The United Nations backed climate talks in Belem, Brazil ended last week with a deal that ramps up support for climate-vulnerable countries to adapt and respond to climate impacts – including a promise to triple global adaptation funding to as much as $300 million this year – but lacks a roadmap to phase out fossil fuels.
The 30th Conference of Parties (COP30) focused on accelerating the global energy transition, mobilizing climate finance, and strengthening the conservation of endangered rainforests, as well as reviewing updated nationally determined contributions or climate plans of countries through 2035.
The absence of a road map to phase out fossil fuels drew criticism from 83 countries insisting that no deal would be accepted without a clear plan for oil, gas, and coal. Even Filipino climate activists criticized the Philippine government’s silence on the road map to end fossil fuel use.
“The Philippines to the very end failed to champion the Filipino people’s need for a path away from dirty, deadly, and costly fossil fuels,” said Avril De Torres, deputy executive director of the Center for Energy, Ecology, and Development.
“Nations from the Global North and South have stepped forward to support this demand. It is disheartening that the representatives of one of the world’s most climate-vulnerable peoples remain noticeably, and frustratingly absent from this collective push.”
“If burning fossil fuels remains the order of the day, our biodiversity hot spots are doubly threatened by extractive and polluting activities and intensifying climate impacts,” De Torres said.
With COP30 failing to provide a roadmap for the phase out of fossil fuels, the world’s disorganized efforts to adapt and respond to climate impacts will certainly affect the Philippines more. That is the price we will pay for a delegation that did not champion our causes and concerns, and because of that, we will have to be more prepared to face the consequences of living on a planet that is warming too fast.*
