COP30 in Belem is the so-called COP of Truth. But truth is not a branding process; it is a trial of integrity. To climate-vulnerable developing countries, whether they are Fiji or Mozambique or Bangladesh or Haiti or Bolivia or Samoa, truth is to reveal a system in which the least guilty of warming are nevertheless required to borrow, with interest, to simply live through it.
The new draft of the text of the resolution named Global Mutirao is a step in the right direction on paper: it finally acknowledges the true amount of climate action, USD 1.3 trillion/year by 2035, USD 300 billion of which would be allocated to developing countries, and the inclusion of the need to triple adaptation finance with priority to the most affected.
Several African, Caribbean, and Pacific delegations say plainly: “If COP30 cannot tell the truth about the past, it cannot be trusted with the future.” It suggests structural changes: direct access to finance, Belem Facility to just transition to investment grade and possible climate-related trade and accountability reform.
But the most difficult struggles are now arising. Big, developed nations are already clamoring to substitute fixed figures with an unclear language, water down allusions to legal commitments in Article 9.1 and reposition flows that are loan intensive as innovative finance. Developing nations are united on one non-negotiable point that
In the meantime, civil society networks, youth alliances, MDBs, and even certain progressive wealthy governments are paying positive signals in favor of the leadership of public capital, debt-free finance, and implementation of climate duties, not aspirations. The scale or urgency is no longer an issue. It is about enforceability.
An end to climate finance delusions.
The reaction is obvious, the vulnerable nations and their citizens are not going to consider any final COP30 result that is going to be welcoming achievement of the USD 100 billion target, when hardly 60 billion reached the developing countries, predominantly in the form of loans. Some delegations of Africa, Caribbean and Pacific bluntly state that COP30 cannot be trusted with the future when it cannot tell the truth about the past.
To make a nod to this failure is not blameful, but rather about building trust again, correcting the accounting distortions, and a trillion-dollar regime that is built with facts rather than fiction.
Financing climate is not an act of charity but rather an obligation.
Climate finance is not an act of charity; it is an obligation that is unanimous across developing nations as stated in Article 9.1 of Paris. Article 9.1 Work Program to implement obligations must therefore be provided by COP30 within a time-bound program.
A disciplined accounting regime, ending creative reporting, enforcing equal burden-sharing among developed nations, guaranteeing minimum levels of grants and concessional finance, and backed by compliance rather than mere dialogue, is where aspirations finally turn into enforceable promises.
Climate survival cannot be the cost of debt
Outside the negotiation halls, there is a dramatic warning sign: climate finance doesn’t make you debt, it is climate injustice. Weak states are ensuring the adaptation and loss, and damage financing should be grant-based, highly concessional, and no-debt. Considering the inability to capture the cyclical non-economic losses the amounts are lukewarm for the climate induced displaced people and degraded nature.
Anything merely changes the crisis on the atmosphere to the balance sheet. This is at least being recognized by even multilateral banks: the nations facing debt distress cannot shift to borrowed money.
Fix the figures, do not allow them to melt into ‘mobilized finance’
Other negotiators are already attempting to exchange the USD 1.3 trillion and USD 300 billion amounts with gentler language such as scaled-up resources or even innovative collaborations. That would destroy the only enforceable aspects of this COP. Numbers are not fair; they are all that negotiators can hold them responsible.
Out of interventions to pipelines: the promise of the Belem Facility
The Belem Facility is one of the most powerful text innovations, which is a mechanism to convert NDCs, NAPs, and LT-LEDS into investment-grade, locally owned project portfolios supported by public capital and de-risking tools. This, when safeguarded, would eventually see the vulnerable nations move away with divided projects into actual climate transition plans. However, it should not be one more advisory platform. It must possess capital, access and power.
Loss & Damage: attaining symbolism to institutional reality.
Stakeholders at both ends are calling on COP30 to leave the launch and applause stage. The Loss & Damage Fund should be turned into an international operational tool, and:
- Minimum replenishment requirements,
- Stable contributions for several years,
- Priority access to the most affected nations and communities,
- Local custodians can have direct access not just national treasuries.
Addressing colonialism through carbon.
Carbon taxes on the border, supply-chain constraints, and climate-consistent trade policy should offset emission reductions, not victimize the susceptible economies, employees, and exporters. COP30 needs to establish a formal platform to evaluate and prevent the effects of trade policies associated with climate on developing nations. Since there can be no climate justice being climate trade injustice.
Belem cannot be some other COP of poetic expression and tardy delivery. To climate-vulnerable countries, this is where the Paris Agreement should only change into performance and no longer promise.
Credit ratings should not be the survival criteria. Climate finance should not come in the form of debt. And Paris will not be proclaimed victorious until it reaches where it is most needed: in dry regions, in deltas, in weak woods, and in the regions at the front line.
Developing countries do not seek favors. They are implementing a promise that the world made already.
M. Zakir Hossain Khan is an author and a leading advocate of natural rights–based governance. He serves as an Observer of the Climate Investment Funds (CIF) and is the Founding Managing Director of Change Initiative, a think-and-do tank.
