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On a warm morning at Matemwe, a small crowd gathers behind a rope barrier as the sand begins to tremble. A tiny head pushes through a soft mound of earth, then another, and another. Within minutes, the shallow nest—protected for weeks by a ring of wooden stakes and mesh—comes alive with the rustle of dozens […]

By M. Zakir Hossain Khan
DHAKA, Bangladesh, Nov 25 2025 (IPS)

COP30 in Belém is not just another annual climate meeting, it is the 32-year report card of the world governance architecture that was conceived at the Rio Earth Summit of 1992. And that is what report card says: delivery has been sporadic, cosmetic and perilously disconnected with the physics of climatic breakdown.

M. Zakir Hossain Khan

The Amazon, which was once regarded in Rio as an ecological miracle of the world, is now on the verge of an irreversible precipice. Even the communities that struggled to protect it over millennia also demonstrate against COP30 to make it clear that they do not oppose multilateralism, but because multilateralism has marginalized them many times.

Rio Promised Rights, Take Part, and Protection, But Delivery Has Been Fragmented

Rio Summit gave birth to three pillars of international environmental control: UNFCCC (climate), CBD (biodiversity) and UNCCD (desertification). Every one of them was supposed to be participating, equitable and accountable. But progressively delivery disintegrated:

• Rio has only achieved 34 per cent biodiversity commitments (CBD GBO-5).
• CO₂ emissions rose over 60% since 1992.
• The globe is headed to 2.7 o C with the existing policies (UNEP 2024).
• The funding obligations are in a chronic state of arrears, adaptation requirements are three times higher than the real flows.

Rio gave the world a vision. COP30 demonstrates the fact that that vision is yet to be developed.

The Rights Gap: The Key Failure between Rio and Belém

Although Rio pledged to involve Indigenous people, Indigenous people today are only getting less than 1 percent of climate finance. In addition, it caused a rising trend of carbon market-related land grabs and resource exploitation, because of the lack of binding power in the decisions regarding climate. This is not a delivery gap but a right gap. COP30 has been improved technically but has failed to redress the inherent imbalance at Rio that remained unaddressed: decision-making in the absence of custodianship.

The Sleepiness Menace Came to Rio and Detonated by COP30

Rio established three overlapping conventions that lacked a single governance structure. Climate to oceans, food, forests, finance, security, and technology; CBD to traditional knowledge, access and benefit-sharing, and UNCCD to migration, peace and livelihoods all increased over the decades.

The outcome is an institution that is too broad to govern effectively, making watered-down decisions and poor accountability. COP30 is being developed, however, within a system that was never intended to deal with planetary collapse on this level.

The Amazon: The Ultimate Test of Rio on Prognosis

Rio glorified forests as the breathing organs of the world. However, three decades later:

• Amazon was deforested by 17 per cent and was close to the 20-25 per cent dieback mark.
• Native land protectors become increasingly violent.
• Carbon markets run the risk of stimulating extraction in the name of green growth.

Another pledge is not required by Amazon. It requires energy from its protectors. That was missing in Rio. It is still missing in COP30. Indigenous people depicted in CoP30 in all their frustration and agitation are the consequences of the system failure to provide them with a say in the decision-making process and the unceasing denial of their natural rights.

Young: The Post-Rio Generation that was Duped by Incrementalism

The post-Rio generation (those that were born after the year 30) is more than 50 percent of the world population. They left behind a) tripled fossil subsidy regime; b) soaring climate debt; c) ever-turbid biodiversity collapse; d) rising climate disasters; and e) inability to send up $100B/year finance on time.

They are only impatient not because of emotions. They observe that a system that was developed in 1992 to address a slow-paced crisis can no longer be applied to the fast emergency of 2025.

Natural Rights Led Governance (NRLG): Making Good What Rio Left, but Left Incomplete

Natural Rights-Led Governance (NRLG) provides the structural correction that Rio has evaded: a) Nature as a law-rights holder, not a resource; b) Indigenous peoples as co-governors, not consultants; c) Compulsory ecological and rights-based control, not voluntary reporting; d) Direct financing to custodians, not bureaucratic leakage; e) Accountability enforceable in law, not conditional on political comfort. NRLG is not the alternative to the vision of Rio, it is the long-deserved update that will turn the arguments of Rio into reality.

The Verdict: COP30 Moves forward, yet Rio Business Unfinished Haunts it

The advancement of COP30 with its stronger fossil language, more comprehensible measurements of adaptation, new pressure on financing is a reality that is inadequate. It advances the paperwork. It is yet to develop the power shift that would safeguard nature or humanity. As long as rights are not yet non-negotiable, the Rio-to-COP30 trip will be a tale of great promises, half-fulfilled and increasingly dangerous.

What the World Must Do Now

Include nature and Indigenous rights in the COP document; construct governance based on custodianship and co-decision; a system of NCQG to deliver finance to communities; no longer voluntary but obligatory commitments reflecting the final Advisory of ICJ assuming integration of natural rights as a prelude to human rights; and use NRLG as the backbone to all future multilateral climate action.

Rio taught us what to do. COP30 is an education about the consequences of procrastinating. The 30-year period is not going to forgive the errors made in the previous 30. The world should stop being a promise and change to power, negotiate to justice, Rio dream of NRLG deliveries. The deadline is not 2050. It is now.

Rio had sworn justice and rights, but COP30 taught a crueler lesson: the world made promises and not protection. Emission increased, ecosystems failed, money is not spent on fulfilling the finances and Indigenous guardians, to the last remaining forests, continue to get less than 1% of climate money and nearly no say. It is not a policy gap but a failure of rights and governance. If the leaders of the world do not recalibrate climate architecture based on natural rights, since co-decision of the Indigenous and on binding commitments rather than a voluntary one, COP30 will be remembered as the moment when the system was exposed as limiting, not as the moment when the system was fixed. This is no longer a promising problem it is a power problem. And the deadline is not 2050. It is now.

M Zakir Hossain Khan is the Chief Executive at Change Initiative, a Dhaka based think-tank, Observer of Climate Investment Fund (CIF); Architect and Proponent of Natural Rights Led Governance (NRLG).

IPS UN Bureau

 

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17 Goals for People, for Planet.

By Ananthu Anilkumar and Simone Galimberti
KATHMANDU, Nepal, Nov 25 2025 (IPS)

Less than five years from 2030 it is time for the international community to confront the future of the Agenda 2030 and its Sustainable Development Goals.

The SDGs turned what was a generic declaration into a tangible and actionable blueprint.

As ample evidence shows, so far, the implementation of the SDGs have been a tremendous disappointment with all the goals being off the track.

Recent UN assessments show how far the world is from meeting the SDGs. Only 16 to 17 % of targets are on track. Out of 137 targets with available data, about 35% show on track or moderate progress, 47% show marginal or no progress, and 18% have moved backwards since 2015.

Some of the most urgent areas are among the furthest off track, including Zero Hunger (SDG 2), Sustainable Cities (SDG 11), Life Below Water (SDG 14), Life on Land (SDG 15), and Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions (SDG 16).

Weak institutional commitments, poor coordination, the failure to integrate SDGs into budgets and policies, and the voluntary nature of reporting have all held back progress. At the same time, breaches of planetary boundaries tied to climate and biosphere integrity threaten the conditions needed for sustainable development.

Even where gains exist, such as in education and disease reduction, they remain slow and fragile. The data is clear. The world is not on course for 2030.

As the world edges toward 2030, these conversations can no longer be postponed. The SDGs did more than outline global aspirations. They created a shared language for justice, dignity, and sustainability. They shaped policy debates and mobilized public attention in ways the development field had not seen before, even if governments often ignored the direction they set.

Yet the SDGs have served an important, we would say, indispensable purpose to the international community even if states wasted it.

First, the SDGs functioned not only as a springboard for action but also as an accountability tool
to keep a check on states’ commitments towards achieving a world without poverty, inequalities and deprivations while guaranteeing a greener, more sustainable and just economic framework.’
Unfortunately, leadership never matched the ambition of the goals.

Many governments failed to translate the SDGs into national and regional strategies capable of real impact.

Least developed countries lacked financial resources and effective institutions, with weak governance, corruption, and mismanagement limiting their ability to plan and implement reforms.

At the same time, wealthier nations refused to scale up development cooperation to levels required for transformative progress.

In short, both governments in the Global South and Global North are complicit in avoiding fulfilling their duties towards the present next generations.

As much as this absence of stewardship towards the people and the planet has been a moral disaster, the international community has enough time to frame a different formula to ensure that whatever will come after the expiration of the Agenda 2030 will be a success.

This loss of momentum reflects more than technical shortcomings.

It shows how fragile political will has been, especially in a model built around voluntary participation. The SDGs lost traction because governments were free to treat them as optional. The gap between aspiration and action became a moral failure as well as a governance one.

Let’s remind ourselves that the launch of the SDGs had started with a “boom”. There was a visible, contagious enthusiasm and everyone was interested to know more about the Agenda 2030.

Notwithstanding the complex negotiations at the UN Secretariat first with the Open Working Group and then with the Intergovernamental Negotiations that followed, there was a vibrant participation of non state actors.

Civil society organizations and global advocacy networks were deeply involved in shaping the SDGs. Their expertise, campaigning, and coordination helped bring local realities, social justice concerns, and thematic priorities into the negotiation rooms.

Then, there was a period, in the aftermath of 2015 when the document was endorsed after three years of negotiations, in which talking about the SDGs was very trendy and on the top of the agenda not only for governments but also for non-state actors, from civil society organizations to universities to corporate players.

That passion soon vanished and there are many reasons for this, including the rise of climate change as a threat to our planet, a phenomenon of paramount importance but somehow overshadowed other important policy agenda.

What will be next?

In 2027 the UN will formally start a conversation about the future of the Agenda 2030.
How to shape the conversation that will lead to a revised framework?

In the months and years ahead, assuring the same level of involvement and participation will be important but not enough. Civil society inputs and contributions must evolve into a broader, more democratic process that moves beyond representation by established organizations.

Communities who live the consequences of global policies every day must be able to shape the next framework directly. Should we start imagining a revamped roadmap that will enable Planet Earth to decarbonize where inequalities are wiped out and where every child will have a chance to have quality health and meaningful educational pathways?

The negotiations that led to the SDGs were contentious and complex in such a way that some of the goals were more the results of internal bargains and trade-offs among governments at the UN rather than genuine attempts to solve policy issues.

Certainly, while brainstorming for the next agenda, the global oversight system of the SDGs will be put into discussion.

Rather than the current model centered on the High-Level Political Forum where, on rotation some goals are discussed and where nations at their complete will voluntarily share their reports, what in jargon is called National Voluntary Reviews, it would be much more effective to have a model resembling the Universal Periodic Reviews applied at the Human Rights Council.

States should mandatorily present updates of their work in implementing the next generation of the SDGs and if we are serious about creating a better world, such reviews should happen annually.

Localization must also become central rather than optional. The localization of the SDGs should also be formally adopted and mainstreamed in the official playbook, prompting local governments to play their parts.

Some have already been doing that but it is a tiny minority and often such a process of localization happens without engagement and involvement of local communities.

This must change in such a way to truly empower local communities to have an ownership over local planning and decision making in matters of sustainable and equitable development.

True localization requires building formal pathways for community participation and ensuring that subnational institutions shape priorities. People closest to the issues should help define the solutions.

Without local ownership, global frameworks remain abstract and ineffective.

While some local governments have aligned their work with SDG priorities, most of these efforts remain isolated and disconnected from the communities they are meant to serve.

Localizing the next Agenda offers an opportunity to democratize the future of the goals.
Development cannot be sustainable when local voices are excluded from planning and decision making.

These and other propositions should be up for debate and review in the months and years ahead.

We do hope that experts and policy makers will discuss in detail ways to strengthen the future development agenda, building on the lessons that led first to the establishment of the SDGs and also leaning on the experiences that are still being made on their implementation.

At the start of the discussions on “what’s next”, we do believe that young people should have a big and real say.

Involving young people and enabling them to have agency in contributing to the future of the Agenda 2030 is one of the best guarantees that the new governance related to the future goals will be stronger and more inclusive.

Imagine youths lab around the world starting the conversation about the post Agenda 2030 scenarios.

How can the goals be strengthened?

Capacity building of students could also become an opportunity to open up the decision making on one of the most important agendas of our time.

Imagine youths’ assemblies and forums to discuss and ideate the future global development goals. Such exercise should not become the traditional top down approach designed and backed by donor agencies like in the past.

Rather it can embed more radical and ambitious principles of grassroots level deliberative democracy and shared decision making.

One thing is certain: without a profound acceleration, the current trends in implementing the SDGs will not shift.

Realistically speaking, it is highly probable that we will reach the 2030 with an abysmal record of accomplishment in terms of realizing the Agenda 2030.

The international community can avoid such shameful outcomes while designing a post 2030 framework.

There is still time to design an agenda that is accountable, inclusive, and grounded in lived experience. But this requires listening to those who will inherit the consequences of today’s decisions.

The next framework can be drastically different if young people, rather than diplomats and government officials, will meaningfully own the process.

The young generations should not only lead in the designing of a new “Global Sustainable Development Deal” but also have a say and voice into its implementation.

Only then, governments at all levels will take the job of ensuring a future for humanity seriously.

Ananthu Anilkumar writes on human rights, development cooperation, and global governance. Simone Galimberti writes about the SDGs, youth-centered policy-making and a stronger and better United Nations.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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These processes are all about people. We should never lose our humanity in the process. There should not be a ‘COP of the people’ pitted against a ‘COP of negotiators.’ We need to approach COP jointly as a conference of the people, by the people, and for people. —Yamide Dagnet, NRDC’s Senior Vice President, International

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. Credit: UN Photo/Gustavo Stephan
 
The Group of Twenty (G20) comprises 19 countries (Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Republic of Korea, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Türkiye, United Kingdom and United States) and two regional bodies: the European Union and the African Union (as of 2023).
 
The G20 members represent around 85% of the global GDP, over 75% of the global trade, and about two-thirds of the world population. South Africa assumed the G20 presidency on December 1 2024 and will step down on November 30 2025. The next G20 summit will be hosted by the US in 2026.

By Theophilus Jong Yungong and Iolanda Fresnillo
YAOUNDE, Cameroon / BARCELONA, Spain, Nov 24 2025 (IPS)

When South Africa assumed the Presidency of the G20, debt sustainability was placed front and centre, with the promise to launch a Cost of Capital Commission. Many hoped that, with an African country at the helm, the G20 would finally deliver real solutions to the debt crisis gripping the Global South – particularly Africa.

A year later, the South African presidency drew to a close, and nothing has fundamentally changed. The G20 has once again failed, and it is time to look elsewhere for genuine solutions.

Africa’s debt crisis is deepening

Alarm bells have been ringing for years. Africa’s total debt stocks have more than doubled since 2021 to US$ 685.5 billion in 2023, driven in part by the economic fallout of the Covid-19 pandemic, with increasing cost of capital driving debt payments to record highs.
The African Leaders Debt Relief Initiative (ALDRI), spearheaded by eight former Heads of State, demands urgent debt relief, not as “charity” but as “an investment in a prosperous, stable, and sustainable future—for Africa and the global economy”.

While South Africa’s Presidency raised hopes for a change to real solutions by placing Africa’s debt crisis at the centre of the G20 agenda, the outcome has leaned towards more rhetoric than action.

The G20 has failed

If we want to find fair solutions to the increasing debt problems that plague African and other Global South countries, we should no longer expect forums like the G20 to deliver. They are dominated by creditors unlikely to reform a system that serves their own interests.

After four meetings of the Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors of the G20, leading on its finance track, South Africa delivered in October a debt declaration. But it contained nothing new and did not provide any actionable commitments on what the G20 will do to solve the debt challenge.

Nothing was delivered either at last weekend’s G20 leaders’ summit in Johannesburg. No reform. No changes. Just a couple of reports, but no decisions at all. As the debt crisis worsens, the G20 remains paralysed and unable to agree even on minimum reforms of its own Common Framework.

This paralysis is structural. While it attempts to appear to be inclusive, the problem with the G20 is that it is not a truly multilateral and democratic institution, but an informal exclusive forum for dialogue among competing powers.

Geopolitical tensions, and particularly the US context, elevates the paralysis to another level. Since decisions are made by consensus, the result is always the minimum common denominator.

The failure of the Common Framework

Launched in late 2020, the G20 Common Framework, was meant to enable faster and fairer debt restructuring for low-income countries. Yet it continues to be highly inefficient. Restructuring processes are slow, debt reductions too shallow, and the sharing of responsibility between public and private creditors deeply unequal, as we’ve seen with Zambia.

Calls to reform the Common Framework have been reiterated by many governments and institutions, but the G20 was unable to deliver. The African Union, for instance, called for reforms including introducing a time-bound aspect, establishing a universally-accepted methodology for comparability of treatment, suspending debt payments during the whole debt restructuring process, expanding its eligibility criteria and establishing a legal mechanism to enforce compliance with restructuring agreements.

Yet it still seems that the G20 is not in the business of acting for the good of the people. Instead it continues to perpetuate creditor interests.

A better path exists: The United Nations

Fortunately, there is another path that provides the much-needed inclusive and democratic multilateral institutional framework to take the necessary reforms forward.

In July, UN Member States worldwide agreed, by consensus, to initiate an intergovernmental process to address the gaps in debt architecture. This process should lead to a UN framework Convention on Sovereign Debt, as supported by the African Union in the Lome Declaration on a Common Position on Africa’s Debt, and to establishing a multilateral sovereign debt resolution mechanism, long demanded by G77 countries.

In the same UN forum it was agreed to establish a borrowers platform, which “will offer debt-distressed countries a way to coordinate action and amplify their voice in the global financial system”.

This is not radical. As Ahunna Eziakonwa, Director of the Regional Bureau for Africa at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) put it recently, it is a “common sense and long overdue” process.

Yet, some creditor countries, including the European Union, are trying to derail the UN process, claiming it would duplicate G20 efforts. Siding with a status quo that is clearly not working is a political choice that condemns Africa and other Global South countries to greater poverty, inequality and climate destruction.

If rich countries are serious about supporting Africa and Global South countries to address the climate crisis and pursue sustainable development, they need to stop boycotting commitments agreed by consensus, and support the initiation of an intergovernmental process on debt architecture reform.

The G20 has reached its limits. The world cannot afford another decade of deadlock caused by the effectiveness of the Common Framework, while debt burdens soar. Now is the time to shift the centre of global debt governance.

Theophilus Jong Yungong is Interim Executive Director, African Forum and Network on Debt and Development (AFRODAD), and Iolanda Fresnillo is Policy and Advocacy Manager — Debt Justice, European Network on Debt and Development (Eurodad)

IPS UN Bureau

 

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André Corrêa do Lago, COP30 President of Brazil, during a highly charged closing plenary. Credit: UN Climate Change/Kiara Worth

By Joyce Chimbi
BELÉM, Brazil, Nov 23 2025 (IPS)

Following tense, nightlong negotiations and bitter rows between more than 190 country delegations, a “politically charged Belém package” was finally forged at COP30—so named because of the highly contentious and difficult-to-negotiate issues within the climate talks. Belém was supposed to be ‘a how’ climate conference. Decisions made at the 30th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change would shape how the Paris Agreement moves from word to action and to what extent global climate actions can be reached. In this COP of “implementation and multilateralism in action,” politics carried the day in more ways than one.

Observers, such as Wesley Githaiga from the Civil Society, told IPS that issues touching on trade, climate finance, and fossil fuels are politically charged because of competing and conflicting national interests.

Gavel came out without a roadmap for ending fossil fuels. Credit: UN Climate Change/Kiara Worth

“Some countries bear more responsibility for the climate crises than others and have a higher financial responsibility to address climate change,” Githaiga said. “Striking a balance between the needs of vulnerable developing nations and the economic priorities of developed wealthy countries is difficult.”

Conflicting national interests escalated when COP30 was suspended for additional side consultations just one hour before the final outcome on Saturday, following an argument that broke out over procedural issues.

The Elephant in the Room: Fossil Fuels

On one hand, a few highly organized petrostates from the Arab Group of nations, including Saudi Arabia, were opposed to Colombia, which was supported by the European Union and other Latin American countries like Panama and Uruguay regarding fossil fuels. Fossil fuels are by far the largest contributors to global warming. Scientists have warned of catastrophic temperature rises of up to 2.5°C by mid-century.

Githaiga says the issue was procedural because Colombia was objecting to an already-approved text. The main point of contention was the transition away from fossil fuels. COP28 achieved a historic breakthrough by advocating for a global shift away from fossil fuels. How to transition had been the most highly contentious issue at Belém.

So contentious that COP30 ultimately decided to sidestep ‘fossil fuels’ altogether.

Despite nearly 80 developed and developing countries standing firm demanding an end to the use of planet-warming fossil fuels, there is no mention of fossil fuels in the final COP30 agreement, only an oblique reference to the ‘UAE consensus.’ Despite the demands of Brazil’s neighbors Colombia, Panama, and Uruguay for stronger language, the announcement of a voluntary roadmap outside the UN process went ahead.

Throughout the tense climate talks, observers speculated that the COP30 outcome would include text on either “phasing away” from fossil fuels or “phasing down.” The end result did not include a roadmap for abandoning oil, gas, and coal. Recognizing that the world expected more ambition, Brazilian COP30 President André Aranha Corrêa do Lago told delegates, “We know some of you had greater ambitions for some of the issues at hand.”

Despite the lack of consensus, the COP30 President announced on Saturday that the presidency would publish a “side text” on fossil fuels and forest protection due to the lack of agreement. There will be two roadmaps on these two issues. The work will be done outside of the formal negotiations headed by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and the Brazilian COP Presidency.

Climate Finance

Nevertheless, all was not lost. According to Mohamed Adow, the Director of Power Shift Africa, the creation of a Just Transition Action Mechanism emerged as a positive development, acknowledging that the global shift away from fossil fuels will not abandon workers and frontline communities.

Adow nonetheless stressed that “developed countries have betrayed vulnerable nations by both failing to deliver science-aligned national emission reduction plans and also blocked talks on finance to help poor countries adapt to climate change caused by the global north.”

“Rich countries cannot make a genuine call for a roadmap if they continue to drive in the opposite direction themselves and refuse to pay up for the vehicles they stole from the rest of the convoy.”

Disagreements are not about climate finance in itself but about how funds will flow from the wealthy to the vulnerable, poor states. But the lack of ambition did not cut across the eight-page declaration developed at the mouth of the world largest rainforest—the Amazon.

The negotiations did succeed in their determination to deliver an economic transition, even though there are concerns that some of the climate finance agreements, such as those on adaptation, are too sweeping, too general, and lacking in specifics. COP 29 raised the annual climate finance target of developing nations from USD 100 billion to USD 300 billion. COP30 agreed to scale finance and to specifically mobilize USD 1.3 trillion annually by 2035 for climate action.

On adaptation, Adow said, “Belém restored some integrity to the Global Goal on Adaptation, removing dangerous indicators that would have penalized poorer countries simply for being poor.”

“The slow pace of finance negotiations is worrying. The promise to triple adaptation lacks clarity on a base year and has now been delayed to 2035, leaving vulnerable countries without support to match the escalating needs frontline communities are facing. As it stands, this outcome does nothing to narrow the adaptation finance gap.”

Adow continues, “COP30 was intended to focus significantly on raising funds to assist vulnerable nations in adapting to climate change; however, European nations have undermined these discussions and removed the protections that poorer countries were seeking in Belem.”

“Europe, which colonized much of the global south and then imperiled it further through its industrialized carbon emissions, now works against even efforts to help it adapt to the climate crisis.”

Many of the countries that have submitted their National Adaptation Plans lack funding. The agreement moving forward is to double adaptation finance by 2025 and triple it by 2035. But it is not clear where this money will come from—public financing, private or wealthy nations.

On the frontlines of the climate crises, Sierra Leone challenged the emphasis on private capital to fund climate adaptation efforts, stating that the private sector is not known for its robust support of adaptation. Observers like Githaiga say instead, there is a need to triple public funding for adaptation.

“If you read the text carefully, you actually realize there is no agreement requiring countries to contribute more funds for climate activities,” he says.

Loss and Damage

On the Loss and Damage Fund, operationalization and replenishment cycles are now confirmed. A first in the history of COPs, trade was and will be discussed within the UNFCCC rather than just the World Trade Organization, in recognition of the intersection between trade and climate change.

The UN climate summit also delivered new initiatives such as the launch of the Global Implementation Accelerator and the Belém Mission to 1.5°C to drive ambition and implementation. This is about meeting the ambition gap by cutting emissions. The ‘Belem Package’ seeks to raise ambition by setting a new 1.5°C warming target to match the pace of the climate crisis. There was also a commitment to promote information integrity and counter false narratives.

Ultimately, COP30 will be remembered for increased climate activism and, more so, the visibility of Indigenous Peoples and the recognition of Afro-descendants. Importantly, it’s the recognition of the cross section between climate change and action and racial justice—although the reaction from some Indigenous peoples is that they would like to have a formal seat at the table.

Belém also raised ambitions for protecting the world’s forests, as the Forest Finance Roadmap is already backed by 36 governments, accounting for 45 percent of global forest cover and 65 percent of GDP. This roadmap seeks to close a USD 66.8 billion annual gap for tropical forest protection and restoration.

UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell summed up the positives.

“So COP30 showed that climate cooperation is alive and kicking. Keeping humanity in the fight for a livable planet. And that’s despite roaring political headwinds. That while one country stepped back. 194 countries have stood firm in solidarity. Rock-solid in support of climate cooperation.

“With or without Navigation Aids, the direction of travel is clear: the shift from fossil fuels to renewables and resilience is unstoppable, and it’s gathering pace,” Stiell said at a press conference at the end of the COP.

However, many others will also remember COP30 for its lack of ambition to deliver on a 2023 promise made to the world to phase out fossil fuels. The lack of a science-based pathway to facilitate a fast, fair and funded phaseout of fossil fuels is a blemish on Belém’s climate deal.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Excerpt:

Despite nearly 80 developed and developing countries standing firm demanding an end to the use of planet-warming fossil fuels, there is no mention of fossil fuels in the final COP30 agreement, only an oblique reference to the 'UAE consensus.'

Credit: UN News/Felipe de Carvalho

By Ginger Cassady
BELÉM, Brazil, Nov 21 2025 (IPS)

Belém, at the mouth of the Amazon River, was always going to be a symbolic host for the UN COP30 climate summit, but the mood here has gone far beyond symbolism.

Indigenous Peoples, forest communities, women, workers and youth have set the tone in the streets and in the many grassroots spaces across the city. Their message has been consistent and clear — the Amazon cannot survive under the same financial system that is destroying it.

Inside the talks, however, governments are still trying to confront a planetary emergency while operating within a global economic architecture built for extraction. Debt burdens, high borrowing costs, reliance on extractive commodities, volatile currencies and investor-driven pressures all shape what is deemed “possible” long before negotiators put pen to paper.

This is the constraint the UN climate regime cannot escape: countries are expected to deliver climate action within a financial order that makes that action prohibitively expensive.

For wealthier countries, maintaining this structure shields their budgets and geopolitical leverage. For many developing countries, pushing for more ambitious outcomes means navigating the limits imposed by debt service and credit ratings. Emerging economies face their own entanglements, tied to commodity markets and large-scale extractive industries that remain politically powerful.

Overlaying this landscape is the relentless influence of lobbyists from fossil fuel companies, agribusiness conglomerates, commodity traders and major banks. Their presence across delegations and side events narrows the space for solutions that would challenge their business models.

What remains “deliverable” tends to be voluntary measures, market mechanisms and cautious language—steps that do not shift the structural incentives driving deforestation, fossil expansion and land grabs.

The Just Transition Debate Exposes the Real Fault Line

Nowhere is this tension more visible in the final hours of COP30 than in the negotiations over the Just Transition Work Programme. Many industrialized countries continue to frame just transition in narrow domestic terms: retraining workers and adjusting industries. For most of the G77, it is inseparable from land governance, food systems, mineral access, rights protections and—above all—financing that does not reproduce dependency and extraction.

The proposed Belém Action Mechanism reflects this broader vision. It could embed rights, community leadership, implementation support and a mandate to confront the systemic barriers that make unjust transitions the norm. But its language remains heavily bracketed — a sign of both political resistance and the pressure from vested interests uncomfortable with shifting power toward developing countries and frontline communities.

Debt-Based Forest Finance: The TFFF’s Structural Risks

The Tropical Forests Forever Facility (TFFF), launched by Brazil ahead of COP30, has become a flashpoint for these concerns. Despite political appeal, its reliance on long-term bonds and private capital ties forest protection to the expectations of bond markets rather than to the rights and priorities of the Peoples who live in and protect the forests.

Civil society groups have warned that the TFFF risks locking forest countries deeper into market volatility, exposing them to investor-driven conditions, and prioritising investment returns toward creditors over Indigenous Peoples or forest communities.

By treating forests as financial assets within debt markets, the model risks repeating the very dynamics that have fueled deforestation: inequitable power relations, external control and dependence on private capital.

As the talks wind down, negotiators should be frank about the stakes: debt-based climate finance will entrench, not ease, the vulnerabilities that climate action must confront.

Food, Land and the Weight of Finance

The financialization of land and food systems also looms over COP30’s final outcomes. Agribusiness giants, asset managers and commodity traders have reshaped agriculture into a global investment sector, consolidating land, driving forest loss and sidelining small-scale producers.

Draft texts now reference agroecology and Indigenous knowledge, but the political space for transforming these systems remains limited. Without addressing how speculative capital and global supply chains dictate land use, any agreement will fall short of what climate resilience truly requires.

Rights and Human Safety Under Threat

In the closing days of the talks, attempts to dilute gender language, weaken rights protections and sideline environmental defenders have drawn strong backlash from civil society and many governments. These are not isolated disputes; they reflect the political economy of extraction. Where industries rely on weak rights protections to expand, rights language becomes a bargaining chip.

The Indigenous Political Declaration: A Blueprint for Structural Change

As negotiators haggle over bracketed text, the Amazon-wide Indigenous Political Declaration stands out as one of the most coherent and grounded climate agendas to emerge at COP30. It calls for:

• Legal demarcation and protection of Indigenous territories as a non-negotiable foundation for climate stability.

• Exclusion of mining, fossil fuels and other extractive industries from Indigenous lands.

• Direct access to finance for Indigenous Peoples — not routed through state or market intermediaries that dilute rights or impose debt.

• Recognition of Indigenous knowledge and governance systems as central to climate solutions.

• Protections for defenders, who face rising threats across Amazonian countries.

This is not simply an agenda for the Amazon; it is a structural map for aligning climate action with ecological reality.

The Divide That Now Matters

As COP30 closes, it is clear the old frame of North versus South cannot explain the choices before us. The more revealing divide is between those defending an extractive financial order and those fighting for a rights-based, equitable and ecologically grounded alternative. Many of the interests blocking climate ambition in the North are aligned with elites in the South who profit from destructive supply chains.

Indigenous Peoples, women, workers and small-scale farmers share more in common with one another across continents than with the financial interests influencing their own governments.

Belém has forced the world to confront the limits of incremental change within an extractive order. Whether the final decisions reflect that reality will determine not just the legacy of this COP, but the future of the Amazon itself.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Excerpt:

Ginger Cassady is Executive Director, Rainforest Action Network

Plagued by drought, farming families living within the boundaries of the Dry Corridor in eastern Guatemala have resorted to rainwater harvesting, an effective technique that has allowed them to cope

By Edgardo Ayala
SAN LUIS JILOTEPEQUE, Guatemala, Nov 21 2025 (IPS)

Plagued by drought, farming families living within the boundaries of the Dry Corridor in eastern Guatemala have resorted to rainwater harvesting, an effective technique that has allowed them to cope.

This enables them to obtain food from plots of land that would otherwise be difficult to farm.

Funded by the Swedish government and implemented by international organizations, some 7,000 families benefit from a program that seeks to provide them with the necessary technologies and tools to set up rainwater catchment tanks, alleviating water scarcity in this region of the country.

These families live around micro-watersheds in seven municipalities in the departments of Chiquimula and Jalapa, in eastern Guatemala. These towns are Jocotán, Camotán, Olopa, San Juan Ermita, Chiquimula, San Luis Jilotepeque, and San Pedro Pinula.

“We are in the Dry Corridor, and it’s hard to grow plants here. Even if you try to grow them, due to the lack of water, (the fruits) don’t reach their proper weight,” Merlyn Sandoval, head of one of the beneficiary families, told IPS in the village of San José Las Pilas, in the municipality of San Luis Jilotepeque, Jalapa department.

The Central American Dry Corridor, 1,600 kilometers long, covers 35% of Central America and is home to more than 10.5 million people. Here, over 73% of the rural population lives in poverty, and 7.1 million people suffer from severe food insecurity, according to FAO data.

As part of the project, the young Sandoval has taken action to harvest rainwater on her plot, in the backyard of her house. She has installed a circular tank, whose base is lined with an impermeable polyethylene geomembrane, with a capacity of 16 cubic meters.

When it rains, water runs off the roof and, through a PVC pipe, reaches the tank they call a “harvester,” which collects the resource to irrigate the small garden and fruit trees, and to provide water during the dry season, from November to May.

In the garden, Sandoval and her family of 10 harvest celery, cucumber, cilantro, chives, tomatoes, and green chili. For fruits, they have bananas, mangoes, and jocotes, among others.

They also have a fish pond where 500 tilapia fingerlings are growing. The structure, also with a polyethylene geomembrane at its base, is eight meters long, six meters wide, and one meter deep.

Another beneficiary is Ricardo Ramírez. From the rainwater collector installed on his plot, he manages to irrigate, by drip, the crops in the macro-tunnel: a small greenhouse next to the tank, where he grows cucumbers, tomatoes, and green chili, among other vegetables.

“From one furrow I got 950 cucumbers, and 450 pounds of tomatoes (204 kilos). And the chili, it just keeps producing. But it was because there was water in the harvester, and I just opened the little valve for just half an hour, by drip, and the soil got well moistened,” Ramírez told IPS with satisfaction.

En español: Video: La sequía en el este de Guatemala se alivia con la cosecha de agua de lluvia

 

Gary Baker (right), CEO of Equimundo speaks on the SDG Media Zone panel "The Manosphere: Understanding and Countering Online Misogyny" with, from left to right, Janelle Dumalaon, Panel Moderator and US Correspondent for Deutsche Welle; Jaha Durureh, UN Women Regional Goodwill Ambassador for Africa; and Ljubica Fuentes, Founder of ‘Ciudadanas del Mundo’. Credit: UN Photo/Eric Kanalstein

By Oritro Karim
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 21 2025 (IPS)

As the digital landscape continues to expand and integrate into various aspects of daily life, humanitarian experts have raised concerns about the associated risks, particularly as artificial intelligence (AI), online anonymity, and the absence of effective monitoring frameworks heighten the potential for abuse and harassment. Women and girls are disproportionately affected by digital abuse, facing heightened risks, with nearly half of them worldwide lacking effective legal protections.

Ahead of the annual 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence campaign, which aims to leverage digital platforms to empower women and advocate for gender equality, UN Women raises the alarm on the digital abuse crisis affecting women. According to their figures, roughly 1 in 3 women globally experience gender-based violence in their lifetime, with anywhere from 16 to 58 percent of women having faced digital violence.

“What begins online doesn’t stay online,” said UN Women Executive Director Sima Bahous. “Digital abuse spills into real life, spreading fear, silencing voices, and—in the worst cases—leading to physical violence and femicide. Laws must evolve with technology to ensure that justice protects women both online and offline. Weak legal protections leave millions of women and girls vulnerable, while perpetrators act with impunity. This is unacceptable. Through our 16 Days of Activism campaign, UN Women calls for a world where technology serves equality, not harm.”

In recent years, online harassment has become increasingly prevalent, fueled by the rise of platforms such as Instagram, X (formerly Twitter), and TikTok. The use of generative AI tools have also contributed to a surge in cyberstalking, non-consensual image sharing, deepfakes, and disinformation aimed at humiliating and intimidating women. According to figures from the World Bank, fewer than 40 percent of countries worldwide have adequate legal frameworks to protect women from online harassment, leaving around 44 percent of women and girls—approximately 1.8 billion—without legal protection against digital abuse.

The rapid advancement of generative AI in recent years has streamlined the process of image-based abuse against women, with user-friendly platforms allowing abusers to create highly realistic deepfake images and videos, which are then shared on social media platforms and pornographic sites. AI-generated deepfakes can be replicated multiple times and stored and shared on privately owned devices, making them difficult to monitor and remove. Accountability remains a significant issue due to the lack of adequate protections and moderation to ensure safe and consensual use.

According to UN Women, image-based sexual harassment has surged over the past few years, with schoolgirls facing increased rates of fake nude images of themselves being posted onto social media, as well as female business leaders being met with targeted deepfake images and coordinated harassment campaigns.

“There is massive reinforcement between the explosion of AI technology and the toxic extreme misogyny of the manosphere”, Laura Bates, a feminist activist and author, told UN Women. “AI tools allow the spread of manosphere content further, using algorithmic tweaking that prioritizes increasingly extreme content to maximize engagement.”

“In part, this is about the root problem of misogyny – this is an overwhelmingly gendered issue, and what we’re seeing is a digital manifestation of a larger offline truth: men target women for gendered violence and abuse,” added Bates.

Digital violence can take many shapes and forms, such as inappropriate messages, actions of abuse and control from intimate partners, and anonymous threats, impacting women from all walks of life. While women and girls in low-income or rural areas are disproportionately affected by digital violence, women and girls in nearly all contexts can be vulnerable to its impact.

“Online abuse can undermine women’s sexual and reproductive rights and has a real-life impact. It can be used to control partners, restrict their decision-making, or create fear and shame that prevents them from seeking help, contraception, information or care,” said Anna Jeffreys, the Media and Crisis Communications Adviser for the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).

“Young people who experience online harassment or extortion often avoid health services altogether. In extreme cases, it can impact mental health, career progress and even threaten lives,” Jeffreys told IPS.

According to UN Women, young women, journalists, politicians, activists, and human rights defenders are routinely subjected to sexist, racist, or homophobic slurs, with migrant, disabled, and LGBTQ+ individuals being met with misogyny merged with additional forms of discrimination.

“When you get away from your abusers, you feel kind of safe, but digital violence is following you around everywhere you go”, said Ljubica Fuentes, a human rights lawyer and the founder of Ciudadanas del Mundo, an organization that promotes education free from gender-based violence across all education sectors. “You always have to be 120 per cent prepared to make an opinion online. If you are a feminist, if you are an activist, you don’t have the right to be wrong. You are not allowed to even have a past.”

Recent studies from UN Women shows that digital violence, assisted by AI-powered technology, is rapidly expanding in both scale and sophistication, yielding real-world consequences that permeate digital platforms entirely. Digital violence has been increasingly associated with rising rates of violent extremism as abuses silence women and girls in politics and media. Additionally, it is associated with increased rates of femicides in contexts where technology is used for stalking or coercion.

In the Philippines, 83 percent of survivors of online abuse reported emotional harm, 63 percent experienced sexual assault, and 45 percent suffered physical harm. In Pakistan, online harassment has been linked to femicide, suicide, physical violence, job loss, and the silencing of women and girls.

In the Arab states, 60 percent of female internet users have been exposed to online violence, while in Africa, 46 percent of women parliamentarians have faced online attacks. In Latin America and the Caribbean, 80 percent of women in public life have restricted their online presence due to fear of abuse.

UN Women is urging for strengthened global cooperation to ensure that digital platforms and AI systems adhere to safety and ethical standards by calling for increased funding for women’s rights organizations to support victims of digital violence, as well as stronger enforcement mechanisms to hold perpetrators accountable.

“The key is to move toward accountability and regulation – creating systems where AI tools must meet safety and ethics standards before being rolled out to the public, where platforms are held accountable for the content they host, and where the responsibility for prevention shifts from potential victims to those creating and profiting from harmful technologies”, said Bates.

The organization also calls on tech companies to employ more women to facilitate inclusivity and a wide variety of perspectives. Tech companies are also implored to remove harmful content and address abuse reports on a timely basis. UN Women also stresses the importance of investing in prevention efforts, such as digital literacy and online safety training for women and girls, as well as initiatives that challenge toxic online cultures.

Jeffreys tells IPS that UNFPA is on the frontlines assisting survivors of gender-based digital violence by working with governments to review and improve national laws and policies while also working directly with communities, schools, and frontline responders to build digital literacy, promote safe online practices, and ensure that survivors can access confidential support.

“Digital platforms can be powerful tools for expanding access to information, education and essential health services — especially for young people. But these tools must be safe,” said Jeffreys. “UNFPA works with governments, educators and youth-led groups to promote digital literacy and critical thinking, and we call for stronger safeguards from governments, tech providers and others to prevent online spaces from being used to harm women and girls. This includes safer product design, better reporting mechanisms, and accountability for harmful content. When digital platforms are made safe, they can help advance gender equality instead of undermining it.”

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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The UN General Assembly in session. Credit: UN Photo/Manuel Elias

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 21 2025 (IPS)

The 193-member General Assembly (GA), the UN’s highest policy-making body, has long been the repository for scores of long-winded outdated resolutions accumulated over several decades– and lying in cold storage.

As part of the proposed restructuring of the United Nations, which is facing a severe liquidity crisis, there is now a move to streamline and revitalize the General Assembly which has been mired in a bureaucratic backlog.

The President of the General Assembly (PGA), Annalena Baerbock, has called on each Main Committee to review its working methods and propose concrete measures to enhance efficiency, including:

• Merging similar agenda items to avoid repetition;
• Reducing the frequency, length and number of resolutions;
• Using biennial or triennial cycles where appropriate;
• Limiting explanations of vote to five minutes; and
• Simplifying adoption procedures — one gavel, one decision, all texts.

These recommendations, mostly spelled out in a recent resolution, would help re-shape the General Assembly to respond to global challenges with agility and coherence. But unless these reforms are implemented, they remain just words on paper, just another resolution.

“Business as usual will not suffice. We need fewer repetitive resolutions, shorter debates, and smarter scheduling. No more ‘resolutions for resolutions’ sake,” the PGA said.

“We cannot preach on Sunday that we need fewer resolutions, then proceed to submit one for consideration on Monday. And this is, unfortunately, taking place”, she warned.

Dr Palitha Kohona, a former Chief of the UN Treaty Section and one-time Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka to the United Nations, told IPS the UN is burdened under a heavy baggage of resolutions piled up over 80 years.

“Many are no longer relevant, others are superfluous, and some repetitive. Given its current perilous financial situation, it would be appropriate for each department and office to review rigorously the resolutions under their purview and identify those that could be terminated.”

This, he said, may be done through an omnibus resolution. Some might require delicate negotiations with member states which might claim ownership to resolutions that they had proposed. Sensitively, handled, this could deliver considerable financial and staffing dividends.

New resolutions, he pointed out, should be vetted carefully to avoid redundancies. UN staff could proactively assist in this process. Even where resolutions are to be implemented within existing resource allocations, there will be some cost involved, including time.

Where a proposed resolution could not be implemented due to resource constraints, it should be vetoed from the beginning, said Dr Kohona, who until recently, was Sri Lanka’s Ambassador to the People’s Republic of China.

Action officers should be located or moved to an office where a resolution is most likely to be implemented and it would be most effective. For example, the responsibility for implementing UNDP-related resolutions should be allocated to Nairobi, he proposed. Peacekeeping should also be moved to Nairobi as most peacekeeping now happens in Africa, he declared.

Baerbock said: “We have seen the Main Committees put forward resolutions for three-day conferences, with no budget attached, fully aware of the fiscal situation we are debating at the same moment. We have seen over 160 sides events during High-Level Week, despite the call for less, or the call by some, for no side events at all”.

“And we have seen, already, three or four high-level meetings submitted for consideration for the 81st High-Level Week (next year), with four for each of the 82nd and 83rd, despite the decision of this Assembly – so by all of us – to limit this to a maximum of three.”

“While we all want to protect the things we care about, each of us must make concessions in this time of reform”, she declared.

Dr. Purnima Mane, a former Deputy Executive Director (Programme) and UN Assistant-Secretary-General (ASG) at the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), told IPS the major ongoing effort to review the working methods of each of the Committees of the UN GA and enhance their efficiency is certainly laudable.

It is a golden opportunity to challenge some of the so-called ‘givens’ of the ways in which the GA functions and focus on what matters in a streamlined fashion.

The currently proposed solutions however are somewhat peripheral even if they indicate a desire for change. One of the major problems faced by the Committees is the range of issues taken on without clear prioritization including a lack of focus on neglected, key issues. And the absence of a sense of urgency, she pointed out

“The suggestions offered touch on enhancing efficiency of working but avoid tougher issues perhaps due to lack of time and sometimes will on the part of some members to take the risk of proposing solutions which might necessitate dismantling of well-entrenched methods of working”.

Another barrier, she said, might be concerns about potential difficulties that are likely to be experienced in getting agreement on these methods and more so the possibility of limited involvement by member states in their implementation.

“Perhaps starting small and identifying possibly achievable objectives for how the committees are run and managed might be a good beginning, but without the commitment of member States to the issues being prioritized and to implement the resolutions being proposed, all this change and effort is unlikely to achieve any benefits, including saving of resources”, she said.

Reducing agenda items and avoiding repetitive resolutions and endless debates are all a good start but it requires the will of the member states to implement these resolutions, once passed, she added.

And while the will to implement is understood as a given, in reality that is exactly where the problem sometimes lies. How to encourage and ensure implementation is really the true challenge, said Dr Mane, a former President and CEO of Pathfinder International.

Andreas Bummel, co-founder and Executive Director of Democracy Without Borders, told IPS ironically, the issue of revitalizing the General Assembly itself has become a ritualistic item.

“Tackling the number of annual resolutions and avoiding useless repetition year after year is a no-brainer. This should have been implemented long ago. But deeper changes are needed”.

For instance, he said, there needs to be continuity and institutional memory in the office of the President of the General Assembly. It should be a two-year tenure and receive proper funding.

Further, by creating a Parliamentary Assembly, the instrument of Citizens’ Initiative and Citizens’ Assemblies, the General Assembly can become a center of innovation and inclusion for the entire UN system. This should be on the agenda.

Use or not use at your discretion. The final two sentences are the most important as far as I am concerned, declared Bummel.

Meanwhile, revitalization is also being extended to the Office of the President of the General Assembly (OPGA).

The 80th session, Baerbock said, benefited from an early, seamless handover from the 79th — allowing us to hit the ground running. Yet the volume of work remains immense.

“Our High-Level Week featured over seven major meetings in just a few days;
The remainder of the session will see nearly twenty intergovernmental processes and multiple mandated High-Level Meetings; And the total number of resolutions has barely changed — many nearly identical to those of past sessions.”

But this is not sustainable, she said. And it’s contradicting the call from smaller missions that they cannot be in three meetings at the same time.

Transitions matter. Preparation matters. “We must ensure each presidency is set up for success”.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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A new independent evaluation of the Global Environment Facility’s food systems programs says they are delivering strong environmental and livelihood gains in many countries but warns that a narrow focus on farm production, weak political analysis, and shrinking coordination budgets are holding back deeper transformation. The Evaluation of GEF Food Systems Programs, prepared by the GEF […]

Children and youth engaging at COP. Credit: UN Climate Change/Zô Guimarães

By Cheena Kapoor
BELÉM, Brazil, Nov 21 2025 (IPS)

Jyoti Kumari missed her online classes again today. Her father, a vegetable seller in West Delhi’s vegetable market, had to go to work, taking with him the only smartphone the family uses. Kumari has been taking online classes since November 11, when the state government declared a shutdown of all elementary schools due to air pollution hitting the “severe” category.

A class five student in a government school, she relies on her father’s mobile phone to attend her classes. But her class timings coincide with her father’s work time, and due to this clash, the 10-year-old has been missing her lessons.

She represents what has become a common story in India—children missing school due to extreme weather events caused by climate change.

“Their schools shut down several times during peak summer months due to heatwaves, and the closing of schools due to air pollution in October/November has become a regular thing over the last few years. Now that the winters are starting, they will close again when the mercury drops to a freezing point,” said her father, Devendra Kumar.

In a country that has seen remarkable progress in girls’ education only in the last decade, these regular disruptions due to climatic events are threatening the progress. The school closures, compounded with poverty and loss of income due to extreme weather, threaten to push girls like Kumari into child marriage.

In Delhi, the Air Quality Index has been hovering between the “very poor” (300-400) and “severe” (over 400) categories since last week. Since November 11, when Kumari’s school shut, the government imposed stage three of the Graded Response Action Plan, or GRAP, under which nonessential construction and industrial activities are banned in the city. Civil rights groups and college students have been staging protests demanding immediate action to improve the national capital’s air quality.

But Kumari, who wants to become a scientist when she grows up, does not understand the government’s imposition and worries about her classes, which she has been missing.

As per a UNICEF report from earlier this year, climate-related extreme events disrupted education for 54.7 million students in India in 2024 alone. “April saw the highest global climate-related school disruptions, with heatwaves as the leading hazard affecting at least 118 million children in Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, the Philippines, and Thailand,” stated the report. It also added that fast-onset hazards like cyclones and landslides cause destruction of schools, while environmental stressors like air pollution and extreme heat are hindering school attendance.

Against this backdrop, world leaders have gathered in Belém for the 30th Conference of the Parties, in what is called the world’s largest climate negotiation platform. Decisions taken here will directly affect the future of children like Kumari. But by the 10th day of the summit, it is clear that non-economic loss and damage, or NELD, a term coined for all losses that are not directly related to finance, including mental health effects, loss of biodiversity, education, displacement, and culture, are not a priority.

While negotiators, packed in closed rooms, engage in high-level discussions around climate finance, adaptation targets, and fossil fuels, NELD waits to be noticed through the back door despite its growing relevance. It featured in only one side event where some experts highlighted its urgency, but it remains largely absent from the agenda.

“Social impacts of climate change are already worsening, and long-term impacts can lead to stunted education,” said Saqib Huq, Managing Director at the International Centre for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD). “Within the Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage, experts are collating data and knowledge regarding NELD, but we keep hearing that we need more data and more policy. Meanwhile, impacts are escalating.”

Part of the challenge, researchers say, is that NELD does not fit into a straightforward financial evaluation. While economic losses like collapsed infrastructure and destroyed crops are easier to quantify and thus draw funding, non-economic harms require more subtle accounting. Lost childhoods and interrupted learning do not fit into traditional finance frameworks.

But for Jyoti, the next few days do not depend on the negotiations and draft text in Belém, but rather on whether the pollution in Delhi falls enough for her to go to school again.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Excerpt:

Social impacts of climate change are already worsening, and long-term impacts can lead to stunted education. —Saqib Huq, Managing Director at the International Centre for Climate Change and Development

Oceans contribute to climate regulation by absorbing over a quarter of human-caused CO₂ emissions and around 90 percent of excess heat but attract only 1.7 percent of everything that’s invested in science.

It is urgent to rethink and transform agrifood systems by accelerating mitigation and adaptation measures. But doing so requires addressing a critical financing gap. Credit: @FAO/Miguel Arreátegui

By René Orellana Halkyer
SANTIAGO, Nov 20 2025 (IPS)

Climate change is no longer a future threat; it is a reality that is reshaping agrifood systems and compromising global food security. Its impacts are evident in both the quantity and quality of food, affecting agricultural yields, water availability, pest emergence, disease spread, and fundamental processes such as pollination. Even changes in atmospheric CO₂ concentration are altering crop biomass and nutritional value.

In 2024, climate shocks were the main driver of food crises in 18 countries, affecting 72 million people experiencing high levels of food insecurity. Hurricane Mellisa, which struck Jamaica, Haiti, and Cuba, is a recent example of the severe effects these events have on agrifood systems.

Over the past five decades, climate change has reduced global cereal yields by 2%-5%; in Latin America alone, maize yields have declined by around 5%. Since 1961, climate change has reduced global agricultural productivity by 21%, which is equivalent to losing seven years of progress.

If we truly want agrifood systems that are more sustainable and resilient, climate financing must prioritize agriculture and the livelihoods of rural communities. Without sufficient resources, international commitments will remain words on paper rather than concrete results

These figures make one conclusion clear: it is urgent to rethink and transform agrifood systems by accelerating mitigation and adaptation measures. But doing so requires addressing a critical financing gap.

Despite the urgency, in 2023 only 4% of climate-related development financing was allocated to agriculture, livestock, fisheries, and forestry. This imbalance threatens the ability of the most vulnerable countries to adapt and transition toward sustainable production models.

If we truly want agrifood systems that are more sustainable and resilient, climate financing must prioritize agriculture and the livelihoods of rural communities. Without sufficient resources, international commitments will remain words on paper rather than concrete results.

In this context, COP30 is decisive. The promotion of agroforestry projects in the Amazon, which restore degraded lands and directly benefit local communities, is a fundamental element for the sustainability of ecosystems related to food and agriculture.

The presentation of the Tropical Forests Forever Fund (TFFF), led by Brazil with support from the World Bank, proposes an innovative model to finance global forest conservation, seeking to mobilize USD 25 billion from countries and USD 100 billion from private investors. This approach shows that sustainability can also be an economic opportunity when there are vision and commitment.

The early approval of the COP30 agenda demonstrates political will to advance on climate financing, energy transition, adaptation, and resilience. The challenge now is to turn commitments into concrete targets, with clear deadlines and real resources. History has shown that promises without action do not feed anyone.

At FAO, we are promoting strategies that combine mitigation and adaptation, such as integrated fire management, whose Call to Action was launched at this COP under the leadership of Brazil and with the support of 50 countries.

COP30 arrives at a crucial moment to place agriculture, food, and the role of Indigenous Peoples and rural communities at the center of global discussions.

The future of food, sustainability, and global stability depends on COP30 being more than a Summit: it must be the beginning of a new era of climate action centered on agrifood systems.

Excerpt:

René Orellana Halkyer, Assistant Director-General and FAO Regional Representative for Latin America and the Caribbean

Fabio Nogueira, a leader of the Menino Jesus Quilombola Afro-descendant community, stands in front of a proposed landfill, which is 500m from their homes. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS

By Joyce Chimbi
BELÉM, Brazil, Nov 20 2025 (IPS)

Just 30 minutes from where the UN climate negotiations are unfolding in the port city of Belém, Afro-descendant communities are engaged in a fierce struggle for the full recognition and legal titling of their ancestral territories—critical as their security and livelihoods are compromised by businesses wanting to set up contaminating landfill sites and drug cartels.

A boat ride along the expansive Amazon basin takes you inside the forest. It is the largest rainforest in the world, estimated to be 5.5 to 6.9 million square kilometers and spanning eight countries.

In the forest are the Quilombos or communities founded by descendants of Africans who escaped enslavement. They have defended their rights for generations. Across Latin America and the Caribbean, they may be known by different names, but they are all Afro-descendant communities with shared histories.

Well over 130 million people in Latin America identify as Afro-descendant, descendants of those forcibly brought to the Americas during the transatlantic slave trade. In Brazil, Ecuador, Colombia, and Suriname, these communities collectively hold recognized management rights to nearly 10 million hectares, or nearly 24 million acres, of land.

Açaí is harvested in an Afro-descendant community near Belém, Brazil, where COP30 is underway. Açaí is part of the daily diet and is historically known as a source of subsistence. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS

But the Amazon is the backdrop for the struggle for the full recognition and legal titling of their ancestral territories, as guaranteed by the Brazilian Constitution of 1988.

IPS spoke to Fabio Nogueira, a leader among the Menino Jesus Quilombola community home to 28 families about their struggles and successes.

“Without titles, Quilombolas are exposed to invasion and displacement from big companies, ranchers, farmers and land grabbers.”

Alarmingly, criminal gangs target the Quilombola communities and their leaders for illegal activities.

Increased surveillance and drug seizures on direct routes from Latin America to Europe have turned the Amazon into a drug corridor. In Brazil, drug traffickers use ‘rios de cocaine,’ or cocaine rivers, jeopardizing the safety of the Quilombos along the Amazon rainforest.

Major rivers and remote areas in many Quilombola territories serve as key “cocaine corridors” for drug trafficking. The lack of state presence and land titling makes these communities soft targets.

Today, the Amazon rainforest is also the scene of a fierce struggle against landfills or sites for the disposal of waste material. He says landfills in the Amazon cause significant problems, including contaminating the soil and water with heavy metals and other toxins and releasing greenhouse gases like methane.

“We are currently 15 kilometers away from the lixão de Marituba landfill and it still pollutes our air and environment. Now they want to bring a landfill only 500 meters from our community. The landfill will be 200 hectares in size. We are saying no to landfills and have a case in court,” Nogueira said.

“The Menino Jesus quilombola community is in a legal dispute. We are resisting the proposed landfill project.”

Belém is a port city and gateway to Brazil’s lower Amazon region. A 30-minute boat ride through the expansive Amazon River takes you inside the forest. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS

The project was planned without recognition of their existence or the impact it would have on them. The Public Defender’s Office of Pará has filed legal action and recommended the project’s suspension, citing that the land is public and part of the area traditionally occupied and claimed by the community for twenty years.

If the Brazilian State maintains the current pace of land regularization of quilombola territories, it will take 2,188 years to fully title the 1,802 processes currently open at the National Institute for Colonization and Agrarian Reform.

The slow pace of titling negatively affects forest preservation. Despite two studies indicating that the Quilombola play a crucial role in climate solutions, their ongoing struggle for basic recognition makes it difficult for them to secure their rights or access climate finance in formal spaces, such as COP30, according to Malungu, the coordinator of Associations of Remaining Quilombo Communities of Pará, which represents and advocates for the Quilombola communities in the state.

Two recent studies indicate that titling is a determining factor for the success of Quilombos in protecting the Amazon and titled territories maintain 91 percent of their forests, while non-titled territories preserve 76 percent.

“Alarmingly, self-declared territories that do not yet have certification (necessary for starting the titling process) had a rate of forest loss 400 percent higher than that of titled territories, highlighting the urgency of recognition to halt degradation.”

During COP30, a visit to the two Quilombos—Menino Jesus and Itaco-Miri—in the Amazon rainforest demonstrates the significance of communal land titling. It illustrates how this titling enhances the well-being of Afro-descendant peoples across the Amazon and how secure land tenure contributes to climate goals through carbon absorption, forest protection, and biodiversity preservation through traditional agriculture.

Throughout six generations, Quilombola communities stand out as caretakers and conservers of the Amazon rainforest’s biodiversity, using sustainable practices passed down through generations.

Menino Jesus and Itacoã-Miri territories and other Afro-descendant community lands ‘have high biodiversity and irrecoverable carbon and were associated with a 29 to 55 percent reduction in forest loss compared to control sites.’

Still, communities deliver better results with tenure security. Key data from Instituto Social Ambiental’s Study on Quilombo Territories in the Brazilian Amazon shows that while Quilombos face significant land tenure challenges, approximately 47 percent of mapped Quilombos lack even basic delimitation or fixing of boundaries, and over 49 percent of communities have not even passed the first step.

Along the Amazon basin, communities often live in houses facing the river. The forest is their backyard. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS

Meanwhile, they remain outstanding in their conservation performance. They have preserved nearly 92 percent of mapped Quilombo territories, including forests and native vegetation. From 1985 to 2022, these territories lost only 4.7 percent of original forest cover, compared to 17 percent loss in private areas.

But political recognition has moved much more slowly than scientific recognition. Shortly before COP30, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva visited the Afro-descendant communities of Menino Jesus and Itacoã-Miri near Belém, Pará, as part of an agenda of preparatory meetings for the COP30 climate conference.

It has taken 30 COPs for a historic breakthrough, as COP30 has included the term ‘people of African descent’ in draft negotiating texts of the UN climate convention for the first time. This inclusion is a significant step toward formally recognizing this population in global climate policy.

The term ‘people of African descent’ has been incorporated into draft documents, including those related to the Just Transition and the Gender Action Plan. This had never happened in the history of the UN climate convention system, which has often been more technical and less focused on human rights and racial justice.

The Belém Declaration on Fighting Environmental Racism is a political commitment that was joined by 19 countries at the leaders’ summit before COP30 began. The text acknowledges the disproportionate exposure of people of African descent, Indigenous Peoples, and local communities to environmental harms and climate risks.

This declaration is an international agreement that seeks to foster a global dialogue on the intersection of racial equality, climate change, and environmental justice. The declaration recognizes the global ecological and racial justice crises as intertwined and proposes cooperative actions to overcome historical inequalities affecting access to environmental resources.

Its goals include reinforcing human rights and social justice in environmental policy, broadening the scope of equality in sustainable development, and building a more equitable future for all.

Coelho Teles from the Quilombo community told IPS that he is not aware of this recognition because they have “been sidelined. We do not know how to get involved and participate in COP30.”

Brazil identified forests and oceans as twin priorities and launched the Brazil-led Tropical Forests Forever Facility at COP30, seeking to compensate countries for preserving tropical forests, with 20 percent of funds reserved for Indigenous Peoples.

Science has shown communities keep forests standing. For the Tropical Forests Forever Facility to achieve desired results, those in Quilombo territories say their recognition and participation will need to be significantly more substantial.

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A Community Health Worker in a door-to-door campaign to vaccinate people in communities in Nanyamba village, Mtwara Region, in southeastern Tanzania. Credit: Kizito Makoye/IPS

By Desta Lakew and Richard Muyungi
BELÉM, Brazil, Nov 20 2025 (IPS)

Around the world, the climate crisis is fast becoming the biggest public-health threat of the century. Extreme heat now kills more Europeans than any other natural disaster. Floods in Asia displace millions and contaminate water supplies. Mosquito-borne diseases once confined to the tropics are appearing in southern Europe and the United States.

Nowhere, however, are these impacts more visible—or the responses more instructive—than in Africa, which stands at a pivotal moment in the global climate discourse. Home to 17 percent of the world’s people yet responsible for less than four percent of global emissions, the continent is on the frontline of a crisis it did little to cause.

From the Horn of Africa to the Sahel, droughts, floods, and heatwaves are fueling outbreaks of malaria, cholera, and dengue, while undermining already fragile health systems. The climate crisis is no longer a distant environmental threat; it is a daily public health emergency.

Desta Lakew, Amref Health Africa Group Director for Partnerships & External Affairs

While the Paris Agreement implicitly recognized the importance of health in climate action, it was COP28 in Dubai that marked a watershed moment. For the first time, the world finally began to acknowledge what communities across Africa have long known: climate policy is health policy.

The UAE Declaration on Climate and Health, endorsed by more than 120 countries, acknowledged that every degree of warming worsens public health outcomes and that protecting health systems is essential to climate resilience. Africa’s negotiators were central to that breakthrough—pushing health from the margins to the main stage of climate diplomacy.

Their advocacy has paved the way for the next critical milestone: the Belém Health Action Plan, being launched at COP30 in Brazil. The plan’s pillars—disease surveillance, early-warning systems, climate-smart health infrastructure, and health equity—mirror the priorities laid out in the Common African Position on Climate and Health adopted in Lilongwe and reaffirmed in the Africa Group of Negotiators’ (AGN) Declaration, which came out of the Africa Climate Summit in Addis Ababa.

The AGN was decisive in appointing a climate and health lead coordinator to ensure that health is a key thematic stream within the group, and it is now a key component of their work. The message from Africa is clear: protecting people’s health is the clearest measure of whether climate action succeeds.

Yet the global financing system has not caught up. Less than one percent of adaptation finance targets health, even as climate-sensitive diseases multiply. Despite new pledges at COP28—$300 million from the Global Fund and $100 million from the Rockefeller Foundation—the gap is measured in the hundreds of billions. Africa alone will need roughly $300 billion annually by 2030 to build resilient systems and respond to climate-related loss and damage.

Dr. Richard Muyungi, African Group of Negotiators on Climate Change (AGN) Chair

Philanthropy is waking up—the recently formed Climate and Health Funders Coalition brings together 35 institutional and individual funders and they have just committed an initial $300 million at COP30, but structural challenges remain.

Most existing climate funds remain locked behind complex applications or arrive as loans that deepen debt in economies already under strain. That approach is not solidarity—it is self-defeat. Pandemics, heat-related mortality, and vector-borne diseases do not respect borders. A health emergency anywhere can quickly become a threat everywhere.

COP30 offers the chance to change course. The Belém Health Action Plan must not become another well-intentioned declaration—it needs financing hardwired to outcomes that save lives: clinics able to function through heatwaves and floods, vaccine cold chains powered by clean energy, and community health workers trained to respond to shifting disease patterns.

To make that happen, global donors, multilateral banks, and high-emitting nations should agree on three urgent steps. First, earmark a defined share of climate finance for health adaptation—not as an afterthought but as a performance metric in every climate-finance report; second, shift from loans to grants for health-related climate resilience to prevent compounding debt crises; third, invest in African-led solutions that the rest of the world can adopt or learn from—from Kenya’s heat-health action plans in Nairobi to Tanzania’s clean cooking agenda.

Africa’s experiences offer valuable lessons for the world. The ingenuity that kept health services running through droughts and pandemics is precisely what other countries will need as wildfires, vector migration, and heat emergencies escalate globally. The world should be studying and scaling these innovations—not waiting for crises to reach their own doorsteps.

Ultimately, if the climate crisis has taught us anything, it is that health security is climate security. What happens in Nairobi or Niamey reverberates in New York and New Delhi. COP30 must deliver ambitious and just outcomes that strengthen adaptation and protect the most vulnerable. We will consider COP30 a failure if it does not deliver an ambitious adaptation decision that resonates with Africa’s climate change impacts and realities.

Leaving Belém with promises alone would be a failure of vision and of justice. Leaving with funded commitments would signal a turning point: proof that the world finally understands that safeguarding health is not a regional concern—it is the foundation of collective resilience and of our shared future.

Desta Lakew is Amref Health Africa Group Director for Partnerships & External Affairs; Dr. Richard Muyungi is African Group of Negotiators on Climate Change (AGN) Chair

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Excerpt:

Less than one percent of adaptation finance targets health, even as climate-sensitive diseases multiply. Africa alone will need roughly $300 billion annually by 2030 to build resilient systems and respond to climate-related loss and damage.

Delegates met at the Global Climate-Smart Agriculture Conference in Brasília before the COP30 climate talks. Credit: 2025Clim-Eat/Flickr

By Ana Maria Loboguerrero and Dhanush Dinesh
BELÉM, Brazil, Nov 20 2025 (IPS)

The language of agricultural sustainability changes like the seasons—from “climate-smart” to “regenerative,” “agroecological,” and “nature-positive.” Each term reflects good intentions, but the growing list risks duplication, confusion and delays.

The recent CSA Conference in Brasília gathered leaders from policy, science and finance ahead of COP30 to focus not on buzzwords but on the shared foundations of sustainable food systems, which is all the more important in the Grave New World. For all the various theories of change, many share the same principles of soil health, crop innovation, inclusive finance and resilient livestock production.

In the midst of the COP30 climate talks, consensus will depend on recognizing that climate action and protecting livelihoods must advance together. Leaders must challenge themselves to measure success not only in emissions reduced, but also in the quality of life sustained by a thriving and resilient rural economy. With Brazil’s COP presidency determined to accelerate agreements into action, the challenge now is to accept and advance context-specific approaches in pursuit of a shared goal.

At present, fragmentation continues to divide institutions, donors, NGOs and producers, with competing ideologies slowing progress toward sustainability at the speed and scale required. For example, while a vast number of organizations are currently backing the concept of regenerative agriculture, others tread the paths of sustainable intensification or climate-smart agriculture. But some of the practices, such as agroforestry, could fall under each of these concepts.

And the Koronivia Joint Work on Agriculture (KJWA), established prior to COP26, has been succeeded by Sharm el-Sheikh Joint Work on the Implementation of Climate Action on Agriculture and Food Security and yet farmers are still waiting for clear national strategies to emerge from years of workshops and working papers. While the principles underpinning these joint work programs are sound, they have not generated action at the speed needed.

On the other hand, the six CSA Conference themes—from soil health and crop innovation to finance and policy—offer a fundamental framework around which there is already much agreement and can deliver results under whichever buzzword it is categorized. The themes also reflect the priorities of Brazil’s Action Agenda and ABC+ Plan, highlighting practical areas of consensus.

Brazil’s experience offers tangible examples of how shared priorities can move from discussion to delivery. The ABC+ Plan (2020–2030) forms the backbone of the country’s low-carbon agriculture strategy, integrating sustainable practices like no-till farming, pasture recovery and biological nitrogen fixation into a coherent national framework. It represents a direct contribution to the COP30’s Action Agenda’s agricultural pillar, transforming abstract goals on soil health and productivity into measurable outcomes.

Building on this, Brazil’s RENOVAGRO is the financing arm that enables the implementation of the ABC+ Plan, demonstrating how public policy can activate private investment to move all Action Agenda ambitions forward together. By tying credit eligibility to verified adoption of low-carbon practices, the program allows farmers to commit to transitions that would otherwise be out of reach. This realizes the ABC+ Plan’s policy objectives and shows that progress depends not necessarily on new ideas, but on acting decisively on the systems that already work.

At COP30, the challenge is not to settle on the right language but to sustain the right actions—whatever this might look like according to local circumstances and resources. Progress depends on scaling what we already agree on: sound policies, accessible finance that doesn’t exclude vulnerable populations and resilient food systems that keep production within environmental limits. The next phase must prioritize implementation over invention.

Leaders have an opportunity to move from promises to performance. The task ahead is to scale what already works—not to define new concepts, but to deliver proven solutions faster.

Brazil’s example shows that integration works better than focusing on the continued search for a universal solution. There is no single path forward, only a combination of context-specific approaches bound by diplomatic agreement and sustainable financing.

By focusing on fundamentals, we can avoid the paralysis of competing definitions and begin to act collectively by applying the policies and practices we know work in ways that fit local realities.

Ana Maria Loboguerrero, Director, Adaptive and Equitable Food Systems at Gates Foundation
Dhanush Dinesh, Chief Climate Catalyst at Clim-Eat

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Excerpt:

In the midst of the COP30 climate talks, consensus will depend on recognizing that climate action and protecting livelihoods must advance together.

Rising debt, geopolitical instability and declining aid flows are intensifying external pressure on African economies. In a briefing to the Africa Group of ambassadors at the United Nations headquarters last July, Claver Gatete, Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), highlighted the economic pressures facing African countries and outlined ECA’s response, from budget stabilization and strengthened data systems to advancing regional priorities. Held at the Permanent Mission of the African Union to the UN, the session came amid growing uncertainty for African economies, with many facing debt distress, inflation and trade disruptions driven by global policy shifts.

By Danny Bradlow
PRETORIA, South Africa, Nov 20 2025 (IPS)

The end of South Africa’s G20 presidency does not mean the end of its ability or responsibility to promote the issues it prioritised during 2025. It can still advocate for action on some of these issues through its further participation in the G20 and in other international and regional forums.

In this article, I argue that going forward South Africa should prioritise the financial challenges confronting Africa that it championed in 2025.

South Africa established four overarching priorities for its G20 presidency. Two of them dealt with finance. One sought to “ensure debt sustainability for low-income countries”. The other was to mobilise finance for a just energy transition.

The importance of debt, development finance and climate to Africa’s future is clear. Over half of African countries are either in debt distress or at risk of being in distress. More than half of Africa’s population live in countries that are spending more on servicing their debt than on health and/or education.

In addition, 17 African countries experienced net debt outflows in 2023. This means that they were using more foreign exchange to pay their external creditors than they received in new debts that could be used to finance their development. The continent is also experiencing extreme weather events that are adversely affecting food security and human wellbeing.

In short, African countries are caught in a vicious cycle. The impacts of climate and their struggle to meet their debt obligations are interacting in ways that undermine their ability to meet their sustainable development goals.

South Africa’s priorities

South Africa’s priorities for its G20 presidency were ambitious. Success required meaningful action at three levels:

Awareness. South Africa would need to bring the international community to a better understanding of the nature of the debt and development finance challenges confronting African countries and of the consequences of failing to address them.

Process. South Africa would need to convince the G20 to correct the shortcomings in the Common Framework it had devised to deal with low-income countries seeking debt relief.

The examples of Zambia and Ghana showed that the Common Framework was cumbersome, slow and unduly favourable to creditors. For example, the framework requires the debtor to engage separately with each group of its creditors in a sequential process. This means that it should not negotiate with its commercial creditors until it has successfully negotiated with its official creditors.

Commercial creditors can’t give debt relief until the official creditors are satisfied with their deal and are confident that the commercial creditors will not receive more favourable treatment from the debtor than they have received.

Another complication is the IMF’s multiple roles in debt restructurings as an advisor to and a creditor of the debtor countries. In addition, it does the debt sustainability analysis that determines the amount of debt relief that all other creditors are expected to provide to the debtor country in order for it to regain debt sustainability.

The more optimistic its assessment, the smaller the contributions the various creditors, including the IMF, are expected to provide. These contributions can either be in the form of new funding or new debt terms.

Substance. The current debt restructuring process treats debt as a technical financial and legal problem rather than as the complex multifaceted problem that is experienced by debtor countries. The former perspective limits the scope of debtor-creditor negotiations to the terms of the financial contracts.

The negotiations focus on the adjustments that must be made to these terms because the debtor cannot comply with its originally accepted obligations. They treat as largely outside the scope of the discussions the adverse impact the debt situation has on the sovereign debtor’s other legal obligations and on the social, political, environmental and cultural situation in the debtor country.

This approach in effect leaves the debtor to deal with these other issues on its own. This artificial distinction between the debtors’ other legal obligations and those it owes to its creditors makes it very difficult for the debtor to escape the vicious debt, development and climate cycle in which it is trapped. It forces it to choose between its commitments to its creditors and its development obligations.

Over the course of 2025, South Africa has been very effective in raising awareness of the African debt crisis and its dire impact on African countries. South Africa persuaded the G20 finance ministers and central bank governors to issue a declaration on debt sustainability at the end of their October meeting.

The declaration is the G20’s eloquent acknowledgement of the problem and of the need for more discussion of how these debt issues are managed by both debtors and creditors. Unfortunately, it does not contain any firm G20 commitments on what it will do to remedy the situation.

There has not been substantial progress at the process and substance levels. This is unlikely to change in the remaining weeks of South Africa’s G20 presidency.

But there are three actions that South Africa can take beyond the end of its term to ensure that the African debt crisis continues receiving attention.

Three actions

First, it should ask a group like the African Expert Panel that it established to advise the president to prepare a technical report that identifies and analyses all the barriers to Africa accessing affordable, sustainable and predictable flows of external development finance.

This report should be submitted to the South African president in the first half of 2026. Next year, South Africa will still be a member of the G20 Troika, which consists of the current, immediate past and the incoming G20 presidents.

Consequently, next year, it will still be able to table the report at the G20. South Africa can also use the report to promote action in other appropriate regional and global forums.

Second, South Africa and the African Union should create an African Borrower’s Club that is independent of the G20. This club should be a forum in which African sovereign debtors can share information and lessons learned about negotiating sovereign debt transactions and about responsible debt management. When appropriate, the club can work with regional African financial institutions.

The club, working with regional organisations like the African Legal Support Facility, can also sponsor workshops in which interested African sovereign debtors can share information and more critically assess their financing options. They can also work to improve their bargaining capacity in sovereign debt transactions.

The African Borrower’s Club should also be mandated to establish an African Sovereign Debt Roundtable that is modelled on the Global Sovereign Debt Roundtable. This entity should be an informal forum, based on the Chatham House Rule in which the various categories of stakeholders in African debt can meet to discuss the design of a sovereign debt restructuring process that is effective, efficient and fair and that adopts an holistic approach to a sovereign debt crisis.

Third, South Africa should capitalise on the fact that the impacts of climate, inequality, unemployment and poverty on Africa’s development prospects are now acknowledged to be macro-critical, and so within the IMF’s macro-economic and financial mandate. South Africa should call for a review of the IMF’s operating principles and practices and its governance arrangements.

This call should note that the multilateral development banks have been the object of G20 review for a number of years and that this has resulted in important enhancements in their capital frameworks and operating practices.

On the other hand, the IMF has not been subject to a similar review despite the fact that its operations have had to undergo possibility even more extensive revisions.

Daniel D. Bradlow is Professor/Senior Research Fellow, Centre for the Advancement of Scholarship at the University of Pretoria.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Entrance to the Hangar Convention Center of the Amazonia in the northeastern Brazilian city of Belém. The climate summit, which began on November 10 and is due to conclude on Friday the 21st, is debating issues such as the phase-out of fossil fuels and adaptation goals. Credit: Emilio Godoy / IPS

By Emilio Godoy
BELÉM, Brazil, Nov 20 2025 (IPS)

The heat in the Hangar Convention Center of the Amazonia, in the northeastern Brazilian city of Belém, has reached the negotiation rooms of the climate summit. Over the past 72 hours, one of the most delicate and significant discussions of this climate meeting has been taking place: the path to progressively abandon the production and use of coal, gas, and oil.

In recent hours, a global coalition of rich and developing countries, led by Colombia, has doubled down on pushing for a fossil fuel phase-out roadmap, while major producer countries resist it.

“The plan must have differentiated commitments, the elimination of fossil fuel subsidies, and the reform of the international financial system, because foreign debt payments are punishing us,” Colombian Environment Minister Irene Vélez explained to IPS.

For the official, the 30th United Nations Conference of the Parties (COP30) on climate change must result in a roadmap. “People are mobilizing, demanding climate action; we have to start now,” she urged.

In Belém, the gateway to the planet’s largest rainforest, it is no longer just about reducing emissions but about transforming the foundation of the energy system, thus acquiring a moral, political, and scientific urgency. What was initially meant to be the “Amazon COP” has mutated into the “end-of-the-fossil-era-COP,” but the roadmap to achieve it is a toss-up.“The plan must have differentiated commitments, the elimination of fossil fuel subsidies, and the reform of the international financial system, because external debt payments are punishing us” –Irene Vélez.

Two years after the world agreed at COP28, held in 2023 in Dubai, to move away from fossil fuels, Belém is the moment of truth, upon which the effort to keep global warming below the 1.5° Celsius limit largely depends—a goal considered vital to avoid devastating and inevitable effects on ecosystems and human life.

Thus, the discussion among the 197 parties to the United Nations climate convention has shifted from the “what” to the “how,” and especially to the “when,” questions that have turned potential coordinates into a geopolitical labyrinth.

In that vein, a coalition of over 80 countries emerged on Tuesday the 18th to push the roadmap, including Colombia, Chile, Guatemala, and Panama among the Latin American countries.

One challenge for the roadmap advocates is that the issue is not explicitly part of the main agenda, a resource that the Brazilian presidency of COP30 could use to shirk responsibility on the matter.

The issue appears on the thematic menu of COP30, which started on the 10th and is scheduled to conclude on the 21st, and whose official objectives include approving the Global Goal on Adaptation to climate change and securing sufficient funds for that adaptation.

Approximately 40,000 people are attending this climate summit, including government representatives, multilateral agencies, academia, and civil society organizations.

An unprecedented indigenous presence is also in attendance, with about 900 delegates from native peoples, drawn by the ancestral call of the Amazon, a symbol of the menu of solutions to the climate catastrophe and simultaneously a victim of its causes.

Also present and very active in Belém are about 1,600 lobbyists from the hydrocarbon industry, 12% more than at the 2024 COP, according to the international coalition Kick Big Polluters Out.

The clamor from civil society demands an institutional structure with governance, clear criteria, measurable objectives, and justice mechanisms.

“The roadmap has become a difficult issue to ignore; it is already at the center of these negotiations, and no country can ignore it. The breadth of support is surprising, with rich and poor countries, producers and non-producers, indicating that an agreement is about to fall,” Antonio Hill, Just Transitions advisor for the non-governmental and international Natural Resource Governance Institute, told IPS.

Activists protest on Wednesday the 19th against fossil fuel exploitation at the entrance to the venue of the Belém climate summit, in the Amazonian northeast of Brazil. Credit: Emilio Godoy / IPS

Poisoned

The push for the roadmap comes from the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty, promoted by civil society organizations, strongly adopted by Colombia, and which so far has the support of 18 nations, but no hydrocarbon-producing Latin American country, such as Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador, Mexico, or Venezuela.

Colombia, despite also being a producer and exporter of fossil fuels, has presented its Roadmap for a Just Energy Transition, with which it seeks to replace income from coal and oil with investments in tourism and renewable energy.

Colombia’s 2022-2052 National Energy Plan projects long-term reductions in fossil fuel production. The country announced US$14.5 billion for the energy transition to less polluting forms of energy production.

But for the rest of the region, the duality between maintaining fossil fuels and promoting renewable energies persists.

A prime example of this duality is the COP30 host country itself, Brazil. While the host President, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and his Minister of Environment and Climate Change, Marina Silva, have insisted on the need to abandon fossil fuels, the government is promoting expansive oil and gas extraction plans.

In fact, just weeks before the opening of COP30, the state-owned oil group Petrobras received a permit for oil exploration in the Atlantic, just kilometers from the mouth of the Amazon River.

But Lula and his team committed that this summit in the heart of the Amazon would be “the COP of truth” and “the COP of implementation,” and the issue of fossil fuels has become central to the negotiations, which Lula joined on Wednesday the 19th to give a push to the talks and the outcomes.

In their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs)—the set of mitigation and adaptation policies countries must present to comply with the Paris Agreement on climate change signed in 2015 at COP21—Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, or Chile avoid mentioning a managed phase-out of fossil fuels.

Simply put, they argue they cannot let go of the old vine before grasping the new one. This stance also involves a delicate aspect, as nations like Ecuador depend on revenues from hydrocarbon exploitation.

Therefore, the Global South has insisted on its demand for funding from rich nations, due to their contribution to the climate disaster through fossil fuel exploitation since the 17th century.

The result of the presented policies is alarming: although many countries have increased their emission reduction targets on paper, they lack details on phasing out production. The only existing roadmap is the growing extractive one.

In fact, the Global Stocktake of the Paris Agreement process, originating from COP28, demanded that countries take measures to move towards a fossil-free era.

The argument is unequivocal: various estimates indicate that fossil fuels contribute 86% of greenhouse gas emissions, the cause of global warming.

But a key point is where to start. For Uitoto indigenous leader Fanny Kuiru Castro, the new general coordinator of the Coordinator of Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon Basin –which  brings together the more than 350 native peoples of the eight countries sharing the biome–, the starting point must precisely be at-risk regions like the Amazon.

“It is a priority. If there isn’t a clear signal that we must proceed gradually, it means the summit has failed and does not want to adopt that commitment. We will have another 30 years of speeches,” she told IPS, alluding to that number of summits without substantial results.

In the Amazon, oil blocks threaten 31 million hectares or 12% of the total area, mining threatens 9.8 million, and timber concessions threaten 2.4 million.

And in that direction, a major obstacle arises: how to finance the phase-out. The roadmap has a direct link to the financial goals aimed at the Global South, with a demand for US$1.2 trillion in funding for climate action starting in 2035.

“Can the COP deliver the financial backing that countries need to reinvent their economies in time to guarantee just and inclusive development?” Hill questioned.

The atmosphere in Belém is of a different urgency compared to Dubai or Baku, where COP29 was held a year ago. The roadmap to a world free of fossil fuel smoke remains a blurry map, drawn freehand on ground that is heating up far too quickly.

In Belém, humanity is deciding whether to brake gradually or to accelerate, with the air conditioning on and a full tank.

The idea of land abundance is a colonial fiction that refuses to die. Our research shows that Africa’s lands are already intensively used and deeply valued by millions of rural people. Professor Ruth Hall, Director–PLAAS at the University of the Western Cape.