From Access to Action — Carbon Markets Can Turn Developing Countries’ Ambitions into Realities

Posted on November 26, 2025 by admin

Biodiversity, Climate Action, Climate Change, Climate Change Finance, Climate Change Justice, Conferences, COP30, Economy & Trade, Environment, Global, Headlines, Sustainability, Sustainable Development Goals, TerraViva United Nations

Opinion

Local farmer ploughing a field in Indonesia. Credit: Unsplash

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil, Nov 26 2025 (IPS) – The UN climate talks at COP30 once again brought the critical issue of climate finance to the forefront of global discussions.

However, while much of the debate revolved around traditional forms of aid directed at developing countries most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, a faster, more transformative approach lies in expanding access to carbon markets.

When emerging and developing economies (EMDEs) are equipped with the tools and knowledge needed to engage in these markets on their own terms, carbon finance can be generated and harnessed in ways that reflect their unique natural assets, governance, social contexts, and national priorities.

Achieving global climate and sustainable development goals depends on ensuring that those worst affected by climate change can fully participate in and benefit from this growing flow of finance.

EMDEs are on the frontlines of climate change — from rising sea levels threatening Pacific island nations to intensifying droughts and fires in the Amazon and Horn of Africa, and increasingly intense and frequent hurricanes in the Caribbean. These crises often hit hardest in regions that have contributed least to global emissions and in the most difficult position to react to them.

Yet, these same nations face a climate finance shortfall of $1.3 trillion per year. Carbon markets present an opportunity for these countries to bridge this gap by turning their natural advantages into climate finance assets.

Despite successful initiatives aimed at bolstering both high-integrity supply and demand for carbon credits, significant barriers to access persist, particularly for EMDEs. From fragmented policy landscapes to weak governance structures, limited institutional capacity, and low investor confidence, various obstacles prevent the vast potential of EMDEs to engage fully.

The Access Strategies Program — led by the Voluntary Carbon Markets Integrity Initiative — is a direct response to these challenges. It helps governments design and implement their own pathways into high-integrity carbon markets, enabling them to build the policies, institutional capacity, and investor confidence needed to meet their climate finance needs and transform their potential into progress.

Each country’s natural capital — from Brazil’s vast rainforest and agricultural landscapes, to the Caribbean’s blue carbon ecosystems, or Kenya’s grasslands and renewable energy potential — represents a unique competitive advantage, ready to be realised.

Simultaneously, no two countries share the same development goals or governance contexts. In some, carbon markets can drive forest conservation and biodiversity protection; while in others, they deliver the most impact by strengthening rural livelihoods or financing clean energy transitions.

The Access Strategies model recognises this uniqueness, tailoring its support to help countries use carbon finance in ways that align with their own specific economic and environmental strategies and goals.

For example, the Partnership for Agricultural Carbon (PAC) — developed with the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) — is building capacity across Latin American and Caribbean agriculture ministries to participate in high-integrity carbon markets. It provides training, policy guidance, and decision-making tools that help governments and farmers identify viable carbon projects aligning with national agricultural and sustainability goals.

The collaboration has given small and medium producers a clearer route to investment, while positioning agriculture as a central player in regional climate strategies. Another example of the Access Strategies work is the recently launched Amazon Best Practices Guide, which will help Amazon state governments design and implement carbon market frameworks made specifically for their unique ecological and governance realities.

Moreover, in countries such as Kenya, Peru, and Benin, the Program has provided tailored support to develop policy and regulatory frameworks, strengthen institutional capacity, and attract responsible investment for high-priority climate mitigation projects — all in line with country-led goals.

These examples show what’s possible when governments have the tools and expertise to engage in high-integrity carbon markets on their own terms. More countries should seize this opportunity to tap into the growing flow of finance from carbon markets.

While carbon markets are not a silver bullet, they are one of the few scalable and self-sustaining tools available when grounded in integrity and tailored to each country’s needs.

Programs like Access Strategies do more than transfer technical knowledge — they build the enabling conditions for locally led action, drawing on countries’ unique ecological, social, and institutional insights to shape solutions that work in practice.

The focus of global climate action should not only be on new funding pledges, but on ensuring funding that is already available is effectively redirected for EMDEs countries to harness their own natural capital and promote social inclusion, while meeting their climate goals and reshaping their development pathway.

Building this kind of capacity is how we turn global ambition into lasting, locally owned progress, and moreover how carbon finance can become a true instrument of sustainable development.

Ana Carolina Avzaradel Szklo, Technical Director, Markets and Standards, Voluntary Carbon Markets Integrity Initiative (VCMI)

IPS UN Bureau

COP30: Broken Promises, New Hope — A Call to Turn Words into Action

Posted on November 25, 2025 by admin

Biodiversity, Climate Action, Climate Change, Climate Change Finance, Conferences, COP30, Economy & Trade, Energy, Environment, Featured, Global, Headlines, Indigenous Rights, TerraViva United Nations

Opinion

VICTORIA, Seychelles, Nov 25 2025 (IPS) – When the world gathered in Glasgow for COP26, the mantra was “building back better.” Two years later, in Sharm El Sheikh, COP27 promised “implementation.”

This year, in Belém, Brazil, COP30 arrived with a heavier burden: to finally bridge the chasm between lofty rhetoric and the urgent, measurable steps needed to keep 1.5 °C alive.

James Alix Michel

What Was Expected of COP30 were modest yet critical. After the disappointments of Copenhagen (2009) and the optimism sparked by Paris (2015), developing nations, small island states, Indigenous groups and a swelling youth movement demanded three things:

However the negotiations evolved into a tug of war between ambition and inertia. Wealthier nations, still reeling from economic shocks, offered incremental increases in adaptation funding and a new Tropical Forests Forever Facility (TFFF) worth $125 billion, with 20 percent earmarked for Indigenous stewardship. The Global Implementation Accelerator—a two year bridge to align Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) with 1.5 °C—was launched, alongside a Just Transition Mechanism to share technology and financing.

However, the text on fossil fuel phase out remained voluntary; the Loss and Damage Fund was referenced but not capitalised; and the $120 billion adaptation pledge fell short of the $310 billion annual need.

But there were Voices That Could Not Be Ignored.

Developing Nations (the G77+China) reminded the plenary that climate justice is not a charity—it is a legal obligation under the UNFCCC. They demanded that historic emitters honor their “common but differentiated responsibilities.”

Island States(AOSIS) warned that sea level rise is no longer a future scenario; it is eroding coastlines and displacing entire cultures. Their plea: “1.5 °C is our survival, not a bargaining chip.”

Indigenous Peoples highlighted the destruction of Amazon and Boreal forests, urging that 30 percent of all climate finance flow directly to communities that protect 80 percent of biodiversity.

Youth — The Gen Z generation, marched outside the venue, chanting “We will not be diluted” demanding binding commitments and accountability mechanisms.

The Legacy of Copenhagen, Paris, and the Empty COPs –

I attended COP15 in Copenhagen (2009), where the “Danish draft” was rejected, and the summit collapsed amid accusations of exclusion. The disappointment lingered until Paris (2015), where the 1.5 °C aspiration was enshrined, sparking hope that multilateralism could still work. Since then, COPs have been a carousel of promises: the Green Climate Fund fell $20 billion short; the 2022 Glasgow Climate Pact promised “phasing out coal” but left loopholes. Each iteration has chipped away at trust.

COP30 was billed as the moment to reverse that trend.

And the result? Partial progress, but far from the transformational shift required.

Did We Achieve What We Hoped For?

In blunt terms: No. The pledges secured are insufficient to limit warming to 1.5 °C, and critical gaps—binding fossil fuel timelines, robust loss and damage funding, and true equity in finance—remain unfilled.

Yet, there are glimmers. The tripling of adaptation finance, the first concrete allocation for Indigenous led forest protection, and the creation of an Implementation Accelerator signal that the architecture for change exists. The challenge now is to fill it with real money and accountability.

Let us look at ‘What Must Happen Next’

But for all this to become reality there must be a determined effort to achieve Future Actions.
We have watched promises fade after every COP, yet the physics of climate change remains unforgiving. The urgency is not new; the window to act is shrinking. But hope endures – in the solar panels lighting remote villages, in mangroves being restored to buffer storms, in the relentless energy of young activists demanding a livable planet.

Humanity has the knowledge, technology, and resources. What we need now is the collective political will to use them. Let COP30 be remembered not as another empty summit, but as the turning point where the world chose survival over complacency.

The future is not written; we write it with every decision we make today.

James Alix Michel, Former President Republic of Seychelles, Member Club de Madrid.

IPS UN Bureau

Bonn to Belém: Three Decades of Promises, Half-Delivered Justice, and Rights-Based Governance Is Now Inevitable

Posted on November 25, 2025 by admin

Biodiversity, Climate Action, Climate Change, Climate Change Finance, Climate Change Justice, Conferences, COP30, Economy & Trade, Energy, Environment, Global, Green Economy, Headlines, Human Rights, Indigenous Rights, Migration & Refugees, Sustainable Development Goals, TerraViva United Nations

Opinion

DHAKA, Bangladesh, Nov 25 2025 (IPS) – COP30 in Belém is not just another annual climate meeting, it is the 32-year report card of the world governance architecture that was conceived at the Rio Earth Summit of 1992. And that is what report card says: delivery has been sporadic, cosmetic and perilously disconnected with the physics of climatic breakdown.

M. Zakir Hossain Khan

The Amazon, which was once regarded in Rio as an ecological miracle of the world, is now on the verge of an irreversible precipice. Even the communities that struggled to protect it over millennia also demonstrate against COP30 to make it clear that they do not oppose multilateralism, but because multilateralism has marginalized them many times.

Rio Promised Rights, Take Part, and Protection, But Delivery Has Been Fragmented

Rio Summit gave birth to three pillars of international environmental control: UNFCCC (climate), CBD (biodiversity) and UNCCD (desertification). Every one of them was supposed to be participating, equitable and accountable. But progressively delivery disintegrated:

Rio gave the world a vision. COP30 demonstrates the fact that that vision is yet to be developed.

The Rights Gap: The Key Failure between Rio and Belém

Although Rio pledged to involve Indigenous people, Indigenous people today are only getting less than 1 percent of climate finance. In addition, it caused a rising trend of carbon market-related land grabs and resource exploitation, because of the lack of binding power in the decisions regarding climate. This is not a delivery gap but a right gap. COP30 has been improved technically but has failed to redress the inherent imbalance at Rio that remained unaddressed: decision-making in the absence of custodianship.

The Sleepiness Menace Came to Rio and Detonated by COP30

Rio established three overlapping conventions that lacked a single governance structure. Climate to oceans, food, forests, finance, security, and technology; CBD to traditional knowledge, access and benefit-sharing, and UNCCD to migration, peace and livelihoods all increased over the decades.

The outcome is an institution that is too broad to govern effectively, making watered-down decisions and poor accountability. COP30 is being developed, however, within a system that was never intended to deal with planetary collapse on this level.

The Amazon: The Ultimate Test of Rio on Prognosis

Rio glorified forests as the breathing organs of the world. However, three decades later:

Another pledge is not required by Amazon. It requires energy from its protectors. That was missing in Rio. It is still missing in COP30. Indigenous people depicted in CoP30 in all their frustration and agitation are the consequences of the system failure to provide them with a say in the decision-making process and the unceasing denial of their natural rights.

Young: The Post-Rio Generation that was Duped by Incrementalism

The post-Rio generation (those that were born after the year 30) is more than 50 percent of the world population. They left behind a) tripled fossil subsidy regime; b) soaring climate debt; c) ever-turbid biodiversity collapse; d) rising climate disasters; and e) inability to send up $100B/year finance on time.

They are only impatient not because of emotions. They observe that a system that was developed in 1992 to address a slow-paced crisis can no longer be applied to the fast emergency of 2025.

Natural Rights Led Governance (NRLG): Making Good What Rio Left, but Left Incomplete

Natural Rights-Led Governance (NRLG) provides the structural correction that Rio has evaded: a) Nature as a law-rights holder, not a resource; b) Indigenous peoples as co-governors, not consultants; c) Compulsory ecological and rights-based control, not voluntary reporting; d) Direct financing to custodians, not bureaucratic leakage; e) Accountability enforceable in law, not conditional on political comfort. NRLG is not the alternative to the vision of Rio, it is the long-deserved update that will turn the arguments of Rio into reality.

The Verdict: COP30 Moves forward, yet Rio Business Unfinished Haunts it

The advancement of COP30 with its stronger fossil language, more comprehensible measurements of adaptation, new pressure on financing is a reality that is inadequate. It advances the paperwork. It is yet to develop the power shift that would safeguard nature or humanity. As long as rights are not yet non-negotiable, the Rio-to-COP30 trip will be a tale of great promises, half-fulfilled and increasingly dangerous.

What the World Must Do Now

Include nature and Indigenous rights in the COP document; construct governance based on custodianship and co-decision; a system of NCQG to deliver finance to communities; no longer voluntary but obligatory commitments reflecting the final Advisory of ICJ assuming integration of natural rights as a prelude to human rights; and use NRLG as the backbone to all future multilateral climate action.

Rio taught us what to do. COP30 is an education about the consequences of procrastinating. The 30-year period is not going to forgive the errors made in the previous 30. The world should stop being a promise and change to power, negotiate to justice, Rio dream of NRLG deliveries. The deadline is not 2050. It is now.

Rio had sworn justice and rights, but COP30 taught a crueler lesson: the world made promises and not protection. Emission increased, ecosystems failed, money is not spent on fulfilling the finances and Indigenous guardians, to the last remaining forests, continue to get less than 1% of climate money and nearly no say. It is not a policy gap but a failure of rights and governance. If the leaders of the world do not recalibrate climate architecture based on natural rights, since co-decision of the Indigenous and on binding commitments rather than a voluntary one, COP30 will be remembered as the moment when the system was exposed as limiting, not as the moment when the system was fixed. This is no longer a promising problem it is a power problem. And the deadline is not 2050. It is now.

M Zakir Hossain Khan is the Chief Executive at Change Initiative, a Dhaka based think-tank, Observer of Climate Investment Fund (CIF); Architect and Proponent of Natural Rights Led Governance (NRLG).

IPS UN Bureau

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COP30 Was Diplomacy in Action as Cooperation Deepens—Says Climate Talks Observer

Posted on November 24, 2025 by admin

Active Citizens, Civil Society, Climate Change Finance, Climate Change Justice, COP30, Development & Aid, Editors’ Choice, Environment, Featured, Gender, Humanitarian Emergencies, Sustainable Development Goals, TerraViva United Nations, Women & Climate Change | Analysis

COP30

These processes are all about people. We should never lose our humanity in the process. There should not be a ‘COP of the people’ pitted against a ‘COP of negotiators.’ We need to approach COP jointly as a conference of the people, by the people, and for people. —Yamide Dagnet, NRDC’s Senior Vice President, International

Yamide Dagnet, Senior Vice President, International at the Natural Resources Defense Council. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS

BELÉM, Brazil, Nov 24 2025 (IPS) – As observers at the Conference of Parties closely monitored proceedings in Belém, many, such as Yamide Dagnet, approached the UN Climate Summit as an implementation COP. They are advocating for tangible signals to ignite crucial climate action before the climate crisis reaches irreversible levels.

For Dagnet, Senior Vice President International at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), it is an all hands-on deck situation where talks need to turn into action on the ground, which in turn must inform the acceleration expected from the negotiations.

“As COP focuses more on how we do things, we know the stakes will be more complex,” said Dagnet. “This is why the Paris Agreement set up improvement five-year-policy cycles, acknowledging that we might not get it right the first time, despite good intentions, and in view of possible unintended consequences and trade-offs.”

As a former negotiator now overseeing the international program at NRDC, an international nonprofit environmental organization that uses science, law, convening, and advocacy to mobilize a wide range of stakeholders to safeguard the Earth, Dagnet understands all too well how difficult the task ahead will be.

She points out that with increased geopolitical headwinds and development remaining front and center for countries around the globe, “we are not dealing just with a climate COP but a socio-economic COP.” To succeed, the multilateral process and climate action need to be designed in a way that is just, inclusive, and participatory.

Like many other observers, Dagnet believes that cooperation among nations and across regions is still moving in the right direction despite the United States’ withdrawal from the Paris Agreement.

“This COP was about diplomacy in action. Only one country has withdrawn from the Paris Agreement; the rest broadly remain on course. There are many issues that will make or break this conference, including the matter of scaling up finance for adaptation and for limiting loss and damage due to climate change. To manage these challenges, you need to measure, and to measure, you need to be guided by indicators, especially those that actually help us to move from just risk and vulnerability assessments to opportunity frameworks and value creation.”

But mobilization cannot be left to the government alone, she cautions.

“It requires support from multilateral and domestic financial institutions, as well as private capital investment. The private sector has for far too long seen climate finance for adaptation as an investment that brings no financial or economic returns. But the tide is changing. Insurance companies, asset managers, pension funds, commercial development, and small and medium companies realize it is an imperative to address adaptation. We need to amplify and demonstrate how there are a multitude of financial resources that could be saved through adaptation,” says Dagnet.

The need of the hour is to design investment as well as financial and insurance models that work for climate scenarios. Insurance business models are largely based on making money from what the company believes is unlikely to happen or happens rarely. Such is not the case when it comes to climate disasters, which there are going to be a lot more of.

A COP at the mouth of the Amazon and the proximity to the world’s largest tropical forest is not only symbolic but also provides the context to find new ways to value nature and attract funding to make nature and the people who depend on it, more resilient

Addressing whether the intense activism and lobbying at COP30 translated to shaping negotiation outcomes, Dagnet reminds us that the lobbyists from the fossil fuel industry have felt threatened by the Paris Agreement and are worried about the inevitable journey towards greener economies, something that challenges their business model.

“Over the past 10 years, lobbyists have become very good at using these spaces to delay transition,” added Dagnet. Analysis reveals one in 25 of COP30 participants represent the fossil fuel industry, with over 1600 lobbyists given access.

Sonia Guajajara, Minister for Indigenous Peoples of Brazil attends the “Global March: The Answer is Us” during the 30th Conference of the Parties (COP30). Credit: Hermes Caruzo/COP30

Indigenous-led protests in Belem have consistently called for climate action and justice, as well as fossil fuel phase-outs and a halt to deforestation. Dagnet has frequent interactions with the Indigenous People, especially women, in Brazil. This includes Puyr Tembe, the first Indigenous woman to head a state secretariat in Pará; Joenia Wapichana, current president of the National Commission for the Defense of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples; Sonia Guajajara, who followed in Wapichana’s steps; and Indigenous leader Célia Xakriabá.

Dagnet stresses the importance of ensuring the protection of these environmental and human rights guardians. Add to that, she pushes for the need to amplify their stories, told in their own words with their voices. She believes that the world has a lot to learn from indigenous communities about living in harmony with nature and also about the increasing and complex threats they face that often cost them their lives.

Dagnet also highlights that climate talks and actions must be inclusive, and no one should be left behind, least of all women, local communities, and indigenous people, who want to be at the table rather than on the menu. “We need to engage with them in a meaningful way and move beyond tokenism,” she says.

NRDC has been integrating gender equity into its environmental initiatives, especially in India. Their multifaceted approach includes promoting women’s economic agency. Implemented through partnerships with organizations like Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) in India, NRDC fosters women’s access to clean energy in rural communities, helping them replace diesel water pumps with solar-powered ones, enabling clean cooking through biogas plants, and providing access to clean transportation. “This has helped increase their household income, improve health, save time and money, and position them as clean-energy leaders in their communities,” says Dagnet.

More recently, NRDC has identified finance as the connecting thread to various complex issues driven by climate change. At COP30, NRDC launched the Fostering Investable National Planning and Implementation (FINI) for Adaptation and Resilience collaborative in partnership with the Atlantic Council’s Climate Resilience Center. FINI connects capital to climate solutions. It is a collaborative effort to unite 100 organizations, including governments, philanthropies, investors, civil society, and more, to develop pipelines of USD 1 trillion worth of investments by 2028 for adaptation and resilience projects that will support countries and communities on the frontlines of the climate crisis.

When all is said and done at COP, with the negotiations, diplomacy, lobbying, and activism, Dagnet says, “These processes are all about people. We should never lose our humanity in the process. There should not be a ‘COP of the people’ pitted against a ‘COP of negotiators.’ We need to approach COP jointly as a conference of the people, by the people, and for people.”

IPS UN Bureau Report

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‘Future Shaped by Ocean-Based Innovations Within Reach’

Posted on November 20, 2025 by admin

Climate Action, Climate Change, Conferences, COP30, Global, Headlines, Latin America & the Caribbean, Ocean Health, TerraViva United Nations

Ocean Health

Oceans contribute to climate regulation by absorbing over a quarter of human-caused CO₂ emissions and around 90 percent of excess heat but attract only 1.7 percent of everything that’s invested in science.

Moderators Masanori Kobayashi (far right) and Farhana Haque Rahman, Senior Vice President and Executive Director, Inter Press Service (far left), at a COP30 side event titled ‘Innovation and social collaboration for climate change adaptation in the pursuit of sustainable blue economies.’ Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS

BELÉM, Brazil, Nov 20 2025 (IPS) – The oceans are a fundamental part of Earth’s climate system, regulating it by absorbing and storing vast amounts of solar heat, redistributing that heat around the globe through currents, and absorbing a significant portion of human-caused carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions—yet scientific research into them remains underfunded.

Oceans contribute to climate regulation by absorbing over a quarter of human-caused CO₂ emissions and around 90 percent of excess heat. But COP30 participants heard during a side event titled ‘Innovation and social collaboration for climate change adaptation in the pursuit of sustainable blue economies’ that the amount of money invested in ocean science is only about 1.7 percent of everything that’s invested in science.

During the side event, Meredith Morris, Senior Director of Strategic Philanthropy (Planet) at XPRIZE spoke of opportunities to tackle humanity’s toughest challenges with bold, scalable breakthroughs. XPRIZE, she said, does its part by inviting the world’s brightest minds to turn audacious ideas into lasting impact for people and the planet.

Owned by the XPRIZE Foundation, the nonprofit organization designs and operates large-scale incentive competitions.

It has supported numerous projects across various fields, including space exploration, carbon removal, global health, and education, by using large-scale incentive competitions to drive breakthrough innovations.

“I lead the portfolio around energy, climate, and nature. We are a 30-year-old incentivized prize model that sets a bar for the change we want to see in the world and incentivizes innovators to reach that bar or exceed it. We do not honor and celebrate work that’s already being done.

“At XPRIZE, what we’re trying to do is really catalyze systemic change.” Morris continues, “We believe in philanthropy, but we also believe it has to create value. And at the end of investing in doing something like protecting nature or addressing climate change, there should be viable businesses and industries on the other side of that.”

Moderated by Masanori Kobayashi, Senior Research Fellow of the Sasakawa Peace Foundation and Farhana Haque Rahman, Senior Vice President and Executive Director of Inter Press Service, the side event was an insight into life-transformative scientific projects that can only be born at the intersection between science and funding.

Haque Rahman spoke extensively of the urgent need to communicate science in a manner that helps connect with the places on the frontlines of the climate crisis. Masanori Kobayashi confirmed the need to amplify blue economy solutions, as raising awareness can and does lead to more action.

The XPRIZE Carbon Removal, a USD 100 million competition, incentivized the development of scalable solutions for removing carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere or oceans. Winning projects included using enhanced rock weathering on farms to lock away CO₂ and technologies that permanently store CO₂ in concrete.

The Shell Ocean Discovery XPRIZE challenged teams to develop autonomous underwater technologies for rapid, high-resolution ocean floor mapping. The winning technology helped dramatically reduce the time estimated to map the entire ocean from centuries to just a decade.

Alexander Turra, Professor at the Oceanographic Institute of the University of São Paulo and head of the UNESCO Chair on Ocean Sustainability, based at the Oceanographic Institute and the Institute of Advanced Studies of the University of São Paulo, spoke about Brazil’s Oceans Without Plastics initiative.

Formally known as the National Strategy for a Plastic-Free Ocean, the initiative is a comprehensive, six-year plan (2025–2030) launched by the federal government to address marine pollution by targeting the entire lifecycle of plastics, from production to disposal.

The primary goal is to prevent, reduce, and ultimately eliminate plastic waste from entering Brazil’s marine and coastal environments. Brazil, with a vast Atlantic coastline, is a top-ten global contributor to marine plastic pollution, an issue that impacts biodiversity, human health, fishing, and tourism.

Also on the panel was Leonardo Valenzuela Perez, who serves as the Director of International Partnerships at Ocean Visions, where he leads the Global Ecosystem for Ocean Solutions. He spoke to participants about carbon removal at scale and the place of science in these efforts. What is needed is an unparalleled level of investment, mobilization of resources, and scale of action.

“We Colombians are the only country in South America with both the Pacific and Caribbean coasts, and we have various ecosystems as well as culturally diverse traditional peoples and communities,” said Laura Catalina Reyes Vargas, Founder and Executive Director of Ocean Hub.

“And, mostly, Afro-descendants and Indigenous communities on both coasts happen to be the poorest people in the country. It’s all about racism sometimes, economic inequality, infrastructure, poverty and lack of sanitation—it’s about almost all of the challenges that are being addressed throughout the 17 SDGs.”

“When it comes to the blue economy,” she continues, “We prioritize not only talking about scientific research. As a scientist myself, of course, I truly believe we will be able to address and understand the major steps needed to achieve not only the SDGs but also national plans with very high standards, as we have in Colombia.”

It was also crucial to address the regional organizational challenges.

COP30 has demonstrated a commitment to placing oceans at the center of global climate initiatives and announced the Task Force on Oceans earlier this week during a high-level ministerial meeting. Led by Brazil and France, the initiative integrates oceans into a global mechanism that accelerates the adoption of marine solutions in national climate plans —encouraging countries to set protection targets for the ocean when updating their NDCs.

IPS UN Bureau Report

Beyond Buzzwords: COP30’s Opportunity to Deliver on Sustainable Food Systems

Posted on November 20, 2025 by admin

Climate Action, Climate Change, Conferences, COP30, Economy & Trade, Environment, Food and Agriculture, Food Security and Nutrition, Food Sustainability, Food Systems, Global, Green Economy, Headlines, Natural Resources, Sustainability, Sustainable Development Goals, TerraViva United Nations

Opinion

In the midst of the COP30 climate talks, consensus will depend on recognizing that climate action and protecting livelihoods must advance together.

Delegates met at the Global Climate-Smart Agriculture Conference in Brasília before the COP30 climate talks. Credit: 2025Clim-Eat/Flickr

BELÉM, Brazil, Nov 20 2025 (IPS) – The language of agricultural sustainability changes like the seasons—from “climate-smart” to “regenerative,” “agroecological,” and “nature-positive.” Each term reflects good intentions, but the growing list risks duplication, confusion and delays.

The recent CSA Conference in Brasília gathered leaders from policy, science and finance ahead of COP30 to focus not on buzzwords but on the shared foundations of sustainable food systems, which is all the more important in the Grave New World. For all the various theories of change, many share the same principles of soil health, crop innovation, inclusive finance and resilient livestock production.

In the midst of the COP30 climate talks, consensus will depend on recognizing that climate action and protecting livelihoods must advance together. Leaders must challenge themselves to measure success not only in emissions reduced, but also in the quality of life sustained by a thriving and resilient rural economy. With Brazil’s COP presidency determined to accelerate agreements into action, the challenge now is to accept and advance context-specific approaches in pursuit of a shared goal.

At present, fragmentation continues to divide institutions, donors, NGOs and producers, with competing ideologies slowing progress toward sustainability at the speed and scale required. For example, while a vast number of organizations are currently backing the concept of regenerative agriculture, others tread the paths of sustainable intensification or climate-smart agriculture. But some of the practices, such as agroforestry, could fall under each of these concepts.

And the Koronivia Joint Work on Agriculture (KJWA), established prior to COP26, has been succeeded by Sharm el-Sheikh Joint Work on the Implementation of Climate Action on Agriculture and Food Security and yet farmers are still waiting for clear national strategies to emerge from years of workshops and working papers. While the principles underpinning these joint work programs are sound, they have not generated action at the speed needed.

On the other hand, the six CSA Conference themes—from soil health and crop innovation to finance and policy—offer a fundamental framework around which there is already much agreement and can deliver results under whichever buzzword it is categorized. The themes also reflect the priorities of Brazil’s Action Agenda and ABC+ Plan, highlighting practical areas of consensus.

Brazil’s experience offers tangible examples of how shared priorities can move from discussion to delivery. The ABC+ Plan (2020–2030) forms the backbone of the country’s low-carbon agriculture strategy, integrating sustainable practices like no-till farming, pasture recovery and biological nitrogen fixation into a coherent national framework. It represents a direct contribution to the COP30’s Action Agenda’s agricultural pillar, transforming abstract goals on soil health and productivity into measurable outcomes.

Building on this, Brazil’s RENOVAGRO is the financing arm that enables the implementation of the ABC+ Plan, demonstrating how public policy can activate private investment to move all Action Agenda ambitions forward together. By tying credit eligibility to verified adoption of low-carbon practices, the program allows farmers to commit to transitions that would otherwise be out of reach. This realizes the ABC+ Plan’s policy objectives and shows that progress depends not necessarily on new ideas, but on acting decisively on the systems that already work.

At COP30, the challenge is not to settle on the right language but to sustain the right actions—whatever this might look like according to local circumstances and resources. Progress depends on scaling what we already agree on: sound policies, accessible finance that doesn’t exclude vulnerable populations and resilient food systems that keep production within environmental limits. The next phase must prioritize implementation over invention.

Leaders have an opportunity to move from promises to performance. The task ahead is to scale what already works—not to define new concepts, but to deliver proven solutions faster.

Brazil’s example shows that integration works better than focusing on the continued search for a universal solution. There is no single path forward, only a combination of context-specific approaches bound by diplomatic agreement and sustainable financing.

By focusing on fundamentals, we can avoid the paralysis of competing definitions and begin to act collectively by applying the policies and practices we know work in ways that fit local realities.

Ana Maria Loboguerrero, Director, Adaptive and Equitable Food Systems at Gates Foundation
Dhanush Dinesh, Chief Climate Catalyst at Clim-Eat

IPS UN Bureau

Malawi Diaspora

Posts Tagged: COP30

From Access to Action — Carbon Markets Can Turn Developing Countries’ Ambitions into Realities

COP30: Broken Promises, New Hope — A Call to Turn Words into Action

Bonn to Belém: Three Decades of Promises, Half-Delivered Justice, and Rights-Based Governance Is Now Inevitable

COP30 Was Diplomacy in Action as Cooperation Deepens—Says Climate Talks Observer

‘Future Shaped by Ocean-Based Innovations Within Reach’

Beyond Buzzwords: COP30’s Opportunity to Deliver on Sustainable Food Systems