Now the dust has settled on COP30, three of CCAG’s members share their reflections and learnings from the summit, along with their hopes for future negotiations.
Mariana Mazzucato, Professor in the Economics of Innovation and Public Value at University College London
COP30 ended without the fossil fuel phase-out language many had hoped for. Yet what did come through clearly was Brazil’s emphasis on solutions over pledges – and that shift in framing matters. Now, we need to move beyond declarations to the machinery of delivery.
Whilst governments pledged billions for climate finance and announced ambitious new NDCs, the machinery needed to turn those commitments into tangible outcomes – in energy systems, transport networks, food production, and resilient infrastructure – remains dangerously underdeveloped.
COP30 positioned itself as the “Solutions COP”, and the Brazilian Presidency – through Ambassador André Corrêa do Lago’s leadership – framed this around moving from promises to proof, from declarations to delivery. That framing is right. What we need now is to institutionalise the conditions that make delivery possible, by:
As we look ahead to COP31, the challenge will be embedding these learnings – including the need to embed community knowledge in the design and implementation of climate policy and prioritising implementation over further unending declarations – and to finally put an end to fossil fuels.
Read Marianna’s full reflections on COP30 on here, along with her co-authored report, State Capacity and Capabilities for a Just Green World.
Dr Arunabha Ghosh, founder-CEO of the Council on Energy, Environment and Water:
Climate negotiations risked being disconnected from climate reality and the action that is already happening. At COP30 in Brazil, the real world finally came back into the room.
In a year where climate multilateralism has been challenged, getting a good deal was better than failing to get a perfect deal.
The simple truth is that the world is not binary. Real transitions happen amid complex and hard development choices.
We saw important steps calling on adaptation finance, recognising diverse national pathways for a just transition, the two-year work programme on climate finance, and the launch of a Global Implementation Accelerator.
Looking forward, we need genuine investment pathways, honest recognition of the scale of loss & damage, adequate concessional finance, and a system that judges COPs the way company boards judge annual performance - not on plans, but on delivery.
The developing world is injecting real-world clarity - and real solutions - into a debate long stuck in abstraction. Delivery is the only currency of trust. The negotiations have delivered. Now action must.
Sir David King, Chair of the Climate Crisis Advisory Group:
The science could not be clearer. Fossil fuels are driving the overshoot we are living through today, with devastating impacts already unfolding. Yet progress on a phase out remains blocked because the other truth is also clear. Historic emitters have still not committed the scale of predictable, concessional finance that developing countries need to transition fairly. These two failures feed one another, and they are exactly why COP30 ends without the decisive outcome the world requires.
Mutirão reminded us that beyond the ceremony, people are already delivering the transition. The risk now is losing momentum. Governments must match that on-the-ground action with the finance and emissions cuts the science demands. That is the path to shortening overshoot.
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