Cop30 talks end with deal for more money for countries hit by climate change

United Nations climate talks in Brazil reached a subdued agreement on Saturday to deliver more money to countries hit hardest by climate change to help them adapt to extreme weather’s wrath.

But the agreement does not include an explicit, detailed map to phase out fossil fuels or strengthen inadequate emissions cutting plans.

The Brazilian hosts of the conference said they had eventually come up with a road map to get away from fossil fuels by working with hardline Colombia, but it will not have the same force as something approved at the United Nations conference called Cop30.

The deal was approved on Saturday after negotiators blew past a deadline to wrap up the previous day.

The deal was crafted after more than 12 hours of late night and early morning meetings in Cop30 president Andre Correa do Lago’s office.

Looking ahead, Mr Do Lago said tough discussions started in Belem will continue under Brazil’s leadership until the next annual conference “even if they are not reflected in this text we just approved”.

Mr Do Lago has said a fossil fuel transition plan will be in a separate proposal issued later by his team that will not carry the same weight as a deal accepted by nations at the conference.

But critics complained about the deal struck on Saturday.

“It’s a weak outcome,” said former Philippine negotiator Jasper Inventor, now at Greenpeace International.

It was called weak and inadequate by many, with Panama negotiator Juan Carlos Monterrey Gomez railing against the deal.

“A climate decision that cannot even say ‘fossil fuels’ is not neutrality, it is complicity. And what is happening here transcends incompetence,” Mr Monterrey Gomez said.

“Science has been deleted from Cop30 because it offends the polluters.”