Draft COP30 agreement a ‘mixed bag’: EU climate chief

BELEM, Brazil: EU climate chief Wopke Hoekstra on Tuesday ruled out revisiting financial pledges or being “lured into a phony conversation about trade” after a draft agreement was released at the UN COP30 summit.

“As always in this phase of the negotiations, this is a mixed bag,” Hoekstra told AFP at the climate summit in Belem, Brazil, after the draft text was published.

“We´re not going to open up the hard-fought compromise of last year in terms of financing” or have a “phony conversation about trade measures,” he added.Climate finance systems are “failing” small island states that are among the most vulnerable to the effects of global warming, Vanuatu´s representative told COP30 UN talks in Brazil on Tuesday.

“Climate finance is not charity. It is a legal and moral obligation,” the Pacific island´s climate change minister, Ralph Regenvanu, told COP30 in Belem. “Accessing climate finance requires navigating complex procedures that undermine the very purpose of the support. Our communities cannot wait years for approval while disasters strike every season,” he said.

The two-week summit in the Amazon city of Belem has brought together governments from across the world to strengthen the complex UN framework that underpins global action to halt rising temperatures and cope with the damage they cause.

Host nation Brazil wants a deal agreed in two stages: one package tomorrow, including items that were a week ago deemed too thorny to even include on the formal agenda, and another wrapping up any outstanding issues by Friday.