[Kasalikasan] COP30, we were all rooting for you!

Every year, our lean climate team covers the annual United Nations Climate Change Conference or COP — remotely or otherwise — because we believe in its significance in bringing nations together to tackle one of the major challenges of our time. 

Because COPs always happen every November or December, covering this annual summit has — unintentionally — become a culmination of sorts of Rappler’s coverage of the Philippines’ climate and environmental issues over the past year. After working on local (sometimes, hyperlocal) stories from January to October, we turn our eyes to COP before the year ends to see whether world leaders will make more ambitious commitments this time (in terms of climate adaptation and finance, among others) that would trickle down to communities most affected by climate change.

That is the hope, at least, and after 30 years of climate conferences, it has also become the expectation. 

However, outcomes out of COP30 — “widely seen as a litmus test for turning decades of climate pledges into action,” as the UN itself puts it — were not just underwhelming but also “extremely disappointing.” 

While it promised to triple adaptation finance by 2035, Filipino climate activist and former negotiator Yeb Saño said the language in the text “sounds very hollow when storms are ravaging many communities.”

“I cannot find anything in the language that effectively commits any country or group of countries to delivering the necessary levels of climate finance…. And do not be deceived when someone tells you ‘I will triple the amount’ — when the multiplicand base is so low, tripling is insignificant. We need absolute amounts, not vague multipliers,” Saño wrote in a strongly worded Facebook post.

And we’re not even talking about the absence in the decision text of mentions of fossil fuels that cause climate change. It is the irony of ironies, but Panamanian negotiator Juan Carlos Monterrey said it best: “A climate decision that cannot even say fossil fuels is not neutrality, it is complicity.”

Panama and more than 80 other countries at COP30 called for a fossil fuel phaseout roadmap that did not make it to the final text. Instead, COP30 president André Corrêa do Lago said this roadmap, and another on deforestation, would be developed outside the formal COP negotiating process. 

Much to the disappointment of Filipino observers, the Philippine delegation at Belém did not join this coalition of nations until the very end. For a country that’s still reeling from two very strong typhoons, it’s not a good look.

Despite all these outcomes, we press on. 

Climate advocates and communities shake the COP30 dust off as they look to April 2026 for the First International Conference on the Just Transition Away from Fossil Fuels, to be hosted by Colombia and The Netherlands. Climate change won’t wait for another year, after all.

Maybe there, the Philippines will finally speak up. 

Till the Tuesday after next!

Here are other stories from our cluster that you shouldn’t miss.

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After COP30, climate advocates look ahead to Colombia talks on fossil-free future

ABCs of COP30

Monterrazas de Cebu and the envi laws they violated, according to DENR

Catanduanes fisherfolk struggle to cope after Uwan shatters boats, homes

How these young Filipino scientists made their mark in Hong Kong

Rare photos of PH flora species found 15 years after death of ‘People’s Botanist’ Leonard Co

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– Rappler.com

Kasalikasan is a bimonthly newsletter featuring environmental and science issues, delivered straight to your inbox every other Tuesday. Visit rappler.com/newsletters to subscribe.