COP30 this year took place from November 10th to 21st in Belém, Brazil, in the heart of the Amazon rainforest. The year 2025 also marks 10 years of the Paris Agreement, which was adopted the 12 December 2015 during the United Nations’ Climate Change Conference in Paris (COP21) hosted by former socialist French President François Hollande. In this context, there were very high expectations for the COP to deliver on pressing climate issues including phasing out fossil fuels, climate finance, climate adaptation, and deforestation.
The PES welcomes the commitment and recommendation to at least triple international climate finance for climate adaptation by 2035. In addition, we celebrate the agreement reached on a just transition mechanism, the Belém Action Mechanism (BAM) for a Just Transition, which was spearheaded by civil society and ensures that workers, women, indigenous people, and human rights being put at the centre of the green transition and climate action, and the decision of Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in recognising 10 new indigenous lands during the COP. However, regrettably, this year’s outcome lacks progress on both climate mitigation and nature preservation as the signatories failed to deliver roadmaps to phase out fossil fuels and to end deforestation.
PES President Stefan Löfven stated:
“COP30 took place on the first year where the global temperature was recorded at 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels and marks the first climate conference without an official US delegation. One thing is clear; the global temperature is on the rise and climate change needs multilateralism at the heart of global decisions. COP30 aimed to outline the implementation of past COP agreements, yet, regrettably, its outcomes have achieved little progress on creating roadmaps and targets for phasing out fossil fuels, and on ending deforestation, an issue very close to the concerns of the host country. Every year, we see more and more data, science, and reports showing that our planet is warming up at an unprecedented rate, with 2024 being the warmest year on record. We need to listen to science, not lobbyists. Climate change is an existential crisis and urgent action is needed to protect people and nature. We need collective action and to speak with one voice in the strategic interests of shifting away from fossil fuels to clean, renewable energy to lower energy bills, make our industries competitive, reduce pollution worldwide, and save our people and planet. We should not be listening to the voices of fossil fuel lobbyists who resist this change for profit and profit only. It has been 10 years since the Paris Agreement, and environmental disasters and extreme weather events continue and worsen every year. Time is ticking. Our planet cannot wait; we need to meet our climate targets now.”
This year’s COP30 brought together a sizeable participation of civil society actors and 2,500 Indigenous people.
The S&D Group was on site amplifying the European Parliament’s clear mandate to shift away from fossil fuels; however, they were faced with a coalition of oil states and others, including Saudi Arabia, Russia, and India, that resisted this action; leading to a weaker outcome.
The PES supports the work of the European Union delegation at the COP30, in particular of S&D Vice-President Mohammed Chahim, for pushing for a roadmap to phase out fossil fuels until the last minute with the support of Brazil, Chile, the UK, and others. Unfortunately, this roadmap does not feature in the final Belém Political Package text, instead it calls for voluntary action from countries to reach the agreement at COP28 to transition away from fossil fuels.
The outcomes of COP30 also fail to acknowledge the widening ambition gaps for the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), the climate action plans submitted by countries under the Paris Agreement to reduce national emissions. The EU’s NDC missed the deadline twice, does not have a timeline to phase out fossil fuels, and the 2035 target is insufficient to meet the 1.5˚C target.
We also share gratitude to the rest of the S&D delegation, MEPs Annalisa Corrado and Heléne Fritzon, for pushing for stronger climate ambition on mitigation and greenhouse gas emissions reduction at the COP.
