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A decade since the Paris Agreement reshaped global climate governance, COP30 in Belém must confront the widening gap between ambition and action—realigning finance, technology, and adaptation to deliver a just and effective climate transition
Image Source: Getty Images
This article is part of the essay series: "Expectations from COP30"
As world leaders gather in Belém for the 2025 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP30) today, it will not just mark another annual ritual in the climate calendar; it will mark the end of a phase. A full decade has passed since the Paris Agreement reimagined the global climate regime around a simple but revolutionary idea: that every nation, regardless of size or status, must chart its own course toward a common planetary goal. Paris replaced top-down targets with bottom-up ambition. It offered hope that collective responsibility could be built through differentiated action.
Ten years on, the promise of Paris stands tested. The first Global Stocktake (GST), unveiled at COP28, confirmed what many feared: we are not on track. Global emissions continue to rise, the 1.5°C threshold looms perilously close, and climate impacts are intensifying faster than our ability to adapt. According to the United Nations Environment Programme’s (UNEP) 2024 Emissions Gap Report, current pledges would still lead to a 2.7°C world by the end of the century, a scenario that translates into unlivable heat, food and water insecurity, and economic disruption on a scale unseen in modern history.
COP30 must be the bridge between rhetoric and reality. If Paris was about pledging, Belém must be about proving. The decade ahead cannot afford another round of incrementalism dressed as progress. What the GST makes abundantly clear is that ambition without implementation is meaningless—and implementation without equity is unjust.
If Paris was about pledging, Belém must be about proving. The decade ahead cannot afford another round of incrementalism dressed as progress.
The central expectation from COP30 is therefore twofold: to transform ambition into architecture, and equity into execution. The focus must shift from drafting NDCs to delivering them; from discussing finance to disbursing it; from recognising adaptation needs to embedding them in national budgets and development plans.
The Paris Agreement’s Articles 4, 7, 9, 10, and 13—on mitigation, adaptation, finance, technology, and transparency—were designed as interlocking gears of one machine. But a decade later, the machine is stalling because the gears turn at different speeds. While the mitigation agenda has dominated political attention, adaptation remains underfunded and undervalued. Finance flows remain opaque and inadequate, falling over USD300 billion short of estimated needs every year. Technology partnerships remain gated by intellectual property barriers. COP30 must realign these gears into a synchronised system of delivery.
The climate regime of 2025 is not that of 2015. The geopolitical map has shifted. The Global South is no longer a passive stakeholder; it is a coalition of voices, markets, and innovators shaping the contours of global climate politics. India, Brazil, Indonesia, and South Africa are articulating a new grammar of growth: climate-aligned development.
At COP30, this evolving consensus will be tested. The negotiations on the next generation of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), due in 2025, are expected to push countries to move from sectoral to systemic transitions, anchoring decarbonisation in the hard-to-abate sectors of energy, transport, industry, and agriculture. But for emerging economies, ambition cannot be divorced from access. Without predictable finance, affordable technology, and fair trade, higher ambition becomes politically untenable and economically unjust.
The Global South is no longer a passive stakeholder; it is a coalition of voices, markets, and innovators shaping the contours of global climate politics. India, Brazil, Indonesia, and South Africa are articulating a new grammar of growth: climate-aligned development.
India’s own trajectory captures this tension vividly. With one of the world’s fastest-growing renewable energy portfolios, surpassing 190 GW of installed capacity in 2025 and commitments to achieve 500 GW of non-fossil fuel capacity by 2030, India embodies the possibility of growth without guilt. Yet, as its per capita emissions remain one-third of the global average, it continues to remind the world that climate justice is not charity; it is a prerequisite for shared progress.
The next phase of the Paris journey, therefore, must deliver development-compatible climate action—pathways that lift people out of poverty while keeping carbon out of the atmosphere.
Trust will be the currency of COP30. And trust, today, is in deficit. The unmet US$100 billion finance pledge continues to haunt negotiations, eroding confidence in the multilateral process. The forthcoming New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) on finance must restore that credibility by being not just bigger, but better—anchored in accessibility, accountability, and adequacy.
For India and its developing peers, predictable finance is not merely about quantum; it is about design. The current climate finance architecture privileges projects over people, and institutions over communities. COP30 must rewire this design to enable direct access by subnational actors, cities, and Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) that form the backbone of low-carbon transitions.
For India and its developing peers, predictable finance is not merely about quantum; it is about design. The current climate finance architecture privileges projects over people, and institutions over communities.
COP30 should operationalise a finance framework that recognises the diversity of developing economies: from small island states facing existential risks to large emerging economies balancing growth and transition. It must institutionalise de-risking mechanisms to crowd in private capital, enable local financial institutions to participate in green lending, and build a transparent tracking system under Article 13 that reports not just flows but outcomes.
Technology transfer, too, must move from rhetoric to real partnerships. Article 10’s Technology Framework was meant to accelerate cooperation, but in practice, intellectual property regimes have slowed diffusion. COP30 can set the stage for co-ownership models, open-source innovation platforms, and South–South technology partnerships that democratise access to green technologies.
The other half of the Paris promise—adaptation—has waited too long for its due. As heatwaves, floods, and water stress intensify, adaptation can no longer be treated as a secondary pillar. COP30 is expected to advance the Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA), but expectations will be high that it goes beyond principles to practical pathways: measurable indicators, data systems, and finance mechanisms that support communities, cities, and ecosystems.
In India, where over 600 million people depend on climate-sensitive sectors such as agriculture and fisheries, the adaptation agenda is inseparable from livelihoods. Strengthening early warning systems, heat-health action plans, and water resilience frameworks—like those being piloted in Indian cities—should inform global adaptation planning.
COP30 is expected to advance the Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA), but expectations will be high that it goes beyond principles to practical pathways: measurable indicators, data systems, and finance mechanisms that support communities, cities, and ecosystems.
Water, health, and food systems must emerge as the connective tissue of adaptation. According to the World Bank, by 2030, water scarcity could cost some regions up to 6 percent of their GDP annually. Similarly, climate-induced health impacts—from vector-borne diseases to heat stress—are already reversing development gains. COP30 must embed these realities in national planning frameworks, ensuring that adaptation is not a project, but a paradigm.
The symbolism of Belém—at the heart of the Amazon—is powerful. The Amazon is not just the world’s largest carbon sink; it is a mirror of our collective failure and potential. Its preservation is intertwined with indigenous rights, biodiversity, and planetary stability. As COP30 convenes amid growing calls for convergence between the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Global Biodiversity Framework, the question is whether we can finally move from protecting nature to partnering with it.
For India and the wider Global South, COP30 is an opportunity to redefine global climate governance. India’s presidency of the G20 in 2023 and its leadership through coalitions like the International Solar Alliance, the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure, and Mission LiFE (Lifestyle for Environment) have already demonstrated its capacity to turn domestic innovation into global public goods.
In Belém, India can champion a new model of development cooperation that integrates climate ambition with equity—leveraging South–South and triangular partnerships to build climate-resilient infrastructure, foster clean technology ecosystems, and create green jobs.
In Belém, India can champion a new model of development cooperation that integrates climate ambition with equity—leveraging South–South and triangular partnerships to build climate-resilient infrastructure, foster clean technology ecosystems, and create green jobs. The credibility of global climate governance now depends on whether such leadership can translate into a coalition of implementation.
COP30 will be remembered not for the number of paragraphs negotiated, but for the proof it offers that the Paris Agreement still works. It must mark the transition from climate policy to climate practice, from promises on paper to performance in people’s lives.
Ten years since Paris, the message from Belém must be unmistakable: the era of half-measures is over. The next decade must be about delivery, not diplomacy; outcomes, not optics. If Paris was the Agreement that built hope, Belém must be the COP that builds history.
Aparna Roy is a Fellow and Lead, Climate Change and Energy, at the Centre for New Economic Diplomacy, Observer Research Foundation.
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Aparna Roy is a Fellow and Lead Climate Change and Energy at the Centre for New Economic Diplomacy (CNED). Aparna's primary research focus is on ...
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