COP30 DAILY BLOG
COP30 commenced in Belem, Brazil on 10 November 2025.
Welcome to the Power Shift Africa COP30 live blog.
In this blog, we will bring you news and updates of the summit, progress of the negotiations, including some of the hotly contested agenda items, detailing what is at stake for Africa and the world, and in-depth analyses of the final outcomes.
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What will make Belém a success?
Today is the first day of the climate summit in Belem, Brazil, which will feature a packed agenda for the next two weeks.
In the next few hours, the climate talks will begin, with the official opening ceremony scheduled to take place from 10:00 AM local time.
To be a success for the people and the planet, UN climate chief executive Simon Stiell has said that COP30 must achieve three things.
Foremost, it must send a clear signal that nations are ‘‘fully on board for climate cooperation’’ by agreeing on strong outcomes on all the key issues on the table.
The agenda of this COP, or the ‘‘Action Agenda’’ is organised around six thematic pillars, namely, transitioning energy, industry, and transport; stewarding forests, oceans, and biodiversity and transforming agriculture and food systems.
Others are building resilience for cities, infrastructure, and water; fostering human and social development; and unleashing enablers and accelerators like finance, technology, and capacity building.
On the crucial role of climate multilateralism, Mohamed Adow, founder and director of Power Shift Africa, shares Stiell’s sentiments, saying, ‘‘The world no longer needs more promises. It needs proof that climate multilateralism can still deliver, and that, when it does, it delivers for all.’’
Under the Paris Agreement, nations of the world came together to combat the climate crisis. In recent years, however, global climate cooperation has suffered blows, with developed countries in particular reneging on past commitments and others slowing down on new ones. The United States is already in the process of formally exiting the agreement.
Mohamed argues that the departure of the US, however, should not slow down the climate process. He calls the fight against climate change humanity’s greatest challenge and responsibility.
‘‘The world cannot let the ignorance of one man in the White House dictate the future of the planet. We cannot allow our homes and livelihoods to be destroyed because of this ignorance. We should crack on with or without the US.’’
This COP, he adds, is the moment for the world to come together to take climate action despite the position of the US.
Secondly, COP30 must speed up implementation across all sectors of all economies. Following years of agreements and pledges in the climate discourse, many consider this the ‘‘implementation COP’’ to accelerate climate action based on the outcomes of the first Global Stocktake (GST) at COP28 in Dubai.
This implementation requires the means of implementation (MoI).
Africa’s overarching message at this COP is that the delivery of means to implement climate action, including capacity building, technology transfer, and finance, must match commitments and the evolving needs of the most vulnerable people in the world.
‘‘If COP30 is to deserve the title of the “Implementation COP,” it should also be remembered as the moment Africa helped re-anchor the global climate regime in fairness, solidarity, and accountability,’’ says Mohamed Adow, founder and director of Power Shift Africa.
Thirdly, this COP must connect climate action to people’s real lives. The climate process is about the people and the planet. It is about protecting frontline communities from the impacts of climate change and providing the necessary resources to help them adapt and build their resilience against the climate crisis.
Centering communities, the UN chief executive notes, helps to ‘‘spread the benefits of COP’s outcomes’’ namely, stronger growth, more jobs, less pollution and better health, more affordable, secure energy.
It is for this reason that the African civil society is asking the continent’s premier negotiating bloc, the African Group of Negotiators (AGN), to ‘‘reach beyond formal negotiators’’ and engage civil society, youth, and Indigenous Peoples. These stakeholders, Mohamed says, ‘‘carry the moral authority of justice and the clarity of lived experience’’ of Africans.