Climate agreement at COP30 is criticized for being too unambitious on all fronts

Saturday’s agreement at the COP30 climate summit falls far short of providing sufficient answers on either greenhouse gas emissions or the protection of the world’s poorest countries from climate change.

That is the view of several NGOs.

“Yet another COP ends as a weak cup of tea,” says John Nordbo, climate adviser at CARE.

He points out that the final agreement text does not commit the world to progress toward the necessary phase-out of fossil fuels.

Nor does it provide any guarantees that the world’s rich countries will deliver the financing that poor countries urgently need to withstand the impacts of climate change.

Instead, the world’s wealthy nations are urged to triple their support for climate adaptation.

“That leaves a major gap in the global climate effort,” he says.

At ActionAid Denmark, the agreement is also met with raised eyebrows.

The organization calls it a “huge disappointment” that the climate summit ends without an agreement on a roadmap for phasing out fossil fuels.

“In a situation where we desperately need leadership to deal with the escalating climate crisis, it is deeply troubling that the world’s leaders are unable to rise to the challenge,” says senior adviser Katrine Ehnhuus from ActionAid Denmark.

If you ask DanChurchAid, however, there are also positive elements in the agreement.

Climate adviser Mattias Söderberg highlights that the target for climate adaptation funding has at least been increased, calling it a “breakthrough.”

“Now rich countries must show that they mean it seriously and actually increase their support for adaptation,” he says.

At the COP28 climate summit in Dubai, the international community agreed to triple renewable energy, double energy efficiency, and transition societies away from fossil fuels.

But while the EU had hoped for a clear roadmap for implementing this, the Confederation of Danish Industry is now disappointed that there is “no effective follow-up” on the goals.

“It is a disappointment, and it puts the Paris Agreement at risk at a time when we need more than ever to succeed. At best, we are standing still — at worst, it is a step backwards,” says climate director Anne Høyer Simonsen.

Brazilian President Lula had framed the climate summit as a “forest COP,” intended to show a path toward halting deforestation of major rainforests and forest areas that function as carbon sinks.

But it has not resulted in the kind of agreement on that front that several NGOs had hoped for.

“It seems paradoxical that the whole world met in the rainforest, when COP30 still failed to translate the discussions on deforestation and agriculture into concrete decisions,” says policy adviser Mette Susgaard from the Danish Animal Protection Society.

The organization Forests of the World is likewise dissatisfied.

“For me, COP30 is a huge anticlimax. It was supposed to be the big forest COP, and here on the edge of the Amazon, Lula had created massive expectations. That is why the disappointment is so great,” says policy adviser Pil Christensen.