The UN Climate Change Conference (COP30) in Belém ended in frustration by excluding reference to the so-called roadmap to phase out fossil fuels from its resolution, but the diplomatic roadmap is already beginning to be designed so that it will be possible to do so at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP31). This campaign will be implemented through three major events before the next UN meeting in Türkiye. Meetings in Colombia, Germany and a Pacific island nation will provide the opportunity to formulate a transition plan away from oil, coal and gas that could be voted on at the end of 2026.
The intention to put planning to end these sources of emissions on the official agenda of the COP is essential, as they represent three-quarters of the problem of the climate crisis. This issue was treated as a priority by President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, but was not part of the conference’s official agenda.
– This idea (including it on the agenda) has been around for exactly three weeks. This could have reached the UN Climate Change Conference (COP30) with greater force if there had been a movement earlier – says Executive Secretary of the NGO coalition Observatório do Clima, Marcio Astrini.
Some countries tried to include the road map on the official agenda at the last minute, which led to fragmentation of the meeting’s agenda in a way that almost jeopardized its results. Therefore, experts say there is a need to follow a more intensive negotiating roadmap next year.
“We have already realized that doing things suddenly will not work,” says Caio Victor Vieira, a climate policy specialist at the Talanoa Institute. – Now that the President of Brazil has planted this seed, it is up to the Brazilian Presidency of the COP, with a mandate until November 2026, to implement this construction.
The first of three stops to advance the roadmap agenda will be in April in Santa Marta, Colombia. The meeting announced by the country’s government at the COP30 will bring together countries that spoke in favor of the proposal – with 84 countries speaking in Belém.
In June, the meeting of the subsidiary bodies of the United Nations Climate Convention (UNFCCC) is held, a preparatory stage held every year in the German city of Bonn, which is the headquarters of the body.
The last of the three stops should be in a Pacific country (Fiji is a likely destination), where a pre-COP meeting could really move the agenda forward. AOSIS is the main moral guarantor of the anti-fossil fuel cause, and must lead this agenda.
The biggest challenge is involving countries opposed to the map, as COP decisions are taken unanimously. In addition to the usual suspects (Russia and the Arab countries), China and India opposed the idea, making its inclusion in the final declaration practically impossible.
It is not yet clear how this roadmap will be structured, but Colombia has already proposed dividing it into items that will be discussed separately in April. The topics are: financial and trade mechanisms, macroeconomic challenges, phasing out fossil fuel subsidies, safeguards against new extraction, accelerating renewable energy, economic diversification and labor market recovery.
With more than $5 trillion annually in subsidies directed at fossil fuels, discussing this topic is the best place to start.
Brazil wants this discussion to be accompanied by another plan to reduce emissions linked to deforestation. It is important on this front to involve countries with large tropical forests, especially Indonesia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
According to Talanoa’s Vieira, there is frustration in civil society that the COPs are slow to promote real changes in the rate of greenhouse gas emissions. Therefore, including roadmaps on fossil fuels and forests in the official agenda of COP 31 has become a vital goal.
— Says it is necessary for this presidential action to become a public decision in Türkiye.