Briefing for UN Climate Change Conference, SB62 

A new normal has been established which impacts our fight against climate change, where the ability of global systems to maintain order is being eroded, and insecurity is deeply embedded in human life While global temperatures, weather extremes and other climate impacts continually reach new alarming levels, threatening health, livelihoods, ecosystems, economies and security, equally alarming has been the dissonance displayed by governments, especially in developed economies, through their abject lack of political will for ambitious, progressive and collaborative climate action that responds to the urgency of the climate crisis.

Shifting geopolitical grounds are making collaborative climate acting more challenging by the day. While the genocide in Palestine crushes the public conscience, wars and territorial conflicts in several other regions of the world continue to stoke insecurity and fear. Meanwhile, the rapid and dangerous digital transformations that are underway have unleashed a wave of insecurity with serious potential implications on fundamental rights and freedoms. As if things were uncertain enough, this year has also seen a new and extreme level of political weaponisation of the global economy and trade by the new administration at the helm of the US.

As geopolitics worsen and the global economy continues to teeter, the implications are being felt across multilateral spaces, including the UNFCCC. The strain of the rapidly degrading sense of cooperation among countries threatens faith in the legitimacy of multilateralism and the institutions that uphold it.

Needless to say, the task at hand for the Brazilian Presidency of COP30 is a difficult one.. The Presidency in its public letters has recognised these challenges and identified priorities that it sees are vital for a successful COP in Belem. Although the Presidency has articulated and outlined its vision of ambition, experience tells us that this alone will not be enough. The Presidency will have to drive a political follow through that recognises and reflects justice as the key parameter to guide climate action across processes and especially in the establishment of an implementation mechanism for Just Transition. 

Secondly, the Presidency has also rightly identified the need for reform in the UNFCCC and COP processes that re-establishes the spirit of negotiated outcomes and faith in multilateralism for climate action. This cannot be an ad hoc or provisional measure, but must be an effort that leads to sustained improvement in the transparency, accountability, decision-making, participation and civic space at COPs and other UNFCCC events. 

The road to COP30 is unlikely to be a straightforward one. Success at COP30 will depend on many factors, but most importantly on the clarity, precision and nimbleness of the Presidency. In this regard, SB62 is a pivotal moment on the road to Belem to deliver clear signals and discernible progress across several workstreams and negotiation rooms.

Centering Justice in Just Transition

• The establishment of the Belem Action Mechanism (BAM): A UNFCCC-hosted action oriented framework to advance Just Transition across the whole economy within and between countries, through international cooperation based on the principles of equity and Common But Differentiated Responsibilities and Respective Capacities (CBDR-RC).
• Guiding Principles: National Just Transition plans must align with the Paris Agreement, uphold human rights (including Indigenous and labor rights), and ensure inclusive participation. Policies should prioritize sufficiency, circular economies, wellbeing, and avoid green extractivism.
• Equity & Prosperity: Plans must reduce inequalities through decent work, universal social protection, gender-responsive care economies, and quality public services.
• International Cooperation: Debt-free climate finance, fair trade, and technology access are vital to support developing countries in diversifying economies and building resilience.
• Future Focus: COP30 should prioritize fossil fuel phase-out, food systems transformation, ecosystem protection and restoration, renewable energy equity, fair supply chains in transition minerals, and industrial/transport alignment with climate goals.

Delivering Justice for Climate-impacted Communities

• Full operationalisation of Global Goal on adaptation with fit for purpose indicators – Refining the indicators for the Global Goal on Adaptation while retaining Means of Implementation (MoI) indicators, ensuring they reflect grant-based, accessible finance and differentiated responsibilities.
• New Adaptation public Finance Target: Establishing a public grant-based target on adaptation that to replace the doubling commitment and identify a pathway to scaling up the provision and mobilisation of adaptation finance under the Baku to Belem roadmap. 
• National Adaptation Plans (NAPs): Urging timely submissions of updated and/or new NAPs by 2025 and implementation by 2030, backed by accessible public finance.
• Make progress on Baku Adaptation Roadmap: Strengthening implementation pathways, linking to the NCQG, and ensuring coherence across UNFCCC mechanisms.
• SB62 must deliver a clear, justice-centered roadmap to ensure adaptation is prioritized at COP30
• Parties must urgently ensure resources at the scale of needs for addressing loss and damage, and continue to build a coherent loss and damage landscape
• At SB62, parties should work on a draft text and a process to establish a permanent agenda item on Loss and Damage as well as inform the FRLD’s Board to ensure an urgent and rights-based operationalization of the Fund 

Economic and Financial Justice

• The Sharm el-Sheikh Dialogue on Article 2.1c must:
  • Set time-bound targets to shift finance from fossil fuels, ending developed countries’ support by 2025.
  • Address debt distress, linking climate finance to UN debt reforms.
  • Tax big polluters (fossil fuels, aviation, wealth) under a UN tax convention.

• The Baku to Bélem Roadmap should:
  • Prioritize public grants.
  • Ensure developed countries lead in funding, without shifting burdens to developing countries.
  • Balance mitigation and adaptation and loss and damage finance, with clear milestones.
  • Support the reform of global financial systems (debt, tax, governance ) to enable just and equitable climate action.
  • Protect and expand developing countries’ as well as Indigenous Peoples’, local communities’ and other most affected groups’ direct access to public finance through dedicated and simplified channels.
  • Exclude fossil fuels, dangerous distractions and non-1.5°C-aligned projects from climate finance definitions.
  • Avoid creative accounting, uphold equity, and serve as a pathway to enforce the polluter pays principle and make the fossil fuel industry and other big polluters pay to unlock sufficient public finance – particularly to deliver on developed countries’ climate finance obligations.

Global Stocktake

• The UAE Dialogue must accelerate implementation of the first Global stocktake (GST1), addressing gaps in mitigation, adaptation, and finance, with annual CMA follow-ups. 
• The Annual NDC-GST Dialogue needs reform—prioritizing frontline voices and assessing NDC 3.0 ambition ahead of September deadlines. 
• CAN calls for decisive SB62 outcomes: structured GST2 planning, actionable UAE Dialogue frameworks, and meaningful NDC reviews to ensure COP30 delivers on climate justice and 1.5°C alignment.

Ambition, NDCs and Transparency

• All NDCs must be submitted by September in time for consideration in the UNFCCC NDC Synthesis Report.
• NDCs must implement the outcomes of GST1 and be aligned to climate justice and emission trajectories for the 1.5°C goal avoiding outsourcing of mitigation through offsets.
• At SB62, CAN calls for a clear commitment to hold discussions at COP30 aimed at responding to the findings of the NDC synthesis report and meaningful Mitigation Work Program (MWP) progress through reflecting the discussions of the MWP Global Dialogues 2025. 
• The MWP must prioritize upholding human rights, including indigenous rights, forest protection and integrity, and human health, and reject false solutions like carbon markets and most bioenergy and removals that perpetuate the fossil fuel industry. Parties must engage constructively, addressing consumption drivers and leveraging digital platforms to accelerate climate action ahead of COP30.

Sectoral Demands

• Energy: Despite COP28’s call to transition away from fossil fuels and boost renewables, weak implementation persists, with many countries and in particular the rich ones still expanding fossil fuels. CAN demands COP30 deliver clear signals: a high-level commitment to a just phase-out backed by financial support to enable it, and a decision to halt new fossil fuel projects, with phase-out timelines by COP31.
• Agriculture: The first SSJW workshop must prioritize agroecology—centering rights, food sovereignty, and small-scale producers—to align climate action with biodiversity, health, and equity. CAN urges integrating agroecology into NDCs, adaptation frameworks, and finance, shifting support from industrial agriculture to sustainable food systems.
• Ecosystems: Post-CBD COP16, momentum for biodiversity-climate synergies must translate into UNFCCC action. CAN calls for a COP30 decision on joint Rio Convention cooperation, robust GGA indicators for ecosystems, and MWP-driven deforestation targets. Halting ecosystem collapse must be a political priority.