ECO 7, COP30
ECO calling BAM – ECO calling BAM
The world is in trouble. Without immediate action, workers, communities and entire countries will stay behind and climate action will stall. They need the international community to better deliver support and guidance so they can achieve a Just Transition. The sign of the Belem Action Mechanism (BAM) for a Global Just Transition appeared in different parts of Belem last night calling for Parties to deliver a breakthrough on just transition at COP30, to choose fairness over failure, to show multilateralism can still deliver for people and the planet.
People’s Summit declaration
Yesterday ECO was, as a longstanding defender of the Peoples, invited to the closing of the Cúpula dos Povos. What a change from the institutional UNFCCC space, and what an inspiration to see what an autonomous space can be!
ECO was amazed by the energy of frontline communities, Indigenous Peoples, and social movements fighting for climate justice. In a strong and beautiful work of political convergence, grounded in lived realities – they are offering their pathways and showing what true ambition must look like, in the final declaration of the Peoples’ Summit. ECO would like to remind all delegates that this is why they are here in the blue zone, to deliver on the demands of the peoples of the world.
Read the declaration:
COP30 must deliver an ambitious adaptation commitment
ECO is pleased to report a strong and united call echoing through the halls after week 1: COP30 must deliver an adaptation finance commitment. And not just any commitment: the provision of tripling to at least USD 120bn a year by 2030 for adaptation.
As we head into Week 2, and the rollercoaster of COP politics inevitably picks up speed, ECO must gently issue a reminder: ambition without quality is just a very shiny number. And shiny numbers, as history shows, don’t irrigate fields, raise homes, or protect livelihoods.
If the new goal is to mean anything to communities living at the frontlines of the climate crisis, it must be built on real, accessible, grant-based public finance. That means not driving countries further into debt through non-concessional loans, or outsourcing adaptation support to private finance. Private investors can do many things – identify ‘risk’, seek returns, design complicated spreadsheets – but they are not the reliable backbone of support for smallholder farmers, coastal communities, or marginalised groups trying to survive impacts they did not cause.
These are not abstract risks. They are the daily consequences of blurry definitions and creative accounting. Communities on the ground know too well what happens when “quality” gets lost. ECO’s message is simple: COP30 needs to deliver an adaptation finance commitment that is not only big in quantity but strong in quality. Communities deserve more than numbers, they deserve support they can actually use.
Oh, and here’s some good news: quality finance already has channels that work. One of them is right here with us: the Adaptation Fund. It delivers grants, supports locally led action, and is directly accessible to countries that disproportionately bear the costs of climate impacts.
So to developed countries: while you debate the contours of a new, ambitious adaptation finance goal for COP30, an ambitious pledge to the Adaptation Fund today would send a clear signal of trust and commitment to real adaptation action. After all, what better way to show you care about quality than by investing in it now?
Demand Climate Justice; Free Them All
There is no climate justice without human rights. There cannot be calls for equity and transformation without open civic space. And there is no COP of truth if we do not remember those who cannot be here because of government repression.
ECO was deeply moved by the names and stories of arbitrarily detained human rights defenders whose tireless work protects the rights of everyone to demand climate justice. ECO stands with all our persecuted colleagues around the world — a growing list. It was a stark reminder of the hopes, acts of justice and humanity lost because of the continued criminalisation and harassment of our colleagues. Their determination and vision are needed more than ever, yet the room to speak out keeps shrinking worldwide. In their attempts to maintain control of the narrative around climate and other injustices, states are repressing those people who try to hold them accountable.
Just outside COP30’s doors, the reality is stark. At least 413 land and environmental defenders have been killed or disappeared in Brazil since 2012. Many could not even attend due to fear of further threats. Early last week, Indigenous protesters who face worsening violations, invasive and damaging projects, and land grabbing, and who are excluded from the talks, clashed with security in the Blue Zone.
It was a painful display of the exclusion of their demands and agency from these gilded spaces, and of the broken promises of governments to Indigenous Peoples, as another sit-in reiterated on Friday. As the IIPFCC rightly pointed out, “Indigenous Peoples and our representative structures continue to be marginalized and denied adequate access to spaces where decisions are made about our lands, waters and territories.”
ECO is shocked by the UNFCCC Executive Secretary’s calls for increased security and an end to protests outside the COP entrance without any reference to the need to protect the right to peaceful protest in one of the few spaces where all people can come together to jointly voice their demands. This call undermines human rights, sets a dangerous precedent and must be reversed immediately, allowing protests outside to resume.
Indigenous Peoples, people of African descent, environmental human rights defenders, and other communities on the frontlines, are the ones taking us closer to effective solutions to the climate crisis. Moving into the second week, ECO senses a pivotal moment for negotiators: will the transition away from fossil fuels be one that entrenches injustice and excludes frontline voices? Or one that embodies and achieves justice, rights and dignity? And women environmental human rights defenders? Will they be written out of the process yet again?
ECO remembers all those who defend our environment and the preservation of life, and will keep amplifying their voices until courage is no longer met with repression.
BAMparison
CO2 emissions in 2025 highest ever
ECO is sadly informing all governments at the COP that based on Thursday’s annual release of the Global Carbon Project’s preliminary analysis, human CO2 emissions will grow to a record high of about 42 billion tonnes in 2025. The trend is very clear and underlines ECO’s continued urgent call for governments, particularly the rich ones, to start phasing out fossil fuels immediately and move to 100% renewables with solidarity and financial support for developing nations.
The group, composed of about 100 global experts, has highlighted that fossil fuel emissions are expected to grow this year by about 1% compared to 2024 to more than 38 billion tonnes. This is also another global record, fuelled by sectoral emissions from the use of coal, oil and gas, emissions from each of which have registered growth of about 1%. Atmospheric CO2 concentration is bound to be 426ppm in 2025, the highest in 14 million years.
Of the large emitters, USA’s emissions are projected to grow the most in 2025, by 1.9%, while EU’s emissions are set to grow by 0.4%.. Thesde projections mark a significant shift from the trends observed in the last 10 years during which US and EU emissions recorded decreases of about 1.2% and 2.5% per year, respectively. Worth noting is the fact that while emissions in developing countries India and China are projected to grow by 1.4% and 0.4%, these are substantially lower than the average annual increase recorded over the past decade. This decline of their CO2 emissions growth rates are due to significant growth of solar and wind power, enhanced energy efficiency, and growth of electric vehicles.
ECO notes with some relief the slight reduction in land use change emissions, mostly tropical deforestation, to about 4%. We are, however, very concerned that since 1960 almost one tenth of the rise in atmospheric CO2 came from climate impacts of global warming, with the higher shares in the last decade with increased droughts and forest fires globally. And for Latin America, and in particular in the Amazon, climate impacts are now very worryingly the largest factor of carbon land use losses.
ECO urges the UNFCCC and the IPCC, in light of its new upcoming reports, to stop excluding “indirect” GHG emissions (e.g., from forest fires, tropical wetlands and permafrost thaw) from the emissions inventories and reporting guidelines. These “non-human” climate-induced emissions are a direct consequence of global warming. The separation from “direct” human GHG emissions came from the Kyoto-Protocol almost 30 years ago, it’s now high time to rectify this faulty accounting.
Welcome to the GST Family!
The brothers and sisters of the Capybara Family say hello to you!
We look alike, but actually, we are quite different.
Our biggest brother is GST1, and he is in charge of assessing the collective progress of the Paris Agreement.
Then our sister UAE dialogue, a bit younger, is in charge of tracking the progress of implementing GST1 and allowing discussions on the challenges and barriers that Parties are facing.
Her twin brother, NDC annual dialogue, is providing a space for Parties to exchange around the preparation and implementation of Parties NDCs .
And finally, our youngest family member, GST2! Our baby sister is trying to get the best influence and inspiration from us, to take over in 2028 for an even better GST.
Again : we do look alike, but if you search further, you will see how different and necessary each of us 4 are. See you in the GST negotiation rooms!
The COP we need!
ECO hears rumors that some are questioning the usefulness of COPs? Well, ECO shares the frustration. Thousands of lobbyists flying in to obstruct progress and greenwash their image? ECO gets it – it’s not a good look. After 30 years of negotiations and promises, the UNFCCC’s performance has been, frankly, underwhelming So, out with the COP? Not so fast. The answer is not destruction (autocratic climate deniers & fossil fuel producers everywhere would love it if it was). The answer is reform.
Effective multilateralism is the only way to deliver true climate justice. The key word there is effective: we need to make the climate regime work, capable of actually achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement. Ten years after Paris, with another round of weak NDCs and the ICJAO clarifying States’ obligations, it’s clear: we must recalibrate processes to facilitate effective and equitable decision-making, ensure accountability, and finally free this process from fossil fuel influence. ECO has some ideas for how to make this process work:
- Monitor and review the Global Climate Action Agenda in a manner that leads to real and effective accountability of non-negotiated outcomes and alignment with the ICJ climate ruling,
- Address corporate capture of the UNFCCC through tangible measures to #KickBigPollutersOut
- Increase transparency in UNFCCC processes
- Protect civic space – Ensure participation, accessibility and affordability through a fair Host Country Agreement and strong human rights safeguards.
In addition to substantial reform, it would also help to simply deliver on what already exists. Let’s be honest: logistics matter – and they don’t build trust in the process right now. Accommodation? Flights? Visas? We’re here to call for debt justice, not to end up in debt ourselves after COP.
ECO calls on Parties, Presidencies, and the Secretariat: step up and help us collectively create #TheCOPWeNeed.
WE STAND IN SOLIDARITY WITH ALL PEOPLES SUFFERING FROM GENOCIDE, WARS, OCCUPATION, AND GOVERNMENT VIOLENCE THROUGH CLIMATE CHANGE.
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Download file: http://ECO-17-November-2025.pdf