ECO 6, COP30
Just Transition is walking in the Just Direction
ECO was happy to see this morning that the informal JTWP note is better than the one we started with. This is not the norm. But maybe the energy of Belem has invited Parties to work faster together and to listen to civil society more. The current text is a good basis to ensure that in the coming days we can continue working on a decision that could actually deliver something meaningful for countries, workers and communities implementing just transition.
The Wolf of Wall Street is stalking the halls of Belem
In finance land, it’s easy to get sucked into the technicalities. But what’s relentless is the overhyping of private finance in any and all corners of development and climate. This was particularly the case at the Financing for Development conference this summer.
From the disastrous NCQG, to the Baku-to-Belem Roadmap being mostly a continuation of the G20’s multilateral development bank (MDB) reform agenda, to multilateral climate funds serving the UNFCCC and Paris Agreement being increasingly re-cast as the CIFs that leverage and lend rather than grant, ECO is aghast at the shamelessness with which developed country Parties are pushing their “billions to trillions” agenda on all fronts in Belem.
Scholars have aptly named this paradigm the “Wall Street Climate Consensus”, where disastrous loss of life and ecosystems become business opportunities. Listening to the bad faith with which developed country Parties are negotiating in all finance rooms to obscure their abandonment of their climate finance obligations with the idea of magical mobilization, ECO fears with a heavy heart that this is the only “consensus” on finance that might be on the table at COP30.
On Monday, ECO listened to MDBs – and the GCF, which apparently wants to be an MDB – salivating at adaptation as the next private investment frontier, which among other issues, would lead to further debt for developing Parties, which are meanwhile expected to make themselves more attractive to the private sector, at the expense of their people and ecosystems.
No wonder developing country Parties are hesitant to endorse any further work on aligning financial flows with climate goals (Art. 2.1c) under the Sharm-el-Sheikh dialogue. They rightly fear it will become an avenue to justify and promote punitive unilateral measures, finance conditionalities tied to creating “enabling environments” for investment, and a forum for developed Party-dominated institutions like the IMF and MDBs to promote their conditionalities-laden, private finance worshipping agenda, rather than developed countries fulfilling their climate finance obligations and all financial flows being held accountable and made compliant with a 1.5°C-aligned pathway.
The dirty deeds of green shipping
Adoption of the groundbreaking Net Zero Framework (NZF) should have been a victory for climate action and for multilateral cooperation, and built momentum ahead of COP30. But, we should never underestimate the defenders of the polluting status quo.
In April, even before the adoption of the framework, the newly installed Trump administration stated their opposition to it, while the majority of countries at the IMO were in favour.
Jump to October when the US and some petrostates stepped up their opposition, threatening to apply tariffs and other punishments to any countries that supported the NZF. By the time of the extraordinary meeting itself, the threats and pressure had reached levels so shocking, even to seasoned diplomats and negotiators. The blatant threats from the US were accompanied by concerted lobbying by Saudi Arabia and sectors of the shipping industry most closely tied to the fossil fuel sector. The tariff threats weren’t enough, though, as Trump representatives threatened negotiators and their families with visa revocation.
On the final day of this delightful October meeting, Saudi Arabia moved to postpone, which resulted in a one-year adjournment. This means a year of limbo for the NZF, while negotiations over the detailed rules for implementation continue.
Yesterday, in the SBSTA session on Bunker Fuels, the Saudi negotiator, in a particularly shameless intervention, tried to present this outcome as an opportunity to build consensus. Eco knows the only consensus they will accept is one that protects their oil exports for as long as their reserves last.
WE STAND IN SOLIDARITY WITH ALL PEOPLES SUFFERING FROM GENOCIDE, WARS, OCCUPATION, AND GOVERNMENT VIOLENCE THROUGH CLIMATE CHANGE.
––
Download file: http://ECO-15-November-2025.pdf