Posted on October, 30 2025
It’s the biggest event in the climate calendar, as world leaders gather to discuss the global response to climate change. Here’s what you need to know about the UN COP30 climate summit.
What is COP30?
COP30 is short for the 30th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The UNFCCC is an international treaty created in 1992 to limit climate change, and the “parties” are the 198 countries that have signed it.
The annual COP is a huge gathering where nearly every country on Earth comes together to talk about how to deal with climate change. Representatives include heads of state, ministers and government negotiators, but also scientists, activists, businesses, NGOs, Indigenous Peoples and the media.
How does the UN climate summit work?
At the centre of the COP are the formal intergovernmental negotiations. Delegations from the UNFCCC member countries meet to set goals, agree rules, report progress and figure out how to fund the global response to climate change. The decisions they take aren’t legally binding, but are politically significant and guide countries’ actions at the national level.
Alongside the official negotiations is a huge array of side events, where civil society organizations like WWF, scientists, businesses, Indigenous groups, youth delegates and many more make their voices heard. It’s a chance to influence negotiations, highlight key issues and build alliances.
- WWF Climate Lead and Cop30 President: Heading to Brazil with optimism
- The triple threat: Unpacking the gaps in global climate commitments
- Driving action to safeguard tropical forests
- Unlocking the power of nature for climate action
- WWF at COP30: Find out more
- WWF's Expectation Paper: Essential outcomes required from COP30
Why is COP30 important?
It’s been a decade since the Paris Agreement, when UNFCCC Parties set a goal of keeping average warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. Since then, we’ve had the hottest 10 years in human history. Around the world, blistering heatwaves, raging wildfires and catastrophic storms and floods have been devastating lives, economies and ecosystems.
The UN Secretary-General recently admitted that overshooting the 1.5°C goal is “inevitable” and that it’s “absolutely indispensable to change course”. COP30 could be the last chance to do that.
At COP28, the first Global Stocktake – a five-yearly assessment of the world’s collective climate progress – found the world is significantly off track to meet the Paris Agreement goals. It identified a massive gap between what countries have promised and what science says we need.
At COP30, countries will be submitting their new nationally determined contributions (NDCs) – national climate action plans detailing targets for emissions reductions and adaptation efforts. These must demonstrate how each nation intends to close the gap identified by the Global Stocktake. For COP30 to be a success, these new NDCs must collectively put the world back on a credible path to avoiding catastrophic climate impacts.
Beyond that, we need to see plans become action – involving not just governments but the whole of society.
What’s significant about COP30 taking place in Brazil?
COP30 is being held in Belem, in the Brazilian Amazon – so it’s the perfect opportunity to ramp up action to end deforestation, a critical component of tackling the climate crisis. Many countries, including Brazil, committed to ending deforestation by 2030 at COP26 in Glasgow, but so far progress has been slow.
Hosting COP in the world’s most important biodiversity hotspot is also a critical opportunity to align action on climate and nature. Climate change is one of the biggest threats to nature, but protecting and restoring ecosystems can help us slow global warming and adapt to its impacts.
The climate crisis is intrinsically linked to the nature crisis. Biodiversity loss and the destruction of natural habitats not only make the planet more vulnerable to climate impacts but also actively exacerbate warming by releasing stored carbon. Protecting and restoring nature – especially massive carbon sinks like the Amazon rainforest – is not just an environmental goal, but an essential climate solution.
What are other key points to look out for at COP30?
We’re hoping to see progress on three Fs: forests, finance and fossil fuels:
Forests: The Brazilian presidency will be pushing for action to end deforestation, including by funding nature-based solutions and protecting Indigenous Peoples’ rights. We want to see stronger plans from countries in their NDCs to protect, sustainably manage and restore forests, along with renewed action from private sector companies and finance institutions to eliminate deforestation from supply chains.
Finance: How to finance climate mitigation, adaptation and compensation for climate impacts (loss and damage) remains a vital ongoing area of discussion. COP discussions centre on how industrialized countries are going to provide financial support to developing countries, which bear the least responsibility for causing the climate crisis but are already paying the price. At COP29, wealthy countries committed to mobilize US$300 billion a year by 2035 – but this is well short of the US$1.3 trillion needed.
Fossil fuels: Switching away from fossil fuels is the single most important thing we can do to reduce emissions. COP30 is expected to push countries to outline timelines for phasing out fossil fuels and to scale up renewables, energy storage and clean transport. According to the Global Stocktake, global renewable energy capacity must triple and energy efficiency improvements must double by 2030. At the same time, the transition away from fossil fuels needs to be just and equitable.
But will COP30 actually achieve anything?
With emissions and temperatures continuing to rise, it’s easy to feel pessimistic. But it’s not too late to turn things around – not quite.
When the Paris Agreement was signed, the world was on course for a projected ~4°C of warming by 2100. Commitments since then have brought that down to a (still catastrophic) 3°C rise – and achieving existing net zero pledges and national climate plans in full could bring this down to ~1.9°C.
With deeper emission cuts and scaled up action to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere – particularly by restoring ecosystems – it’s still possible to bring temperature rise back below 1.5°C by the end of the century.
COP30 must send a message to the world that countries have a global action plan to get on track.