This year’s climate talks saw real progress – just not on fossil fuels

It wasn’t a comfortable process for the tens of thousands of delegates trying to hash out progress on climate change on the edge of the Amazon in Belém, Brazil. I experienced the challenges of the United Nations COP30 climate talks firsthand.Negotiators from 194 countries showed up and continued to talk and work together to tackle the worsening crisis. Nearly half of those countries have shown they’re ready to begin weaning themselves off fossil fuels through their support for the phase-out roadmap. They don’t have to wait for a UN consensus to act. Fossil fuel exporters only have power while other nations buy and rely on

Delegates were hot and sweaty. Tech and aircon didn’t always work. Both and  disrupted negotiations over the fortnight of negotiations. It drove home how climate change feels. But despite the discomfort, some progress was made.mechanism’s purpose will be to increase international cooperation, technical assistance, capacity-building and knowledge-sharing as countries shift towards a low carbon global economy.

Efforts to boost financing for climate adaptation bogged down, But by summit’s end, the disappearance of the world’s biggest historical emitter and largest economy from negotiations had taken its

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva dubbed it Progress was made on funding climate finance and adaptation to the changes already emerging. But efforts on ending reliance on fossil fuels faltered in the face of strong resistance by fossil fuel powers. Much progress in Belém happened outside the main talks.