UN climate change body mulls new document on fossil fuel by Oct 2026

AP | Belem (Brazil)

As hectic deliberations marked the first week of the annual climate change summit, COP30 President Andre Correa do Lago said the deliberations may come out with a new document on fossil fuel that is likely to present a roadmap for transition into a cleaner mode. However, there is a lack of in-depth data regarding fossil fuel and more information on the subject is needed before coming out with anything concrete, Lago told a press conference late Saturday night here.

Although the fossil fuel roadmap is not in the formal agenda of COP30 Climate Summit here, it is being talked about by major parties after Brazil President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva spoke about it in his opening statement.

“The roadmap does not need to be supportive or not supportive. It is a document… The COP30 has to present the roadmap,” Lago said when asked if any roadmap is being discussed by the parties during the ongoing deliberations.

Negotiators from more than 190 countries have gathered here for the annual Conference of Parties (COP) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The COP30 summit is taking place at the Brazilian city of Belem in the Amazon region from November 10 to 21.

Lago commented that some “very positive comments” were heard during the negotiations and all in a way agreed to work on it in the coming period.

“We also had very clear comments that this is not a negotiated outcome, this is not a documented outcome that needs to be approved, or a document that enters into negotiation.

“This roadmap is made for negotiators, for delegations to know about all the elements that we could raise during that effort,” Lago said.

Talking about any documented roadmap, the COP30 president said that most of the parties feel there is inadequate data on implications of fossil fuel and the way ahead.

“I think one thing is clear most of the interventions agreed that we have an issue with data. We need more data. So, we really want to continue with the Azarbaizanian presidency and Brazilian presidency to have a group of experts that will help us to really have better data,” he added.

Lago stressed that the additional data is required so that different sides can agree to it, and this is one of the things that the UN Climate Change body is going to do very early next year.

“We will likely organise three meetings to discuss data, but it’s going to be of experts. We propose to have a report by October 2026. It is about the roadmap 1.3,” he added.

He was referring to a report on the Baku to Belem Roadmap to 1.3T published by the COP presidency ahead of the annual climate summit.

Released on November 5, the ‘Baku to Belem Roadmap to 1.3 trillion’ builds on the agreement reached last year at COP29 in Baku, where countries had called on “all actors”, including governments, banks and businesses, to work together to mobilise USD 1.3 trillion annually by 2035 under the new global climate finance goal to help developing countries deal with the growing impacts of climate change and shift to cleaner economies.

Presently, there is not one concrete global fossil fuel phase-out roadmap, but has only some mix of partial plans.

The biggest one in direction so far is the COP28 deal, where countries agreed to transition away from fossil fuels. However, it did not give any clear deadlines or binding rules.

Earlier, during his opening address of the COP30 summit here on November 10, UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell had urged negotiators in Belem to focus on how to deliver on what the world has already agreed — a transition away from fossil fuels, a just and inclusive economic transformation and stronger action on adaptation and technology.

“We have already agreed to deliver at least USD 300 billion in climate finance. Now, we need to start moving towards the USD 1.3 trillion,” he said, referring to the ‘Baku to Belem Roadmap’ for scaling up support.

Stiell had also called for concrete steps to operationalise the global goal on adaptation, implement the technology programme and link negotiations to real-world outcomes.

During the presser, Lago said that parties had a very interesting ministerial discussion on finance issues on the ‘Baku to Belem Roadmap’ towards USD 1.3 trillion.

“That was a very constructive discussion with lots of interventions by delegations and observers. In the past two days, we asked parties to share their vision on three issues, the first being the united celebration of 10 years of the Paris Agreement,” he added.

The other two subjects were — from negotiation to implementation of the Paris Agreement policy cycle fully in motion and responding to the urgency of accelerating the implementation, solidarity and international cooperation, Lago stressed.

The 2015 Paris Agreement aims at substantially reducing global greenhouse gas emissions to hold global temperature increase to well below 2 degrees Celsius and pursue efforts to limit it to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels (with a baseline 1850-1900).

The world has already heated up by 1.3 degrees Celsius since the pre-industrial era, largely due to burning fossil fuels.

The UN Emissions Gap report published earlier in the month said that under the current policies, the world is on track for 2.8 degrees of warming by 2100.