COP30 Briefing

COP30 Briefing

Cop30, the UN Climate Change Conference, will take place at Belem in Brazil from Monday 10 November 2025 to Friday 21 November 2025. This briefing has been prepared for Eco Congregation Scotland and Interfaith Scotland to help raise awareness and encourage participation in environmental action across Scotland.

Context

The context for the conference is challenging.

The US Government is openly hostile towards climate justice and, at the UN in September, Donald Trump described climate change as the “greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world” . Other governments and the EU appear to be stepping back from earlier commitments.
The process agreed at Cop21 in Paris to promote climate action is faltering. All countries that were signatories to the Paris agreement were supposed to submit updated ‘Nationally Determined Contributions’ (NDCs) to the UN by February 2025, but only 62 had done so by September. 2024
Development agencies like Oxfam argue that financial support to developing countries hardest hit by climate change has not materialised at the scale envisaged at earlier Cops.
Oil companies and banks are distancing themselves from commitments on climate change. The Net Zero Banking Alliance folded in October 2025 and development of new oil and gas resources continues apace.
It’s not all bad news! In October 2025 renewables overtook coal as world’s biggest source of electricity. Emissions of greenhouse gases have been falling in the EU and USA. China, while still the largest contributor of greenhouse gas emissions, excels in the production of solar panels, wind turbines and battery technology, and the cost of these technologies has fallen rapidly. Sales of electric cars are increasing and most of Scotland’s electricity now comes from low carbon wind power.