The NDC Partnership representative, Joaquim Leite, head of Climate Finance, also explained the existing lines and budgets for countries to implement ambitious NDCs.

But to have the funds available is not enough, many of the speakers repeated. It is urgent to create conditions of access to actors that today don’t have the capacity to borrow money. “Just to give an example, the Brazilian Amazon has 774 municipalities, but only 10 have fiscal space to access it”, explained the special envoy for civil society for COP30, André Guimarães. “We need to enable conditions under the risk of having pots of money and no operational investments taking plans”, completed.

In this way, the participants reminded that partnerships are essential. “The richest nations had developed in a high-emission base, without any restrictions. But we need a new development pathway, and in this case, South-South learning is the best way to move on”, argued deputy director at the Chinese Ministry of Ecology and Environment Chen Zhihua.

To be closer to the realities in the Global South and understanding better the conditions, Sinha announced that the Green Climate Fund will open regional offices in the region. “We received 43 qualified proposals”, said.

Leite suggested that what is needed is a system change: “We need to move beyond individual project to massive projects — not one, but one thousand, bringing to the finance world the concept of mutirão”, advocated. “A different level of collaboration among national, global and local actors, because no individual can do it alone”.

“Africa is ready for transformation”

Two keynote speakers closed the session. The Chair of the African Group of Negotiators, Richard Muyungi, from Tanzania, assured that African countries are ready to implement 3.0 ambitious NDCs. “We are focused on transforming the world into a better, greener place. But we need you for capacity”, stated.

The Climate High-Level Champion for COP30, Dan Ioshpe, reminded that partnerships are essential to close finance gaps: “Government, academia, businesses, investors and multilateral development banks are needed to accelerate transition. Together, we will be able to get more ambition for climate action”.

Baku to Belém Roadmap

On the COP of implementation, the initiative of the Brazilian presidency to launch the Baku to Belém Roadmap, outlining ways to leverage resources for developing countries, is an important aspect of the conference, according to the executive director, Maria Netto. She made an evaluation of the finance discussions at the end of the first week of the climate conference in Belém, Brazil.

“We need to think about the next 10 years, but we can only move forward if there is funding”, stated.

To meet climate goals, the estimated amount needed is USD 1.3 trillion per year, which goes beyond the USD 300 billion committed by the developed countries in Baku, during COP29.

To meet this target, strategies include reforming development banks, making climate funds more flexible, and deploying innovative mechanisms to attract private capital by covering risks. “A combination of reforms and actions will be necessary to leverage these resources”, said Netto. “There is no silver bullet”, concluded.

La entrada Leaders explore finance options for the Global South in a world with scarce resources se publicó primero en Regional Climate Foundations.

An unprecedented study released at the Regional Climate Foundations Pavilion compiled responses from more than 2,000 Brazilians on the subject and concluded that yes, culture can really change minds when it comes to climate action. More than 60% of the interviewees said they changed or reconsidered their views on climate themes after participating in cultural experiences. 

“Culture has the potential to transform thoughts because it generates empathy and another form of connection”, explained Mariana Resegue, executive director of C de Cultura — one of the institutions behind the study, besides Outra Onda Conteúdo and Instituto Veredas.

One of the many reasons that a cultural approach can broaden access to climate information is because it moves away from technical language. “In climate conferences, it is usual to talk about acronyms, data and numbers, but mostly people need to deal with these topics in easier ways”, argued Eduardo Carvalho, director of Outra Onda Conteúdo.

He noted that music, books, exhibitions and audiovisual content can connect with people who do not access climate information through institutional channels. “Our goal is to build synergy to generate more artistic products, more than that, emotion and mobilization”, concluded.

The research extends the Culture and Climate platform first presented at the RCF Pavilion during COP29, which introduced an initial mapping of the cultural-climate agenda. The organizations also maintain Espalha, a platform created to link research findings to cultural initiatives through a national award for culture-and-climate projects.

An antidote to denialism

The research also found that more than half of respondents reported a sense of powerlessness regarding climate action — which suggests that communication strategies commonly used often distance the public rather than attract it. “Culture is in the territory, in people’s lives, in habits”, justified Resegue, noting that it offers an alternative route to communicate climate issues in everyday settings. 

The launching of the new study was followed by a debate. One of the invited, the Colombian youth activist Francisco Vera celebrated “culture is a bridge of union” in a moment of loss of consensus and climate denial: “In the face of climate denial, what we must try to do is reach young people through culture”.

Researcher Diosmar Filho, from Associação de Pesquisa Iyaleta, reminded how certain territories remain invisible in climate debates despite their active cultural production — and that the research reveals the potential of the traditional acknowledgement: “These territories have an existence that is pulsating to be part of the solution”.

He also cited the legacy of Luiz Gonzaga as one of the main agents of climate adaptation negotiations in Latin America: his cultural work on drought in the 1950s influenced the creation of regional governance structures such as Sudene. “Cultural narratives can inform policy and expand the climate conversation beyond institutional spaces”, stated.

Public policy construction

But to reach the minds and hearts on the scale that is needed for an ecological transformation, culture needs to be stimulated by public policies that connect this field to climate. “We decided to collect more data to strengthen public policies, so that other people and organizations embrace this cause”, justified Eduardo Carvalho. 

In this sense, the launching of the study during COP30 connects to a broader inclusion of cultural themes in global climate diplomacy, according to Brazil’s Ministry of Culture executive secretary, Márcio Tavares. A good example of this was a working group on the subject, co-chaired by Brazil since COP29, which gathers more than 50 countries and organizations. “Cultural knowledge and traditional practices can support livelihoods, strengthen access to education, health, food systems and generate opportunities within creative and cultural economies”, stated.

To put into practice what was said, the panel held a singing performance in Nheengatu language, from the indigenous activist Thaline Karajá, who talked about the threats on the region of Baixo Tapajós river, where she was born, close to Santarém (PA), Brazil. “We are being threatened by Ferrogrão”, a railway that will connect the grain-producing region of the Midwest to the state of Pará, ending at the Port of Miritituba (PA), Brazil. “Before, I could eat fish without worrying, but with the pollution of the rivers with pesticides, this is no longer possible”.

The activist, who is attending her sixth COP and has been living in Finland for two years, where she studies International Relations, spoke of the importance of education for traditional peoples. “Young indigenous people are stepping up, educating themselves to protect those who came before us, who are there within the territories”.

La entrada Culture emerges as a key driver to mobilize society in the climate crisis se publicó primero en Regional Climate Foundations.

“These are examples of inspiring projects that promote just transition”, celebrated the moderator of the panel, Rebecca Collyer, who is the executive director of ReNew2030, a global coalition that works on the clean energy process.

The participants shared experiences on the climate goal of tripling the renewable energy by 2030 — commitment made during COP28, in the UAE — by installing solar panels in small communities. But also the challenges of the distributed generation in remote locations.

The main achievement they see in the projects is the life quality the communities gained: “With stable energy, these people have more time and new dreams”, explained the manager of Energy Transition at the Institute for Climate and Society, Victoria Santos. “Women, for example, can now use washing machines”, added.

This perception was repeated by the other panelists, the Professor Ji Zou, CEO and President of Energy Foundation China, and the energy director of the Mexican Climate Initiative, Luisa Sierra.

In China, for example, microgrids are allowing rural communities to improve production and money income. “We are driving a people-centered development with solar panels. And, in the meanwhile, we save the climate, mitigating emission of greenhouse gases”, expressed Ji Zou.

In Mexico, the strategy of the Mexican Climate Initiative for ensuring clean energy for the more vulnerable communities includes dialogues with those villages, to gain their trust, as well as with the government, in order to develop a regulation framework that makes the projects sustainable in the long term. “We also are campaigning, advocating and offering technical assistance”, listed Sierra. 

Sierra explained that many villages that are receiving clean energy projects live in areas where the temperatures can reach 40º or even 50º C — so cooling strategies are central to saving lives.

Greenest and cheaper

In Brazil, the solar panels are replacing diesel-powered generators. “This old source of electricity did not provide autonomy, and it is a very expensive power source”, explained Santos. So, by reducing energy costs, the projects are also increasing income to the communities. In many cases, they also allow the community to improve their revenues: fishermen, for example, can freeze their products and sell them at the most appropriate moment.

In China, where big distances can sometimes represent a high investment to reach them with expanding the regular grid, microgrids based on solar energy are also saving money. Besides that, in places with intensive coal use, solar panels are also positively impacting people’s health, as are improving air quality.

Indicators

The goal of generating social impact and economic development while using clean energy, however, suffers from one difficulty: the lack of indicators to track progress made. 

For the head of secretariat at JETP Indonesia, Paul Butarbutar, a global indicator won’t solve the problem: “The concept of just transition has a different meaning for many countries, it is not a global same understanding”, introduced in the panel “Ensuring just energy transitions: using indicators for successful, fair and inclusive transitions”. “And there isn’t any reason for having it. I’m thinking if it is worthy to have a global indicator for that”, added.

But for three of the participants, there are important indicators to track progress — or, more than that, to make sure that the transition is really fair with all. The executive director of Indigenous Peoples’ Rights International, Joan Carling, for example, advocated for an indicator to assure respect to indigenous territories, rights and resources: “And also the obligation to consult the indigenous, and, most important, the respect for the right to say no”.

Eric Manzi, the Deputy Secretary General of the International Trade Union Confederation reminded that a just transition only exists if workers rights are respected. “Our mission is to protect jobs and families”, explained.

Finally, Sheila Oparaocha, a director at International Network on Gender and Sustainable Energy, reminded us of the need for gender responsive indicators: “the lack of access to energy and to just transition impacts disproportionately much more women”.

La entrada Solar panels deliver renewable energy and livelihood improvement for communities in China, Mexico and Brazil se publicó primero en Regional Climate Foundations.

“Even here at COP, many people are not familiar with the technical terms used in negotiations,” said Carvalho. “We use creative tools and content to make these concepts easier to understand”, adds. 

With two of the creations being interactive, the pavilion’s expositions encourage visitors to engage directly, transforming learning into an experience. For example, in the installation “Belém+10: The Path Toward the Decade of Implementation”, asks visitors to envision the years between 2026 and 2035 as a period of concrete transformation, when promises become implementation. With 15 magnetic action proposals, people navigate through the years and choose their priorities, changing the timeline according to their choices.

“It invites the public to leave the zone of abstraction and transform thought into action. They need to touch it, change things from one side to another. This makes them reflect on the path we are moving on, and stimulates their creativity on finding solutions”, explains Leonardo Menezes.

The “Priorities transformed into action” installation has 11 pathways, 

where each theme invites reflection and participation, reinforcing that no isolated action is enough. To browse the panel, the visitor has to slide the lids off the wooden boxes, which showcases how collective action can address inequalities, strengthen communities, and build climate justice. 

Poetry for climate action

The installation “Dear Future Me” videoart closes the exhibition by revisiting the “A Postcard from the Present” installation first created at COP29 in Baku. There, 187 participants from different countries wrote messages to their future selves in 2050, reflecting on what they hoped to have achieved in combating climate change.

This year, those handwritten messages were transformed into a video artwork and research project in partnership with the University of Exeter. Artificial intelligence helped analyze the content of the postcards, revealing patterns of hope, urgency, and commitment. The study, led by Marcos Oliveira and Eduardo Carvalho, demonstrates how personal reflections can become collective learning tools.

For Carvalho, creativity is essential in climate negotiations because it opens new ways to connect people to complex issues. “Culture is a way to mobilize minds and hearts,” he said. “When people feel part of the solution, they act faster. That’s what this exhibition is about — inspiring reaction as much as action.” 

As a final point, Carvalho stated that their message is that the exhibition should be a creative collective effort to inspire people to react as soon as possible. “More than acting, reacting”, he concluded.

Finally, another screen positioned at the pavilion’s entrance, works by  touch to showcase the eleven thematic areas prioritized b the Regional Climate Foundations this year, including just energy transition, climate finance, nature and climate, and social mobilization. In addition, the screen presents the eight RCF around the world.

Mutirão concept inspired the pavillion design

The “Mutirão” concept — a Brazilian method of social mobilization, originated from indigenous traditions — is central to the exhibition, aligned with the COP30 Presidency.

Menezes explained that the wall decoration, made of interwoven jute fabrics — a vegetable fibre mainly cultivated in the Amazon influenced by the Japanese community — symbolizes collaboration as the “thread that stitches together climate solutions”, in the sense that “to collaborate, we need to bring together common agendas that can intersect,” he marked. The exhibition reflects the idea in both its design and content: geometric forms that overlap to create new colors, representing how diverse contributions can merge to generate new possibilities.

According to Menezes, it brings the idea of addition, of intertwined efforts. “We need to cross possibilities and paths, which is not a straight line. This intertwining is something that will create a new situation”, the curator explained.

La entrada RCF Pavilion invites visitors to act on climate change through an interactive exposition se publicó primero en Regional Climate Foundations.

“We have reasons to think about this”, introduced the special advisor to the Presidency of the Republic of Brazil on Finance and Climate, Tatiana Berringer. She mentioned the decreasing credibility of the UN system and the multilateralism itself, but also that climate issues need to be at the center of all the UN discussions, not only during COPs discussions. “And we must ask ourselves, is the UNFCCC delivering the results the world needs”?, added.

This last point was the main guide for reflections expressed by the participants — among them, the UN Special Rapporteur on Climate Change and Humans Rights at the United Nations Humans Rights, Elisa Morgera, and Leonardo Brant, judge at the International Court of Justice, that recently stated that parties have legal obligations to take action on climate change, including mitigation and adaptation measures.

“We need to think about what institutional reforms can make the UN system more coherent, without destroying or rediscussing the Paris Agreement, but instead, focusing on having an arm that delivers implementation towards the 1.5ºC goal”, provoked the executive director at LACLIMA, Caroline Rocha.

Despite the criticism, Kaveh Guilanpour, the vice president for international strategies at the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions reminded the audience the successes of the Paris Agreement: the instrument was capable of putting the planet in a trajectory of temperature containment — still at a high level, but not the worst predicted.

Recognizing these achievements, some suggestions emerged. Giovana Kuele, program manager for International Cooperation and COP30 Strategy at Igarapé Institute pushed for building synergies among the UN frameworks that already exist, such as the climate change and the biodiversity one: “Climate and forests are not dissociated, and we must to address the current crisis by looking to both”.

Elisa Morgera urged for the UNFCCC secretariat to prepare briefings to all the parties based on science consensus on climate, biodiversity, oceans, land degradation. “Not all the negotiators have the same level of knowledge, and our decisions must be taken based on the best science we have”. She also asked for a more open discussion, with any individual being allowed to provide suggestions to the plenary — as it happens in the biodiversity COP. Finally, she asked for a better governance of the UNFCCC to prevent the conflict of interests inside the climate conference. “Every year we see fossil fuel lobbying increasing inside COPs”, regretted. 

Finally, many of the participants agreed that a climate council for the UN — as it was proposed by the Brazilian presidency — would be a great innovation, and a way to tackle implementation measures to make real progress.

Implementation observatories

While the UN system reform is under discussion, some initiatives started to bring to the debate new data and analysis to measure the implementation of Paris Agreement commitments.

The Global South Climate Ambition Observatory, launched in a debate this Tuesday, 11, aims to monitor and compare climate ambition among eight countries from the Global South, as well as the state of the implementation of its commitments. “Our objective is to strengthen data transparency and develop a common measuring rule for progress”, explained one of the creators of the platform, Maria Beatriz Mello, researcher at the Brics Policy Center.

As an initiative originated in a laboratory that studies the Brics countries, the team first focused on this group of countries and developed analyses for Brazil, China, India, Indonesia and South Africa — five of the 11 current effective members of the Brics group. They are now collecting data also from Egypt, Ethiopia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

“But we realised that it would be important to expand this analysis for countries from the Global South, that have political and economic relevance and abundance of natural resources”, mentioned Maureen Santos, coordinator at the Brics Policy Center. So, the researchers included Colombia, Mexico and Democratic Republic of Congo in the first version of the observatory. “We expect to keep growing the number of countries, and also develop new categories of analysis”, she added.

The Global South Climate Ambition Observatory scrutinizes not only the country’s NDCs, but also looks for other policies that are not directly connected with climate, but can impact it. “We are offering a more comprehensive vision of ambition, including environmental policies in general,” concluded Santos.

Disclosing performance gaps

“There is no more important issue than the implementation gaps”, introduced the Director of Climate Policy from the Mexican Climate Initiative, Jorge Villarreal, mediator of the panel “Advances in the implementation of climate policy”. At this event, researchers from Tufts University presented their analyses of the progress made by Mexico, South Africa and Brazil on their climate commitments — a part of a bigger study that included India, China and Indonesia.

They found that even in cases that the policies are addressing the climate issue, there are other measures needed for the implementation to be achieved, such as a clear budget for executing the plans, as well addressing inconsistencies between rhetoric and practice. This is the case of Brazil, which is publicly advocating the world moving away from fossil fuels, but recently announced the opening of a new frontier for oil exploration in the Amazon River mouth region. 

Among all the participants, the certainty of the necessity of data transparency emerged. “Without data we can’t certify anything as green, we can’t make carbon accountability, we can’t monitor how we are going on implementation”, concluded the Brazilian researcher Rosana Santos.

La entrada From the UN system reform to data transparency, panels focus on delivering climate progress se publicó primero en Regional Climate Foundations.

“The climate solution for Brazil and for the world must also be a solution for development and inclusion for the population. Energy transition and social justice are two sides of the same coin”, introduced the state governor of Pernambuco, Raquel Lyra, a Brazilian leader who is joining efforts with politics from different affiliations to attract green industries to the Northeast region of the country.

Lyra and the Piauí governor, Rafael Fonteles, debated on the panel “How to Accelerate Sustainable Investments and Low-Carbon Industrial Chains”. “Our states produce 7 GW of renewable energy and consume only 1 GW. Our energy is 99.73% clean. That is why we are natural candidates to receive green industry”, explained Fonteles.

The Brazilian Northeast states created a consortium and a forum to push for a movement that is called “powershoring” — a concept created by professor Jorge Arbache that consists of moving energy and resource-intensive industries to areas where clean energy is both abundant and affordable. “Northeast is 30 year ahead of others with this initiative”, said Arbache, who participated in the debate. 

Brazil’s competitive advantage is evident, as the country’s energy mix is anchored in hydroelectric plants, and the use of fossil fuels is residual. “Brazil has a condition like almost no other country has. We need to add value to this scenario by producing with this green energy. And driving regional development with this perspective”, suggested the executive director of the Climate and Society Institute (iCS), Maria Netto. iCS is supporting the initiative. 

By setting up operations near sources of low-carbon energy and key raw materials, companies can reduce their environmental impact and improve resilience to political or climate disruptions. But also, it can become more competitive.

Climate plans promote guidelines for investments

In the last panel of the day, “Turning Collaboration into Local Action for Just Resilience and Nature”, state leaders — including the governor of Espírito Santo, Renato Casagrande — discussed how to provide funding and training to enable municipalities to deal with climate change.

Again, the keyword is collaboration. In this case, the states can either offer reliable data to the very local actors to develop their plans or offer technical support on how to get the funds to implement them. Or both. “Adaptation and mitigation plans cannot come from one government alone; they must come from the state and society. All stakeholders must be involved for them to be feasible”, argued Casagrande. Espírito Santo created a decarbonization fund to push for industry transition, among other initiatives.

The same feeling of public interest being above political affiliations was mentioned by the Secretary of Environment and Sustainable Development of Minas Gerais, Marília Carvalho de Melo. When developing its state’s Climate Change Policy, the main concern was to create indicators that would allow transparency for the society: “We needed to ensure the implementation and monitoring tools because the climate issue cannot be resolved in a single administration, a single term or mandate”.

In São Paulo, the public company Cetesb, dedicated to environmental management, developed a database with a greenhouse gas inventory for each one of all the 645 state municipalities. “So that they would be able to plan the better way to reduce emissions”, said the state sustainability department manager, Maria Fernanda Pelizzon Garcia.

In Paraíba, the challenge has been to include the local population in projects to restore the caatinga, the unique biome of Brazil’s northeast region. “Without the participation of communities, programmes will lack the necessary assertiveness”, expressed the state secretary for the Environment and Sustainability, Rafaela Camaraense.

Coming from Argentina, Victoria Flores, the minister of Environment and Circular Economy of Cordoba department, observed that due to the recent national Argentine government’s position, of skepticism about the Paris Agreement, states departments and municipalities are joining efforts to act: “As our national context is complicated, the provinces are making their own plans, but we are talking so that we can all speak the same language. After all, the difficulties are common to all”.

Participating in the debate, one of the architects of the Paris Agreement, Laurence Tubiana, head of the European Climate Foundation noted that subnational governments need to be more considered in the negotiation aspects. “Since the Paris Agreement we have seen governors with different political affiliations making strong climate action. We need to recognize and celebrate that”, said. “At the same time, subnational governments are the actors that anchor citizens and give them a sense of direction that sometimes lack at national level. So, you need to be at the table”, concluded.

La entrada Collaboration enables climate initiatives at the local level se publicó primero en Regional Climate Foundations.