COP30 deal urges more funds for poorer countries, omits fossil fuels

Leaders welcome deal reached at UN climate summit as step forward but say ‘more ambition’ needed to tackle the crisis.

World leaders have agreed to a deal at the United Nations climate conference in Brazil that seeks to address the crisis, but the agreement does not include any mention of phasing out the fossil fuels driving climate change.

The text was approved on Saturday afternoon after negotiations stretched through the night, well beyond the expected close of the two-week COP30 summit in the Brazilian city of Belem, amid deep divisions over the fossil fuel phase-out.

The agreement pledges to review climate-related trade barriers and calls on developed nations to “at least triple” the money given to developing countries to help them withstand extreme weather events.

It also urges “all actors to work together to significantly accelerate and scale up climate action worldwide” with the aim of keeping the 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) mark for global warming – an internationally agreed-upon target set under the Paris Agreement – “within reach”.

Wopke Hoekstra, the European Union’s climate commissioner, said the outcome was a step in the right direction, but the bloc would have liked more.