Enjoyed reading our article?
February 2026
Belem agendas
After several CoPs repeating the slogan ‘keep 1.5 alive’, the talk at CoP30 was ‘limiting overshoot’. But the real concern was to sustain global capital. “Less and less and less” for the richest 1%, who emit more greenhouse gases than the poorest 50% of people, was not contemplated in Belem. The ‘Global Mutirão’ – the main ‘decision’ text from the formal negotiations – “Reaffirms that the Parties should cooperate to promote a supportive and open international economic system that would lead to sustainable economic growth and development of all parties …” In short, they all committed themselves to “more and more and more” while competing to retain or improve their positions within the global orders of imperial capitalism.
Three big issues loomed large at Belem: money, fossil fuels and forests, and a just transition.
Money
At CoP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, the Northern powers agreed – reluctantly – to ‘mobilise’ $300 billion a year by 2035 “from a wide variety of sources” as climate finance for the global South. That’s less than a third of the US military budget. Southern countries had demanded $1.3 trillion. So it was decided in Baku that the CoP29 and CoP30 presidencies (Azerbaijan and Brazil) would put together the “Baku to Belem roadmap to 1.3T”. The roadmap presented ahead of CoP30 shows the trillions coming from the same ‘wide variety of sources’ where private capital is the biggest part of the wide variety. Magically, capital will get its return but won’t impose more debt on the global South.
The roadmap also proposes that the Northern powers and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) should help“alleviate onerous debt burdens faced by developing countries”. The IMF has been ‘alleviating debt’ for decades even as the debt multiplies, largely because the interests of creditors are put first. Much of that debt is illegitimate and unpayable – as repayments with interest stretch into forever, a permanent rent for ‘investors’. The roadmap adds ‘debt for nature swaps’ (DNS) to the ‘wide variety of sources’. Like the IMF, however, they prioritise the return to capital and often increase the burden on the borrowing state with additional transaction costs. And typically, they sanction land grabs in the global South. As summarised in a paper for Friends of the Earth:
The resources that actually go towards effective conservation are minimal compared to the financial costs, as creditors’ profits are prioritised. Furthermore, DNS impose conditions that give foreign NGOs and private actors control over national territories, funds and policies … Local communities are excluded, and conservation commitments are often symbolic or redundant. In some cases, there have even been evictions, limitations on food sovereignty, or militarisation of territories.
DNS is one way of financialising nature. At Belem, Brazil launched another. The Tropical Forests Forever Fund (TFFF) is supposed to compensate for the ‘market failure’ of not putting a monetary value on ecosystem services. It invites investors to put up money for a fund to invest in global capital markets, including in the carry trade where investors borrow cheap in the global North and invest for high returns on debt from the global South. The investors and the administrator (the World Bank) are to get generous returns and fees with extra added greenwash. If anything is left over, it will be paid out to about 75 countries as compensation for not cutting and burning their forests or killing local people who live in the way of ‘development’. But that’s unlikely to equal what they get from logging or burning forests to make way for plantations and cattle ranching. And TFFF income looks highly uncertain as capital markets wobble. Should the fund fail, it seems likely that the debts will land on the forest countries.
Within the formal negotiations, finance for adaptation was a critical issue for vulnerable Southern countries. The negotiating text “call[ed] for efforts to triple adaptation finance compared with 2025 by 2030”, subsequently shifted to 2035. It is not clear what will be tripled and the ambiguity ensures no real commitment. Northern negotiators say that money will be a part of, and not additional to, the $300 bn agreed in Baku.
For the most part, ‘donor’ countries retain control of financial flows and what projects are funded. As the Demand Climate Justice (DCJ) group commented, “… rich countries who continue to inflate their finance claims, count loans as climate support, and push private finance instead of public, grant-based, non-debt creating finance to the Global South …” Meanwhile, the UN climate funds – the Green Climate Fund, the Adaptation Fund and the Loss and Damage Fund – are all grossly under-funded if not empty.
Fossil fuels and forests
Limiting overshoot requires the rapid phase out of fossil fuels and the restoration of forests and other ecosystems. Fossil fuels were unmentionable through 27 CoPs. CoP28 in Dubai produced heated debate and a brief line on transitioning away from fossil fuels. At Baku, Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev declared oil a gift from god and the petrostates again blocked any mention of fossil fuels. Ahead of Belem, Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said: “We have to use oil to make our energy transition, which will require a lot of money”. The CEO of Petronas said:“We see Petrobras as one of the top 10 producers in the world … We will be having 225,000 new barrels coming online this year … let’s drill, baby drill.”
Nevertheless, on opening CoP30, Lula called for “roadmaps that will enable humankind, in a fair and planned manner, to overcome its dependence on fossil fuels, halt and reverse deforestation and mobilise resources to achieve these goals.” Some 80 countries called for the CoP to initiate a roadmap to ‘transition away’ from fossil fuels while another large block opposed it. Those for a roadmap included many of the countries most vulnerable to climate change, a large contingent of Latin American and Caribbean countries and the European Union. Those against were rallied by Saudi Arabia and the petrostates, reportedly with support from BRICS countries, including South Africa.
Whereas the EU used fossil fuel phase out to deflect attention from the failure of the global North to deliver on climate finance, these countries have used that failure to exclude text on fossil fuels. Thus, Saudi Arabia argued for a significant shift in climate finance flows to developing countries “to help them achieve goals of sustainable development and poverty eradication”. Saudi concern for the poor does not extend to the migrant workers on which its economy depends.
Colombia – not a rich country – was the most outspoken proponent of naming fossil fuels in the text. Colombian President Gustavo Petro said, “I do not accept that, in the COP 30 declaration, it is not clearly stated, as science says, that the cause of the climate crisis is the fossil fuels used by capital. If that is not said, everything else is hypocrisy.”
The scientists agree. Commenting on the Belem outcome and the 10 CoPs since the Paris Agreement was signed, James Dyke and Johan Rockström observe:
Warming is going to exceed 1.5°C. We are heading into “overshoot” within the next few years…. So, what comes after failure? … Exceed 1.5°C and not only do extreme climate events, like droughts, floods, fires and heatwaves grow in number and severity, impacting billions of people, we also approach tipping points for large Earth regulating systems. … Our only chance to recover back to a stable and safe climate is to accelerate the phase-out of fossil-fuels, remove carbon and invest in nature (on land and in the ocean), and do that without trading off between them.
In the final plenary, CoP president Andre do Lago said he would launch two roadmaps to phase out fossil fuels and reverse deforestation outside of the formal negotiating process. Colombia and The Netherlands announced they would host the first international conference to phase out fossil fuels in Santa Marta, Colombia from 28 to 29 April 2026. It will serve as a broad, intergovernmental, multisectoral platform to identify legal, economic and social pathways to phase out of fossil fuels and produce a roadmap to a fossil free world – a project which the last five CoPs have dismally failed at. It aims to support the restoring the forests – and nature in general – as well as transforming agriculture to restore soil carbon – essential to removing carbon from the atmosphere as well as to adapting to climate change. Removing carbon through unproven geoengineering technology fixes is not credible. As Sofia Basheer of Influencemap comments, carbon capture and storage (CCS) is promoted to “lock in fossil fuels and get governments to fund it” while obstructing “meaningful climate regulation”.
Just transition
Civil society organisations of all tendencies coalesced around a campaign for a Belem Action Mechanism (BAM) for a just transition and claimed a victory when the CoP decided “to develop a just transition mechanism”. The decision document includes a long list of exemplary ‘key messages’ – outlining an inclusive and participatory just transition – to be considered by all countries in designing “nationally determined just transition pathways” – note again no mention of committment. It “encourages” parties to “consider just transition pathways” as they develop climate plans including NDCs, adaptation plans and “long-term low-emission development strategies” but avoids mention of reducing fossil fuels extraction and use. It “recalls that … grant based, highly concessional finance and non-debt instruments [are] critical to supporting developing countries” but does not say where it will come from. How the mechanism will be “operationalised” is to be considered at the next CoP. As yet, there is little clarity on what it will actually bring.
Key Demands
An adequate response to climate change, requires a fast, fair and funded just transition such as is called for by the community based Open Agenda of the Life After Coal campaign. In the international context, we support the demands of the African Just Transition Network and also the Declaration of People’s Summit in Belem, and we emphasise these demands:
1. The rapid phase-out of fossil fuels
- Fossil fuels must be systematically phased out, beginning with halting all new oil, coal, and gas projects. Dependency on fossil fuels is incompatible with sustainable development. Yet it is continually backed by vested interests. Despite global pledges to end coal, its expansion is accelerating in Africa causing displacement, cultural destruction, pollution, water contamination, health crises, and violence against activists.
- Chinese, European, U.S., Gulf and other transnational corporations must be held accountable for actions that violate African land rights and environmental laws. We need stronger regional coordination to resist cross-border coal expansion, tracking of foreign-backed extractive projects, and mandatory disclosure of all foreign-backed energy deals.
- Oil, gas and coal corporations must repair the damage they have done to people’s water, lands and other natural resources, and provide reparations for all damages including ongoing health care costs.
· Subsidies for fossil fuel expansion must be reallocated to renewable energy initiatives that serve community access to safe, reliable and affordable energy.
2. Advance Community-Led Renewable Energy
- Democratise energy governance with community-owned power and support a just transition that prioritises local energy projects that are owned and managed by communities. This will increase energy access and sovereignty, while creating jobs and bolstering local economies. Community-led renewable energy is a key pillar of the BAM framework, ensuring that transitions benefit local populations rather than external investors.
- Develop Africa’s renewable energy value chain by investing in renewable energy, including the development of a comprehensive supply chain – such as manufacturing, distribution, and technology – that leverages Africa’s vast solar, wind, and geothermal resources. This also requires technology-sharing partnerships that benefit African countries and people directly and which do not result in the destruction of people’s lives and environments.
3. Accessible and Ethical Climate Finance
- Put a global tax on the richest 1% and transnational corporations and individuals to contribute to climate finance alongside developed country funding. The Northern powers owe a climate, environmental and social debt to the people of the global South for centuries of colonial and post-colonial plunder. They have an historical obligation to cancel illegitimate and unpayable debts imposed on the people and countries of the global South and to provide debt-free climate financing. Current financing mechanisms, like loans with interest (even concessional loans), only deepen debt. Financing should focus on grants and contributions that align with the urgency of climate adaptation and mitigation. This also requires the removal of donor-driven conditionalities and creditworthiness-based exclusions that routinely block African access to climate finance.
- Climate finance should directly benefit communities, rather than banks, intermediaries or national elites, to ensure funds reach grassroots actors who are leading climate responses. This should take the form of automatic transfers to communities and households, particularly to those made poor by the present economic system.
- Operationalise the Loss and Damage Fund (LDF) to finance and implement measures to address the economic and environmental costs that African countries faces due to climate change. The fund must be readily accessible and include mechanisms for accountability and transparency. Climate finance systems must not be controlled by Global North–dominated institutions, private investors or donor governments whose interests override Africa’s needs.
4. Rejection of False Solutions
- End carbon trading which allows continued pollution on the one side and corporate land grabs for carbon projects in poor countries on the other. This is “carbon colonialism”. The land grabs displace communities, violate land rights and disrupt local livelihoods. Protecting people’s land rights and stopping the continued exploitation of African resources for false climate solutions should be top priorities for African countries.
- End false technology fixes such as carbon capture and storage (CCS) and so-called ‘clean coal’ technologies, all of which have failed at great cost to reduce GHG emissions and have frequently hurt local communities. Green hydrogen is now part of the list of failed energy technology fixes. Proposals for geo-engineering such as solar radiation management or industrial carbon removals are both speculative and dangerous.
- Strong regulation against “greenwashing” is urgently needed. Financial commitments should be scrutinised to prevent corporations, nations and the international finance institutions – now including the Brics’ New Development Bank – from greenwashing their contributions. To guarantee that all monies are actually allocated toward significant climate action, transparency procedures must be in place.
Our message on climate justice is clear:
No more coal, oil or gas. No more dispossession and displacement. No more extractive financing. No more charades and false solutions.
A just transition must be community-driven, African-led, and centred on justice.
