ECO 1, COP30

The COP of Truth Must Face some Uncomfortable Truths

For the next two weeks, the world has its attention turned towards Belem, a city nestled in the heart of the Amazon Delta. The setting is symbolic: a global climate conference in the lungs of our planet, three decades after the UNFCCC began and ten years since the Paris Agreement. The Brazilian Presidency promised a COP of Truth, with President Lula himself calling for unvarnished honesty. Yet, the Leaders’ Summit that just concluded offered little more than recycled platitudes and a staunch reluctance to move beyond business-as-usual.

So, allow us to articulate the brutal truths our leaders seem unwilling to confront.

We are not living in a world of isolated crises. We are experiencing a convergence of systemic failures, where injustice in one arena fuels catastrophe in another. While negotiators debate bracketed text in air-conditioned rooms, a genocide and brutal colonial occupation unfolds in Palestine, enabled by the complicity of so-called democracies. In Sudan, a conflict that has already claimed over 15,000 lives and displaced millions is fueled by foreign powers hungry for its mineral wealth, a story echoing across several African nations. Around the world, waves of public anger over economic despair and political repression are spilling onto streets, meeting violent state crackdowns. 

Simultaneously, our destabilized climate is putting regular, working class communities through a relentless grind. Only the rich and powerful can afford to insulate themselves in ivory towers while the rest carry their bloated lifestyles and insatiable greed. The 1.5°C guardrail has been breached. Emissions continue to rise. And as our leaders prevaricated in the weeks before COP30, extreme weather delivered its own verdict. Cyclones and hurricanes in Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean left trails of destruction, adding to the grim tally of climate-related losses. The science is clear: climate change is supercharging these events. This is not a future threat; it is a present-day reality for communities on the frontlines of these impacts.

And what is the response from those most responsible? Developed countries, whose historical emissions have created this crisis, continue to expand fossil fuel production and hide behind bad-faith tactics and broken promises. Their NDCs are a study in undercommitment, failing spectacularly to align with 1.5°C. They have shirked their legal and moral obligations, treating the climate crisis as a new frontier for profit rather than a debt of justice owed to the Global South.

This, however, is only half of the truth-telling. The full picture is completed by the global stories of resistance to oppression and resilience in the face of devastating odds. It is in solidarity with these people that we demand a reconciliation of truth through justice. COP30 cannot solve all the world’s ills, but to avoid adding to the burdens of violence and displacement, its outcomes must be rooted in equity and social justice.

The litmus test for success in Belem is a tangible, financed commitment to a Just Transition. From  Day 1, Parties must agree to universal principles that place people and public interest, and not profit, at the centre of climate action. A COP30 Justice Package requires:

• Making Just Transition Happen: With a tangible commitment to a Just Transition through an agreement on universal principles and an institutionalised implementation mechanism that places people and public interest, and not profit, at the centre of climate action.
  
• Justice for Impacted Communities: A Financial Reckoning is needed. Developed countries must stop blocking robust adaptation indicators and agree to scale finance to at least $120 billion per year, with a clear path to $300 billion by 2035. Even this falls short of the $310-367 billion per year the UN estimates is needed. Furthermore, the Loss and Damage fund must be filled at scale and equipped with a robust replenishment mechanism, not left as an empty promise.
  
• Finance to meet the Need: Following the disgraceful failure of last year’s New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG), a process must be initiated to fairly address the finance needed for the Global South to plan and implement climate action. This is a non-negotiable building block of international cooperation.
  
• NDCs That Reflect Fair Shares: Given the abject failure of current pledges, NDCs from developed countries and other major economies must be reworked to align with their fair shares and the 1.5°C imperative. Chronic under-delivery is a form of planetary sabotage.

For all the talk of a crisis in multilateralism, there has been shockingly little said about accountability. Multilateralism without it is a house of cards. The recent International Court of Justice Advisory Opinion on state obligations has made clear what must be done. COP30 must respect international law and mark the end of the era of impunity.

Here is the hard truth, in the heat of Belem and the fury of a warming world. The question is whether our leaders in these next few days will have the courage to face it, or if they will continue to negotiate over the spoils while the world burns.

Time for making Just Transition happen

Ten years ago, the Paris Agreement pledged to secure a Just transition, safeguarding rights and livelihoods. A promise that required centering workers, communities, Indigenous Peoples, and their needs, rights and demands. A promise that required an unprecedented level of international cooperation, so that all countries can find new pathways for social progress.
A decade later, that promise remains unfulfilled, and it’s not without consequences: climate action has stalled, inequality has deepened and communities have been left behind.

ECO with the help of many friends has worked out what a BAMbitious just transition package should include:

• The Belém Action Mechanism (BAM) for a Global Just Transition:
  A new multilateral mechanism to accelerate and support country efforts to transition, coordinate just transition efforts within and beyond the UNFCCC; making funding and technical support more accessible; address the global rules that act as barriers to a Just Transition; build a global network of focal points and practitioners for shared learning and collaboration; and ensure formal representation of rights-holders and vulnerabilised groups.
  
• Just Transition Principles in the UNFCCC process: A shared framework anchored in rights, participation, and equality applicable to all dimensions where a Just Transition is needed (energy, food systems, adaptation, industry) – including human and labour rights, Free, Prior and Informed Consent, genuine social dialogue with workers and inclusion of affected people.
  
• Finance Just Transition: COP30 must recognise that designing and delivering just transition policies requires dedicated resources. Finance must be new, additional, grant-based, public, adequate, predictable, and non-debt-creating – in line with countries’ fair shares and legal obligations.
  
• Just Transition pathways must be reflected in National Climate Planning: Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), National Adaptation Plans (NAPs), and long-term development strategies must be delivered with Just Transition pathways at the core, in order to align long-term development and climate goals with social justice and equity.
  
• National Institutions for Workers and Peoples’ Participation: Governments must establish robust and inclusive institutions and processes for consultation and participation in planning and decision-making processes at the national, regional and local levels – with, on the one hand, tripartite social dialogue involving government, employers and workers to shape labour policies, and on the other hand, engagement with rights-holders and relevant stakeholders on all other aspects of Just Transition.

And, if you tune in later today, ECO is hearing that 1000+ organisations – including trade unions, Indigenous leaders, feminist and youth movements, people of African descent and peasant groups, environmental advocates, disability networks and community organisations – are uniting to send a strong signal to Parties demanding to move from dialogues to action and let the COP30 in Belém be remembered as the moment the world chooses fairness over failure; when governments proved that multilateralism can still deliver for people and the planet.

A Global Response Plan to the Glaring Ambition Gap

In an age of tweets, Whatsapp messages, and AI-driven communication, receiving well-crafted, thoughtful letters from the Brazilian Presidency felt refreshingly sincere. Most emphasized the need to reinforce multilateralism as a central priority for COP 30. Yet ECO must ask: how can we do that without confronting the reality that the NDCs presented so far will not put us on a 1.5°C pathway?. Come on, Brazilians, you are holding the pen!

Consultations on this issue are welcome, and others outside the UNFCCC bubble are also worried. The International Court of Justice, in its Advisory Opinion, has affirmed that 1.5°C is a legally binding obligation. The United Nations Secretary General has been very vocal on two things: it is now clear the 1.5°C limit will be breached and we must do everything possible to limit the overshoot. Second, the COP30 needs to deliver a global response plan to the ambition and implementation gap, anchored in justice. Both the NDC Synthesis Report and the UNEP Emissions Gap Report are backing this stark reality.

ECO fully agrees. Such a plan should:

• Acknowledge the problem clearly: recognize the glaring ambition and implementation gaps that lead to loss of lives, perpetuate injustice and destroy ecosystems, while also noting the progress made under the Paris Agreement.
  
• Centering equity for people, communities, and nature: ensure human rights (safeguards and direct access to quality finance.
  
• Request an updated NDC Synthesis Report: to be prepared by the UNFCCC Secretariat in time for discussion at SB64.
  
• Mandate NDC revision: Parties  – especially developed countries and G20 members, must agree to fix NDCs that are not in line with countries’ fair shares, in accordance with CBDR-RC before COP31.
  
• Operationalise guidance from the first Global Stocktake: revised NDCs need to include plans and timelines to phase-out fossil fuels, measures to deliver on tripling renewable energy and doubling energy efficiency and halting and reversing ecosystem destruction by 2030, in line with equity and the fair shares of each country.

The plan must ensure that the JTWP reaches an agreement on the principles of a just transition and establishes the Belém Action Mechanism for Just Transition (BAM) to support the implementation of NDCs. It should also address climate finance, acknowledging developing countries needs’ that range to minimum 1 trillion a year in grant-based finance. 

ECO believes we need more than words on a piece of paper, we need a formal outcome of COP30 that reaffirms multilateralism. Belém needs to demonstrate that all Parties have the political will to restore the ambition cycle of the Paris Agreement. 

---

WE STAND IN SOLIDARITY WITH ALL PEOPLES SUFFERING FROM GENOCIDE, WARS, OCCUPATION, AND GOVERNMENT VIOLENCE THROUGH CLIMATE CHANGE.

––
Download file: http://ECO-10-November-2025.pdf