The Human Consciousness Now...Our World in the Midst of Becoming...to What? Observe, contemplate Now.
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
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
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
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.
The COP30 Presidency is urging all “negotiators to join in a true mutirão—a collective mobilization of minds, hearts, and hands,” saying this approach helps “accelerate the pace, bridge divides, and focus not on what separates us, but on what unites us in purpose and humanity.”
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
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
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
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.'
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
Excerpt:
Ginger Cassady is Executive Director, Rainforest Action Network
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
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