Climate Home News

25/09/2025

COP30 needs a cover decision to succeed, writes 350's Andreas Sieber.

"COP30’s credibility rests on how it confronts this ambition gap. Attempts to spin COP30 as a success without such a response seem hollow. If COP30 must respond to this ambition gap, a cover decision emerges as the most credible path forward."

It is not the only metric of success -nor a magic bullet to solve all negotiation challenges- but it offers the best-placed procedural vehicle to balance different elements of the ambition package, allowing a race to the top instead of zero-sum trade-offs.

https://buff.ly/QFp6AlD

24/09/2025

Vanuatu, an island nation deeply vulnerable to climate change, is pioneering adaptation solutions to protect its people and economy. On Espiritu Santo—the largest island—a UNDP-managed project funded by the Adaptation Fund is trialling innovative techniques like ecosystem restoration, disaster preparedness, and food security improvements to help isolated communities adapt.

Read more here:

Indigenous knowledge and adaptation techniques are helping island communities survive the climate crisis.

23/09/2025

Brazil’s COP30 president has called for governments to set up a new forum to discuss trade issues, following a series of disagreements at recent COPs over whether trade-related measures belong on the agenda of global climate negotiations.

But Corrêa do Lago’s proposal, which Brazil will ask governments to support at COP30 in Belém in November, received a lukewarm response from governments on both sides of the debate.

“It remains unclear how creating this additional forum would add value to the existing processes,” a European Union source told Climate Home News, speaking on condition of anonymity.

After disputes over whether to include thorny trade issues on the agenda of global climate talks, the COP30 presidency proposes a separate arena to discuss them

23/09/2025

The government of Colombia has announced it will host the first international conference on phasing out fossil fuels in April 2026, with the aim of providing countries with a global platform for co-operating on a transition away from planet-heating coal, oil and gas.

The announcement comes as a major report by climate think-tanks warned on Monday that governments are planning to increase fossil fuel supplies by twice the amount that would be consistent with the goals of the Paris Agreement by 2030.

Colombia’s Minister of Environment and Sustainable Development Irene Vélez said in a statement that the conference will be a “pivotal moment” for Global South countries to lead the charge towards cleaner energy systems.
https://buff.ly/59pleuS

23/09/2025

The Pacific island nation of Vanuatu said on Monday that it is drafting a UN resolution to turn a landmark judicial opinion on states’ legal responsibilities to tackle climate change from words into “political action”.

Ralph Regenvanu, Vanuatu’s minister of climate change, said the resolution would be tabled later this year, likely after November’s COP30 climate summit, once governments’ responses to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling have become clearer.

He told journalists that Vanuatu was putting together a group of supportive countries – which he hoped would cover every region – to push the UN resolution forward, and he expected it would quickly gain backing from a majority of states.

https://buff.ly/1AlT0pJ

22/09/2025

Governments are still planning to produce way too many fossil fuels — even more than in 2021. 11 of 20 top producers have increased extraction

Some action is happening... but will it be fast enough?

22/09/2025

In a year that marks the UN’s 80th anniversary and 30 years since the first UN climate summit, the global multilateral system tasked with preventing disaster remains incapable of delivering the speed and scale of change we need — even as the available carbon budget shrinks and tipping points loom.

Read a comment piece from the Executive Director of Greenpeace International explaining what should change so these processes become more effective.

https://buff.ly/6e1MlWE

22/09/2025

The mass deployment of electric vehicles, solar panels and wind turbines around the world has raised a pressing question for environmentalists and human rights defenders: how to ensure that the materials needed to manufacture cleantech are produced sustainably and responsibly?

Australian firm Source Certain's technology could help make cleantech supply chains more transparent and accountable

22/09/2025

A landmark treaty to protect the high seas has reached a key threshold of 60 governments signing it into law, securing its entry into force as Morocco became the latest country to ratify it ahead of the UN General Assembly this coming week.

The Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ) pact, known as the High Seas Treaty, was first agreed in 2023 and is seen as a crucial instrument to achieve a global goal of protecting 30% of land and sea ecosystems by 2030, known as 30×30.

The treaty lays the ground for the creation of marine protected areas (MPAs) in international waters, which cover two-thirds of the world’s oceans. Scientists say that MPAs could allow the ocean to recover its capacity for storing planet-heating carbon dioxide, and also serve as sanctuaries for threatened species.

60 governments have signed the High Seas Treaty into law, in what experts called a "historic" moment for ocean protection.

20/09/2025

The COP30 climate summit in Belém will put adaptation to a warming world front and centre, with the aim of moving negotiations from technical debate to deciding how to measure adaptation progress and accelerating action on the ground, according to Alice Amorim, Brazil’s COP30 programme director.

Brazil's COP30 presidency team wants adaptation high on the agenda in Belem, to move from technical negotiations to action on the ground

19/09/2025

EU environment ministers failed to agree on new emissions reduction targets for 2035 and 2040 at a meeting in Brussels.

With Eastern European nations pushing back, ministers deferred the decision to EU leaders, who will take up the issue at a European Council summit in October.

That delay means the EU will head into the UN General Assembly next week – and into the UN’s annual stocktake of climate pledges – without fresh targets on the table. Instead, ministers left with only a “statement of intent” to cut emissions 66.25–72.5% below 1990 levels by 2035.

EU countries' leaders make decisions based on unanimity, potentially allowing laggards to block ambition on climate targets

15/09/2025

Carbon capture and storage (CCUS) is often promoted as a climate solution. But more than 50 years since the first project began, it remains one of the most expensive ways to cut emissions — still heavily reliant on taxpayer support, with only 50 facilities operating worldwide.

At the Carbon Capture Global Summit 2025 in London, industry leaders admitted momentum has “plateaued”, raising doubts over whether CCUS can scale commercially. Most existing projects capture CO2 from gas facilities and use it for enhanced oil recovery, prolonging fossil fuel extraction.

Carbon capture players told a recent global conference that the technology remains a costly way to reduce CO2 and needs more government support