BELEM, Brazil (AP) — As United Nations climate talks bubble to a critical point, negotiators on Tuesday were pressured to ensure that oil — along with fossil fuels coal and natural gas — won't be burned in the future.
Although the conference is scheduled to run through Friday, the Brazilian presidency is pushing for an interconnected decision sooner on four issues that weren't originally on the agenda. Meanwhile, dozens of nations — rich and poor — banded
together in a concerted call to deliver a detailed road map for the world to phase out or transition away from fossil fuels.
Former Ireland President Mary Robinson, a fierce climate advocate, was unusually optimistic Tuesday, comparing the talks in Belem, on the edge of the Amazon, to the climate talks that produced the landmark 2015 Paris climate agreement that set a target for limiting Earth's warming.
"This COP reminds me of Paris very much," Robinson told The Associated Press in an interview Tuesday. “I’m hoping for as good an outcome out of this difficult environment as possible. We can get it, you know, we can get it.”
Much of it will come to a head on Wednesday, the deadline set by COP30 President André Corrêa do Lago for a decision on four issues that were initially excluded from the official agenda: whether countries should be told to toughen their new climate plans; details on handing out $300 billion in pledged climate aid; dealing with trade barriers over climate and improving reporting on transparency and climate progress.
The issue that's getting talked about by more than 80 nations is weaning the world from fossil fuels. Two years ago, after much debate, the U.N. climate talks in Dubai agreed on language for a “transition away from fossil fuels.”
But the following year the issue disappeared from view. Now, many — but not all — countries are pushing for a detailed road map that would essentially give directions on how to phase out fossil fuels.
"People around the world are mobilizing on a massive scale, demanding concrete action for climate justice, particularly against the expansion of fossil fuel," said Colombia's Environment Minister Irene Vélez Torres. “Our categorical decision backed by science and by people has been to phase out fossil fuels. Despite being a producer country of oil and coal, we have chosen not to grant any new oil exploration contracts, nor any new coal mining titles.”
“We have to leave here with a call for a road map," she said Tuesday. "There’s no other way.”
Ed Miliband, the United Kingdom's top official for energy and climate change, said the issue has united the Global South and North, “saying with one voice that this is an issue that cannot be ignored, cannot be swept under the carpet, and this is where the momentum is.”
That's doubtful. Powerful oil-producing countries have opposed moving on a phaseout, and the United States — with President Donald Trump frequently calling climate change a “scam” — is skipping the talks.
COP30 President do Lago kicked off Tuesday's action with a proposal that had 21 options for negotiators on four sticky and interrelated issues.
While the options in the draft text "are a first step, what’s required now is to eliminate the options that add to delay and ignore the urgency of action,” said Jasper Inventor, deputy program director of Greenpeace International.
Tuesday was also a day for speeches from high-level ministers.
Sophie Hermans, the Netherlands' deputy prime minister, said "the transition is no longer about setting targets. It is about executing them. And execution requires realism, planning and the ability to adjust when circumstances change.”
The documents ask leaders to hash out many aspects of a potential agreement by Wednesday so that much is out of the way before the final set of decisions Friday, when the conference is scheduled to end. Climate summits routinely go past their last day as nations have to balance domestic concerns with the major shifts needed to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
Brazil President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was scheduled to return to Belem on Wednesday and the deadline may be timed for him to push parties together or celebrate some kind of draft agreement, observers said.
But many don't think countries will actually be ready with everything Brazilian leaders have asked for by then. That timeline is “pretty ambitious,” said Alden Meyer, a senior associate at climate think tank E3G.
Still, Brazil’s guidance for the summit, called COP30, has raised hopes for significant measures to fight global warming, which could range from a road map to move away from fossil fuels like oil and coal to more money to help nations build out clean energies like wind and solar.
“There are important concessions we expect from all sides,” do Lago said Monday evening. "It is said you have to give to receive.”
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This story was produced as part of the 2025 Climate Change Media Partnership, a journalism fellowship organized by Internews’ Earth Journalism Network and the Stanley Center for Peace and Security.
