Host Brazil pushes for progress on big issues at COP30 and some see cause for optimism

André Corrêa do Lago, COP30 president, gestures during a news conference at the COP30 U.N. Climate Summit, Monday, Nov. 17, 2025, in Belem, Brazil. (AP Photo/Andre Penner)

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, known as COP30, 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.”

Wednesday is the big day

Much of it will come to a head on Wednesday, the deadline set by COP30 President Andre Correa 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 US$300 billion in pledged climate aid; dealing with trade barriers over climate and improving reporting on transparency and climate progress.

Brazil President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva will return to the talks on Wednesday and meet with some of the negotiating teams, do Lago said.

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 UN 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 Velez 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.”

The COP presidency’s draft language on the phaseout road map caused strong positive and negative reactions, with perhaps more negative reactions than strong, said COP30 CEO Ana Toni. She said not only were fossil fuel nations against it, but other countries didn’t want something that would be seen as added requirements. U.S. President Donald Trump, who didn’t send anyone to the conference, has called climate change a scam.

But do Lago raised one interesting possibility. Usually agreements coming out of COPs have to be by consensus and near unanimous. But he said since the idea of a fossil fuel transition was already approved by consensus in 2023, the road map may not need such a high bar for adoption.

A draft to work from

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.”

Pressure grows to reach an agreement

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.

Lula 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 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.

Melina Walling, Seth Borenstein and Anton L. Delgado, The Associated Press