Tense talks at COP30 last week saw negotiators squabble into Friday night (and then into Saturday morning) with a compromise — and final agreement — coming only as sunrise broke.
In the end, 194 countries called for a tripling of climate-adaptation finance by 2035 and agreed that the transition towards low emissions and climate-resilient development is “irreversible and the trend of the future.” Many delegates, however, were disappointed with the lack of a roadmap to phase out fossil fuels.
The at-times “chaotic and contentious” conference, held in Belém, Brazil, also produced the Global Implementation Accelerator and the Belém Mission to 1.5 C. Both initiatives are designed to help countries implement their national plans for climate action and adaptation.
True to the word of Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, Canada and China found time to work together at COP30, with both endorsing a Brazil-led “Declaration on the Open Coalition on Compliance Carbon Markets” to strengthen co-operation on regulated carbon markets worldwide, including through exchanges on carbon-pricing mechanisms and carbon-accounting methodologies.
Seventeen countries, including Singapore and New Zealand, are coalition members.
In this month’s federal budget, Ottawa pledged to improve the effectiveness of Canada’s industrial carbon pricing by setting a “multi-decade industrial carbon price trajectory” in concert with provincial and territorial governments.
