New year for global climate action: Road to Belém in 2025

Closing plenary of COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan – Pic credit: UNFCCC Secretariat

The year 2025 lies ahead, and addressing climate change is high on the list of priorities for countries across the world as well as the global community at large. The 29th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP29) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) ended in the early morning hours of 24 November 2024; the 30th session (COP30) will convene on 10 November 2025. In between these sessions, much work remains to be done to advance climate action at the national and international level, including on a range of topics that include climate finance, the Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA), a new round of national commitments, and many more.

Key outcomes of COP29

For many participants and observers, COP29 fell short of expectations. However, the conference still produced several decisions that lay out a roadmap for 2025 and beyond, while other agenda items were postponed until June or November 2025.

Arguably the most important decision out of COP29 was the last-minute agreement on a new collective quantified goal on climate finance (NCQG), which sets a goal of “at least USD 300 billion per year by 2035 for developing country Parties for climate action” and calls on all actors “to work together to enable the scaling up of financing to developing country Parties for climate action from all public and private sources to at least USD 1.3 trillion per year by 2035.” The decision text on the NCQG also highlights the importance of reforming the multilateral financial architecture as well as the need to remove barriers faced by developing countries, such as Sri Lanka, for financing their climate action. For example, these barriers could include high costs of capital, limited fiscal space, unsustainable debt levels, high transaction costs, and conditionalities for accessing climate finance.

In the same decision, Parties at COP29 launched the “Baku to Belém Roadmap to 1.3T,” which aims to scale up climate finance in line with the ambitions outlined above—through grants, concessional and non-debt-creating instruments, or measures to create fiscal space—throughout the year and until COP30.

Other agenda items which made progress include the Global Goal on Adaptation, which will see further technical and political work through 2025 to adopt a set of indicators at COP30; loss and damage, which has seen pledges for the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage; and Article 6, where the framework for carbon trading has been further operationalised.

Milestones in 2025

In between now and COP30, there are many other milestone events, workshops, gatherings, and activities that aim to advance climate action across the different workstreams and agenda items. This includes the negotiations at the Bonn Climate Change Conference (SB62) in June; several high-level summits and ministerial meetings (for example, the Copenhagen Climate Ministerial or the Petersberg Climate Dialogue); other relevant events across the United Nations system (such as the 80th session of the United Nations General Assembly); and a range of regional gatherings, mandated workshops, and the meetings of technical bodies.

Both developed and developing countries are scheduled to submit their new Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) in February 2025, informed by the outcomes of the first Global Stocktake which concluded in 2023. For most countries, this is the third iteration of their NDCs after the initial round in 2015/2015 and a second one in 2020. Although the NDCs offer all countries a much-needed opportunity to scale up ambition, developing countries will depend on the provision of finance and other means of implementation to make stronger commitments.

Expectations for COP30

COP30 will take place in Belém, the capital and largest city of the Brazilian state of Pará, which is considered the gateway to the Amazon. Tens of thousands of participants, including many heads of states and ministers, are expected to attend the conference over two weeks in November, and logistical preparations are ongoing. While the new finance goal is decided, much work is left to be done towards operationalising it; and there are other agenda items as well that will be at the centre of attention.

On climate finance, the current goals of providing $ 100 billion per year and doubling adaptation finance will come to an end. The COP29 decision on the NCQG outlines a way forward, but developed countries will need to scale up provision of finance to allow for ambitious action, while developing countries need to access and utilise funds in effective and inclusive ways. Furthermore, the global community must work together to reform the international financial architecture in a way to ensure that it is fit for purpose and reflects the needs and priorities of all countries.

The Global Goal on Adaptation will be a critical part of the COP30 agenda, as Parties must define a set of indicators for the seven thematic and four dimensional global adaptation targets. These indicators aim to boost adaptation action across the world and track success across different sectors and dimensions, ultimately building long-term resilience in a holistic way that allows for green growth and sustainable development pathways.

The multilateral process is only a piece of the complex puzzle of climate action, but it is an important one. COP30 might be a year away, but work must start now to ensure successful outcomes. In addition, action at the national and regional level is vital to convert decisions and global frameworks into actual implementation that reaches the ground and addresses the needs of vulnerable communities, sectors, and countries.

(The writer works as Director: Research & Knowledge Management at SLYCAN Trust, a non-profit think tank based in Sri Lanka. His work focuses on climate change, adaptation, resilience, ecosystem conservation, just transition, human mobility, and a range of related issues. He holds a Master’s degree in Education from the University of Cologne, Germany and is a regular contributor to several international and local media outlets.)