When more than 50,000 world leaders, scientists, experts and activists arrive in Brazil this November for the world’s top global climate summit, they will gather in Belém, a city that sits at the mouth of the Amazon River and at the crossroads of the planet’s future.
The 30th UN Climate Conference, COP30, held from 10 to 21 November, will test whether the world can turn promises into progress. With the event taking place five years before the deadline for the achievement of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Brazil has promoted it as “the COP of implementation”, trying its best to turn ambition into delivery.
To lead by example, the country has reduced deforestation, proposed a new Nationally Determined Contribution aiming for a 59%–67% reduction in emissions by 2035, and continues to explore the technical potential for up to a 90% reduction.
Five critical points to watch at COP30:
#1 Climate finance: Turning promises into power
While previous COPs were about financial commitments, COP30 is expected to be about cash flow.
When the Paris Agreement pledged US$100 billion per year for developing countries back in 2015, this goal was seen as ambitious. A decade later, that target appears almost symbolic. Estimates place the real requirement at around US$1.3 trillion annually, and the current pledges cover just a tiny fraction of that.
For Brazil and other emerging economies, finance is what allows them to replace energy systems that cause pollution with renewable options, strengthen infrastructure to cope with floods and droughts, and compensate those communities already hit by irreversible losses and damage. Without a robust financial backbone, the Paris Agreement remains a set of promises without mechanisms for delivery.
This is why COP30 in Belém is expected to be the “finance COP” and push for a new financial architecture.
Brazil has been advocating for the reform of the governance of multilateral institutions, such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, to expand lending to cover adaptation and low-carbon transition. Another approach is the creation of financial platforms that directly connect local climate projects in developing nations with global investors, cutting bureaucracy and ensuring resources reach the communities needing them the most.
The success of COP30 may well hinge on this question: can the world finally turn climate finance from a promise on paper into a working system that delivers justice and results on the ground?
#2 A fund of billions for forest nations
Brazil has been preparing one of the headline announcements for COP30: the launch of the Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF), a financing mechanism designed to reward countries that successfully curb deforestation while maintaining their tropical forests.
The TFFF aims to raise over US$100 billion by combining public and private resources. As this article was being written, Brazil officially launched the mechanism at a summit of heads of state and managed to ensure commitments worth US$5.5 billion. If successful, the initiative could redefine climate finance by linking it directly to forest stewardship rather than emissions alone. The funds will be directed to projects that deliver measurable conservation outcomes while generating economic returns by investing in renewable energy, sustainable agriculture, forest restoration, and bioeconomy ventures that benefit local communities.
#3 Measuring climate adaptation: From rhetoric to results
Across the world, the impacts of climate change are no longer distant possibilities. Cities are being flooded, crops are failing, and heatwaves are testing infrastructure and public health systems. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 3 billion people live in areas that are considered to be highly vulnerable to climate impacts with this number expected to rise as global temperatures inch closer to the 1.5°C threshold.
For decades, climate action has meant cutting emissions. Now, adapting to a warmer planet has become just as urgent. To track the progress of adaptation, negotiators in Belém are expected to finalize up to 100 global indicators under the UAE–Belém Work Programme. This framework is intended to allow countries to track resilience and access adaptation finance more easily.
These indicators will cover three major areas:
- National-level resilience, such as flood preparedness, food security, and health infrastructure.
- Thematic progress, including biodiversity, water management, and disaster risk reduction.
- Means of implementation, focusing on access to finance, technology transfer, and capacity building.
However, experts warn that defining global indicators for such diverse contexts will be a monumental task. A heatwave in Mumbai is not the same as a drought in the Sahel or flooding in Pará. Yet, by turning resilience into data, COP30 may well lay the foundation for a new era of accountability in climate adaptation – one where progress can finally be measured, compared, and, crucially, funded.
#4 The green economy and the challenge of a just transition
If climate finance is the fuel of change, a just transition is its moral compass. Belem will host intense debates on how to decarbonize economies without leaving workers, regions, and communities behind. For many countries, millions of jobs depend on carbon-intensive industries. The transition must bring training, protection, and opportunity, rather than disproportionately affect those least responsible for the crisis, experts note.
Brazil’s leadership gives this issue global weight. Long a pioneer in bioeconomy and renewable energy, it now wants the Amazon to become a laboratory for green growth – a place where environmental ambition meets social justice – to ensure that climate action also delivers prosperity and dignity.
If COP30 succeeds, it could transform just transition from a slogan into a structured policy agenda that puts people first.
#5 Oil and the paradox of growth
Few tensions define the climate debate as starkly as this one: how to continue to drill for oil while trying to save the planet.
The International Energy Agency has been clear since 2021: no new fossil fuel projects are compatible with the goal of limiting warming to 1.5°C, yet global production continues to rise.
In Brazil, this tension is embodied in the government’s environmental discourse versus its energy ambitions. While the country celebrates falling deforestation rates, the state-run oil company Petrobras is pushing to explore new deepwater oil fields in the Foz do Amazonas Basin. Environmental authorities have blocked permits, but pressure is building in the name of jobs and “energy sovereignty”.
This mirrors a global paradox. From Saudi Arabia to the U.S. and Norway, nations continue drilling while pledging net-zero emissions. COP30, set in the heart of the Amazon, will thus be a symbolic stage for this contradiction. The conference may force leaders to confront a central question: can nations truly lead on climate while expanding fossil fuel production?
If Belém is to be remembered as the “COP of implementation”, it will need to demonstrate that climate ambition can stand up to political and economic pressure even when oil money is on the table.
