United Nations climate talks in Brazil reached a limited agreement on Saturday to provide countries hardest hit by climate change with more funding to adapt to the onslaught of extreme weather events. But the agreement does not include a clear, detailed map for phasing out fossil fuels or stepping up inadequate emissions reduction plans.
The conference’s Brazilian organizers said they would work with hard-line Colombia to develop a roadmap to eventually move away from fossil fuels, but the plan would not be as effective as the one approved at a U.N. conference called COP30.
The deal was approved on Saturday after negotiators missed a deadline to wrap up the day before. The document was produced after more than 12 hours of late-night and early-morning meetings in the office of COP30 President Andre Correa de Lago.
Looking ahead, de Lago said the tough discussions started in Belém will continue under Brazil’s leadership until the next annual conference “even if they are not reflected in the document we just approved.”
Mr de Lago said the fossil fuel transition plan would be included in a separate proposal later released by his team and would not carry the same weight as the agreement countries accepted at the conference.
Critics are unhappy about the deal signed on Saturday.
“It’s a weak result,” said Jasper Inventor, a former Philippine negotiator now with Greenpeace International.
Many called this inappropriate, and Panamanian negotiator Juan Carlos Monterrey Gómez slammed it.
“Climate change decisions that cannot even be called ‘fossil fuels’ are not neutral, they are complicit. And what is happening here is beyond incompetence,” Monterrey Gómez said. “Science was removed from COP30 because it would anger polluters.”
Borenstein, Walling and Delgado contributed to The Associated Press.
