Some commentators have called Cop30 a failure. An attempt to insert plans for a route to the phaseout of fossil fuels into the legal text was stymied, consideration of how to improve countries’ emissions-cutting plans was put off till next year, and although developing countries got the tripling of finance for adaptation that they were seeking, it will not be delivered in full until 2035 – and will come out of already promised funds.
Look beyond the headlines, however, and the Cop achieved a great deal more. Take the outcome on fossil fuels – it seems absurd, but until 2023 three decades of annual climate summits had failed to address fossil fuels directly.
