World secures compromise deal at COP30 that sidesteps fossil fuels

World governments agreed on Saturday to a compromise climate deal at the COP30 conference in Brazil that would boost finance for poor nations coping with global warming but omit any mention of the fossil fuels driving it.

In securing the accord, countries attempted to demonstrate global unity in addressing climate change impacts even after world’s biggest historic emitter, the United States, declined to send an official delegation.

“We should support it because at least it is going in the right direction,” the European Union’s climate commissioner, Wopke Hoekstra, told reporters before the deal was gaveled through.

The Belem deal launches a voluntary initiative to speed up climate action to help nations meet their existing pledges to reduce emissions, and calls for rich nations to at least triple the amount of money they provide to help developing countries adapt to a warming world by 2035.

Scientists have said existing national commitments to cut emissions have cut projected warming significantly, but are not enough to keep world temperatures from breaching 1.5C above industrial levels, a threshold that could unleash the worst impacts of climate change.

Developing countries have argued in the meantime that they urgently need funds to adapt to impacts that are already hitting, like rising sea levels and worsening heat waves, droughts, floods, and storms.

Saturday’s agreement also launches a process for climate bodies to review how to align international trade with climate action, according to the deal text, amid concerns that rising trade barriers are limiting the adoption of clean technology.

Avinash Persaud, Special Advisor to the President of the Inter-American Development Bank, a multilateral lender focused on Latin America and the Carribean, said the accord’s focus on finance was important as climate impacts mount.

“But I fear the world still fell short on more rapid-release grants for developing countries responding to loss and damage. That goal is as urgent as it is hard,” he said.

The European Union had been pressing for language in the official deal on the move away from fossil fuels, but had come up against stiff resistance from the Arab Group of nations including top oil exporter Saudi Arabia.

That impasse was resolved after all-night negotiations Friday led to an agreement that the issue could be left out of the accord and included in a side text put forward by COP30 host Brazil.