I have been waiting ever since the end of COP30 at Belém for sight of the final version of the cobbled-together agreement which apparently left so many delegates unhappy. However, as I haven’t tracked down a final definitive version, here goes with a summary of the advance version of the draft decision titled (with no apparent sense of irony) “Global Mutirão: Uniting humanity in a global mobilization against climate change”.

As an aside, AI tells me that “Mutirão is a Brazilian Portuguese term from the Tupi-Guranis language that means “collective effort” or “joint effort”.” The COP30 website has a whole page devoted to its meaning, and variations on the theme, should you be interested (“Burkinidi, minka, and balu wala: Learn about the many versions of COP30’s “Global Mutirão”). The failure of the collective effort, in its own terms, doesn’t seem to have led anyone associated with the process to consider whether use of the word remains appropriate.

The draft agreement commences with the usual recitals of what led us to where we are, before moving to the operative section of the agreement, which is divided into three parts under separate headings.

Recitals

These commence with what seems to be an obligatory genuflection to the UN’s core beliefs:

Acknowledging that climate change is a common concern of humankind and that Parties should, when taking action to address climate change, respect, promote and consider their respective obligations on human rights, the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment, the right to health, the rights of Indigenous Peoples, as well as their land rights and traditional knowledge, and of local communities, migrants, children, persons with disabilities and people in vulnerable situations and the right to development, as well as gender equality, empowerment of women and intergenerational equity…

There is then a supremely ironic reference to being at the heart of the Amazon rainforest; the importance of protecting, conserving, and enhancing nature, and halting and reversing forest degradation and so on. Shall we take a moment here to recollect the reality, as explained in this BBC article:

A new four-lane highway cutting through tens of thousands of acres of protected Amazon rainforest is being built for the COP30 climate summit in the Brazilian city of Belém.

It aims to ease traffic to the city, which will host more than 50,000 people – including world leaders – at the conference in November.

The state government touts the highway’s “sustainable” credentials, but some locals and conservationists are outraged at the environmental impact.

The Amazon plays a vital role in absorbing carbon for the world and providing biodiversity, and many say this deforestation contradicts the very purpose of a climate summit.

Along the partially built road, lush rainforest towers on either side – a reminder of what was once there. Logs are piled high in the cleared land which stretches more than 13km (8 miles) through the rainforest into Belém.

Diggers and machines carve through the forest floor, paving over wetland to surface the road which will cut through a protected area….

Ahem…..Moving rapidly on. There follow four paragraphs recalling aspects of the Paris Agreement, plus another genuflection to “the important role and active engagement of non-Party stakeholders, particularly civil society, business, financial institutions, cities and subnational authorities at multiple levels, Indigenous Peoples, local communities, people of African descent, women, youth and children, and research institutions…”.

Then there seems to be a dawning realisation that all is not as they would like it to be. They recall “with concern that the carbon budget consistent with achieving the Paris Agreement temperature goal is now small and being rapidly depleted and acknowledging that historical cumulative net carbon dioxide emissions account for at least four fifths of the total carbon budget for a 50 per cent probability of limiting global warming to 1.5 °C”. Things aren’t in line with Paris, we’re told, and (as ever) there is “a rapidly narrowing window for raising ambition and implementing existing commitments in order to achieve it.”

They recognise also that “that limiting global warming to 1.5 °C with no or limited overshoot requires deep, rapid and sustained reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions of 43 per cent by 2030 and 60 per cent by 2035 relative to the 2019 level and reaching net zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2050.” Ironically (a word I seem to be using rather a lot with regard to this most farcical of COPs), despite COP30 completely failing to do anything to achieve these ambitions within this rapidly narrowing window, they then give themselves a good old pat on the back, by:

Welcoming the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Belém as the “COP of Truth”, restoring trust and hope in the fight against climate change by bringing science, equity and political determination together, promoting information integrity and strengthening multilateralism, connecting the process with people on the ground and accelerating the implementation of the Paris Agreement.

Has there ever been a greater exercise in delusional hype?

United in celebration of the 10-year anniversary of the Paris Agreement

Possibly because they agree on so very little, the parties then devote the first operative part of the Agreement to this celebration. There are 13 hype-filled paragraphs here, and I won’t bore you with the ongoing self-congratulation, though I think it’s worth drawing attention to paragraph 11, which is – even by the standards of pre-existing UN COPs – borderline dishonest: “Also acknowledges that the Paris Agreement is working and resolves to go further and faster.”

From negotiation to implementation: Paris Agreement policy cycle fully in motion

The second section of the Agreement contains another ineffectual 13 paragraphs. Paragraph 16 is particularly amusing, inasmuch as it recognises that there is rather a lot of foot-dragging going on:

Commends the 122 Parties that have communicated their new nationally determined contributions for the next policy cycle of the Paris Agreement and urges Parties that have not yet communicated a new nationally determined contribution to do so as soon as possible.

Paragraph 18 similarly notes that some countries just aren’t coming up to snuff:

Commends the 80 Parties that have communicated long-term low greenhouse gas emission development strategies and urges Parties that have not yet done so to communicate such strategies as soon as possible.

And paragraph 19 rounds off this recognition of failure:

Commends the 71 Parties that have submitted national adaptation plans, policies and planning processes, which includes 60 developing country Parties that have submitted a national adaptation plan, and calls upon Parties that have not yet done so to do so by the end of 2025 and also calls upon all Parties to progress in implementing them by 2030.

There is a recognition that poor Developing Countries face significant challenges in accessing finance to implement their plans, and of the importance of providing them with increased support. In particular, paragraph 25 recognises “the need for a manyfold increase in financial support”, before paragraph 26 “looks forward” (one suspects more in hope than in expectation) “to successful replenishments of the Fund for responding to Loss and Damage, the Global Environment Facility and the Green Climate Fund”.

Responding to urgency: Accelerating implementation, solidarity and international cooperation

Despite the thin gruel served up so far, we have already reached the third and final part of the operative sections of the agreement. Here we are treated to 33 fairly inconsequential paragraphs. To be blunt, it’s little more than a re-hash of the same old tired forms of words that we have seen so many times before. As always, there’s recognition of the need for urgent action, noting (as always) that finance, capacity-building and technology transfer are critical enablers of climate action. The parties affirm their commitment (in words, if not in deeds) to accelerate implementation of support and co-operation. They also resolve “to unite efforts in a global mutirão against climate change” (once you have a slogan, you might as well keep on using it. Shame to let it go to waste).

The (unspecified) efforts of “non-Party stakeholders” are welcomed , and “all actors” are called on to continue working together. Continue? We aren’t treated to any examples of how they have done this to date. By the way, does paragraph 32 actually mean anything?

Calls on Parties to enhance their enabling environments, in a nationally determined manner, with a view to increasing climate financing.

The purely aspirational nature of all this is neatly summed up by paragraph 35, which enocurages parties “to align their nationally determined contributions towards global net zero by or around mid-century with a view to keeping 1.5 °C within reach.”

On and on it goes. Nobody is obliged to do anything. As we know from the extensive media coverage, fossil fuels (and reduction of their use) don’t get a mention. Parties are invited and requested to do things, but that’s as far as it goes.

Paragraph 48 actually records a decision:

to urgently advance actions to enable the scaling up of financing for developing country Parties for climate action from all public and private sources to at least USD 1.3 trillion per year by 2035 and emphasizes the urgent need to remain on a pathway towards the goal of mobilizing at least USD 300 billion for developing country Parties per year by 2035 for climate action, with developed country Parties taking the lead.

However, the making of a decision, without obliging anyone to implement it, is unlikely to achieve much.

Decisions from earlier COPs are recollected and reaffirmed. And in reality that’s about it.

Consequences?

Well, there aren’t any. China stayed quiet. The USA stayed away. India didn’t bother to update its NDC. If reports are to be believed, Saudi Arabia and Russia frustrated attempts to obtain a commitment to reduce the use of fossil fuels. And Ed Miliband returned to the UK to write an article in the Guardian with the wonderfully delusional and counter-factual heading: “We delivered a clear message at Cop30: the delayers and defeatists are losing the climate fight”.

Hey ho. See you next year, Ed, in Turkey, where you can once again see off those pesky delayers and defeatists.