OPINION: COP30: What is missing from the conversation

As COP30 gathers in Belém, the headlines promise ambition, alliances, and new finance pledges. Yet beneath the choreography, a stubborn omission persists: accountability. We know what must be done, and in many cases we even have the frameworks. What falters is the chain from grand commitments to real money, real timelines, and real protection for people on the front lines.

Two rooms, two realities

Every year, the summit’s design quietly reinforces who gets to influence outcomes. Negotiations unfold behind secure doors, while the public-facing side buzzes like a trade fair. Civil society groups sprint between pavilions and panels, advocating at full volume but kept at arm’s length when the final text is drafted. Meanwhile, industry representatives move comfortably through the Blue Zone where the real edits happen. The architecture mirrors the politics: those living with climate impacts are kept farthest from the pen.

When news quotes civil society, it signals a vacuum

Media coverage often amplifies statements from non-government actors because they show up, organize, and make it easy to be heard. That visibility is vital—but it can also expose who is missing. When official delegations are quiet or reactive, the negotiating table becomes even more skewed toward well-resourced interests. In that silence, essential demands fade from the agenda.

Implementation versus finance: the missing bridge

Across past summits, two conversations recur. One is about long-haul implementation—policies that survive political cycles and steadily rebuild ecosystems, like payment for ecosystem services that helped one Latin American country double forest cover while decarbonizing its power sector. It is slow, ordinary work made extraordinary by consistency.

The other conversation centers on mobilizing capital: trillions for resilience, reforms to insurance and risk, novel instruments that promise scale. Necessary, yes—but often decoupled from the policy coherence needed to absorb, govern, and sustain that capital on the ground.

Multilateral spaces can produce concrete wins. Securing leadership roles in new funds or landing stronger language in a framework can shift leverage. But the gap between “money pledged” and “money received” remains vast. Too often, funds morph into conditional loans or are held up by design choices that make access nearly impossible for communities most in need. Without clear rules on disbursement, eligibility, and oversight, finance remains theoretical while vulnerability is brutally real.

What COP30 must put in black and white

Patterns repeat when lobbyists command greater presence than many state delegations and when crucial terms go missing from the final text. The fix is not mystery or magic; it is specificity. To honor the spirit of the Paris Agreement and the Kunming-Montreal Biodiversity Framework, COP30 should lock in the following:

• Nationally Determined Contributions must include costed implementation plans with explicit budget lines. Spell out what is funded domestically, what requires international support, and the timelines for both.
• Loss and damage, adaptation, and resilience finance must be clearly separated from emergency response, so long-term infrastructure isn’t cannibalized by the next disaster.
• Access pathways must be simple, public, and fair. Who is eligible? How are applications evaluated? What is the turnaround time? Publish it, test it, and report performance quarterly.
• Disbursement transparency should be mandatory: show committed versus disbursed funds, by country, by instrument, by project stage—along with reasons for delays and corrective actions.
• Guardrails against debt traps: grants should be the default for climate-vulnerable countries. When loans are used, terms must be concessional and aligned with climate resilience outcomes.
• Corporate accountability cannot be a side conversation. Ongoing litigation and investigations into climate harm should inform reparations frameworks and funding sources, with mechanisms to channel outcomes toward communities and ecosystems harmed.

The new shape of COP—and why it matters

The summit has evolved into a magnet for investment pitches and public-private partnerships. That isn’t inherently negative; private capital is indispensable. But when corporate influence defines the tone and tempo, disagreement becomes spectacle and not leverage. Without assertive, well-prepared state negotiators who connect diplomatic text to domestic law, budget lines, and procurement, the interests of vulnerable nations float to the margins.

This is the structural story of recent years: the agenda orbits finance mobilization while implementation systems lag. The result is a widening canyon between climate rhetoric and lived reality—especially in places where seawalls crack, crops fail, and families rebuild again and again without relief reaching their shores.

From ambition to accountability

We do not lack targets. We lack durable execution. That means anchoring every pledge to public ledgers of who pays, who benefits, and how progress is verified. It means designing funds that communities can actually use. It means policies resilient enough to outlast elections and strong enough to check private influence when it runs against the public interest.

At COP30, negotiators can still change the story. Hardwire transparency into finance decisions. Insist on clear access rules and timelines. Require line-item budgets in NDCs. Link corporate responsibility to reparations and restoration. Close the space between a press release and a payment to a frontline project.

Until that bridge is built, expect the most consequential climate stories to remain the ones we don’t hear—unfunded, untracked, and unfinished.