has problems. But 90% of the cities in our countries have problems. If we want to succeed in fighting climate change, we need to relate to these realities, and to bring these people with us. I think that is the message President Lula wanted to give in choosing Belem to host the COP,” said Ana Toni.
“There is less of big flashy negotiation topics. But that’s a good thing and should not been seen as a problem because we are in a different phase,” said Ana Toni, COP30 CEO. The “hardest is the detail of implementation that is the phase we are in now”.
As COP30 presidency, Brazil has been in listening mode travelling to capitals since the beginning of the year, meeting governments and other stakeholders. Listening is what they have been doing at Bonn during the subsidiary bodies meetings as well. Ana Toni described her week in Bonn as “very intense” but one she and the incoming presidency team appreciates “because we had the chance to sit with each of the groups and understand their expectation for COP30.” Implementation is the demand: “What all the constituencies have been asking is to accelerate implementation. Even in the issues being negotiated, countries are getting into the details of implementation. We need to start this new decade of accelerated implementation,” reiterated Ana Toni,
Brazil’s focus on implementation is underpinned by its effort to demonstrate that multilateralism remains relevant and delivers. Thus, the absence of “a big flashy negotiation topic” does not in Brazil’s view minimize the importance of this year’s mandate. “We don’t have a star, but it is important because if you get decisions across the mandates, it shows that the climate regime works for the countries. This is an opportunity to strengthen the multilateral regime by showing capacity to agree,” said Brazil’s chief negotiator Liliam Chagas. Demonstrating that the multilateral process delivers and enables all countries to individually and collectively act to tackle climate change takes on added urgency given the counternarrative being pushed by the current US administration.
This determination to demonstrate that multilateralism works underpins COP30 president designate Andre Correa do Lago’s third letter with its call on negotiators to progress work in Bonn and not leave it all for Belem and an explicit request not to bring new issues for inclusion in the intersessional meetings’ agenda. Yet, some of Brazil’s negotiating partners from the BASIC and BRICS opted to introduce to new agenda items—on the obligations of developed countries to provide public funds for developing countries to undertake climate action and unilateral trade measures such as CBAM. Issues that Brazil has raised in the past and more recently at the BRICS, which it also chairs this year. Chagas talks about the “the web of negotiating groups” and the five outcomes of the recently concluded BRICS climate meeting, indicating an understanding of the importance of these issues for developing countries including Brazil. But “the UNFCCC is another ball game,” said Brazil’s chief negotiator, “this is the largest UN multilateral negotiations with more than 190 parties. It's a different forum, different dynamic”.
For Brazil, it all leads to implementation. Demonstrating that 190-odd countries can work together for a common good like tackling climate change and their decisions at this multilateral forum have resonance and meaning in the lives of people.
It appears that Brazil is taking a risky bet. Two key elements of the Paris Agreement—ambition and finance—will be in the spotlight in Belem. Countries are supposed to submit their nationally determined contributions (NDCs) or national climate targets for 2035. There are concerns about climate finance given current geopolitical situation, the economic impacts and geoeconomic fragmentation as well as the demands of domestic politics in many countries as well as the climate finance outcome in Baku. If interventions in the meetings in Bonn are an indication, for many developing countries lack of certainty on support particularly finance inhibits delivering higher targets for ambitious NDCs. That major economies like the EU, China, and India have yet to submit their NDCs suggests that collectively the targets for 2035 will be less than required to restrict temperature rise to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.
Neither the NDCs nor the $1.3 trillion roadmap is part of the negotiation but if less than adequate could throw a spanner in Brazil’s efforts. “It is not just Brazil’s problem, it is all our problem,” said Ana Toni stressing on the collective nature of the fight to tackle climate change. But the COP30 CEO acknowledges that as presidency, Brazil has an important role. “Our role as chair is to create the environment so that we can advance. Brazil is doing as much as possible. President Lula is himself involved in this at the highest level of diplomacy. We are all doing our bit, and as chair we are very concerned, but is collective responsibility.”
Recognising that implementation at the required speed will not be possible without finance, Brazil embarked on an innovation drawing on their experience as G20 presidency in 2024—the circle of finance ministers. A group with representation from 36 countries created by the Brazilian presidency to get advice. “Many of the finance decisions are taken outside of the UNFCCC, that is why, for Brazil, it is so important to bring finance ministers and central banks to the table, otherwise we are not going to move a needle just among us. This innovation is that is to bring the people that have the right pen to the table,” explained Ana Toni. The advice of the circle of finance ministers will feed into the Baku to Belem roadmap for the $1.3 trillion. The task of preparing the roadmap was entrusted to the COP 29 Azerbaijan and COP 30 Brazil presidencies. Though not a negotiated roadmap, the two presidencies have for inclusivity and relevance held consultations with countries and other stakeholders. “The level of detail that we saw it coming from the 116 submissions and the debate in the consultation in Bonn is really incredible,” said Ana Toni.
Even as the Brazilian incoming presidency engages through bilateral meetings and other engagements, it points to the progress made in the ten years since Paris. “It is not a glass half empty”, said Chagas. “We don’t know what will emerge from the NDC synthesis report, there is a possibility that it is not globally aligned with the 1.5C temperature target. However, ten years after the Paris Agreement, climate action is global. The quality of NDCs is much better, every country, particularly major economies have their emission reduction targets in place. We are in a much better place in 2025 than we would have been without the Paris Agreement.”
As someone who has been part of the civil society efforts, Ana Toni argues that environmental and climate movement must consider the climate action that have been taken in the decade since Paris particularly in countries like Brazil, India, China. “We are moving fast but unfortunately; our biggest enemy is time. we need to move faster”.
Brazil hopes its innovation to revamp the climate action agenda and draw explicit connections with the outcomes of the global stock take will give implementation the much-needed speed and direction.
Over the last ten years, the climate action agenda that brings in efforts by stakeholders, who are not in the negotiating rooms but are directly involved in implementation, has grown exponentially. There are now more than 400 plans, pledges, and programmes, with each COP presidency bringing in new participants. In an innovation that can help harness these efforts for faster and better implementation Brazil has reimagined the action agenda as the implementing instrument of the agreed outcomes of the global stock take in Dubai.
“The structure of using the globe stock take as something that brings us together, that we all need to deliver, has been very well received,” said Ana Toni. Brazil is working with stakeholders on the five-year plans for the action agenda to create a structure that will last beyond the Belem COP. “What Brazil has done is to focus the action agenda on implementation of the GST and invite all corners of the world to bring solutions rather than bringing new plans and pledges. We hope this new idea will last,” said Chagas.
Even as Brazil navigates the tricky and difficult task of accelerating implementation while demonstrating the power of multilateralism, it must deal with another, in some ways more immediate challenge: concerns about Belem’s capacity to host an event like the UN climate conference. “We are talking about an issue that will only work if we bring people to the centre of that discussion. Belem, a city in the Amazon, is where we have the most vulnerable people, and yes, it is a city that has problems. But 90% of the cities in our countries have problems. If we want to succeed in fighting climate change, we need to relate to these realities, and to bring these people with us. I think that is the message President Lula wanted to give in choosing Belem to host the COP,” said Ana Toni.
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