If you have been following international news, you may have already heard about this year’s UN climate conference, to be held in the Brazilian rainforest. So far, most reports have focused on the logistical and environmental challenges, but this article aims to show why the upcoming November event deserves our attention from the perspective of tackling climate change.
The annual UN Climate Conferences (COPs) often receive limited media attention, as they typically deal with highly technical issues that only indirectly affect everyday life. However, this year, international climate policy has featured far more prominently in the global press; although, often in a negative context. In the spring, an internal UN document was leaked, outlining proposed institutional reforms to address a financial crisis triggered by the suspension of U.S. funding. Later, criticism emerged over the choice of venue for this year’s conference. The Brazilian organizers selected Belém, also known as the “Gateway to the Amazon” to highlight the challenges climate change poses to the rainforest. However, infrastructure projects in the jungle, the use of cruise ships to house delegates, and rising costs have cast a shadow over the event. Despite these controversies, it is worth examining why the COP30, starting in early November, remains an important milestone to follow.
Tackling Climate Change – How Are We Doing?
The Paris Agreement, the cornerstone of global climate action, celebrates its 10th anniversary this year. The Agreement was groundbreaking because it made climate action mandatory for all countries, while allowing each to define its own contribution, so long as it aligns with the collective goal of keeping global warming well below 2°C, and ideally limited to 1.5°C. These national pledges, known as Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), were due to be updated ahead of this year’s conference.
But how close are we to meeting these targets, and what have countries actually committed to? According to a recent study, current policies are insufficient to keep warming below 1.5°C by the end of the century. Exceeding this threshold risks triggering irreversible changes in the Earth’s climate systems. This makes 2025 a critical year: governments must now submit new pledges to the UN, detailing how they intend to accelerate climate action.
Source: UNFCCC
A UN report published on October 28 presents the impact of newly submitted NDCs. However, since several major emitters have not yet submitted updated plans, the report covers only about 30% of global emissions. The EU has announced a political commitment to reduce emissions by 66.25–72.5% by 2035, pending adoption of its 2040 climate goals. China has made a similar political pledge; promising for the first time in its history to cut emissions by 7–10% by 2035. Despite these limitations, the UN report projects a consistent global reduction of around 10% by 2035, though progress remains too slow to meet the Paris goals.
Before the Paris Agreement, expected warming by 2100 ranged from 3.7°C to 4.8°C. After the first round of commitments, this dropped to between 3.0°C and 3.2°C. Today, if governments meet their pledges, warming is projected at 2.1°C–2.8°C, still above the 1.5°C target. Encouragingly, a recent study found that the likelihood of exceeding catastrophic 3°C warming has fallen from 25% in 2015 to just 9% today, as emissions and carbon intensity in major economies decline.
Source: Jiang et al., 2025
Since the Paris Agreement’s implementation rules were finalized in 2024, this year’s negotiations must focus on concrete actions. The COP30 in Brazil will therefore be crucial for presenting new commitments and agreeing on tangible steps to keep the Paris goals within reach.
How Do We Adapt to the Unavoidable?
As the extreme weather events of this summer, such as wildfires in Southern Europe and droughts in Hungary have shown, climate change is not a distant threat; it is already forcing us to adapt. Measuring progress on adaptation, however, has long been a challenge. To address this, the Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA) work program was launched in 2021 to provide a clear framework and indicators for tracking global adaptation efforts. A well-designed and widely supported GGA can guide adaptation policies by showing where and how plans are being implemented and where progress is lagging.
This process must conclude in November. Finalizing the framework and indicators will be politically sensitive: countries differ on whether to include only purely adaptation-related indicators or also financial, capacity-building, and technological ones. While scientific credibility is key, some nations argue for a broader framework to better mobilize financial support for adaptation activities.
Where Will the Money Come From?
This leads to a crucial question that will again dominate discussions in Brazil: how will all of this be financed? At last year’s COP29, countries agreed on a new collective quantified financial goal (NCQG), pledging that developed nations should mobilize at least USD 300 billion annually by 2035 for developing countries, with an additional USD 1.3 trillion per year to be raised from other sources. The Baku to Belém Finance Roadmap aims to outline how this target can be met. Limited public funds must be used strategically to attract large-scale private investment for both mitigation and adaptation.
Developing countries have already argued that USD 300 billion per year is insufficient, while developed nations have questioned even that figure. Raising the total to USD 1.3 trillion annually would require substantial contributions from private and financial institutions. Actors over whom governments have limited control. Translating these commitments into concrete actions will therefore be a major challenge.
Based on the above, we can expect quite interesting negotiations in Brazil, which may set course on the future of international climate action for the next coming years. For those interested in the significance of the Paris Agreement and the future of international climate negotiations, the French Institute in Budapest and the Green Policy Center will host a joint event on November 3 at 5:00 p.m., offering an opportunity to review the practical implementation of the Paris goals—a week before the COP30 begins in Brazil—with insights from both international and Hungarian experts.
