European Union

In today’s edition: Norway could unlock the EU’s frozen-assets loan to Ukraine by tapping its sovereign wealth fund, Parliament threatens to torpedo the Commission’s €2 trillion budget proposal, and ex-Justice Commissioner Didier Reynders faces money laundering charges

In the arid and dry region of Isiolo in Kenya, a new irrigation scheme is helping communities to learn and adopt new ways and to find an alternative to livestock keeping in order to diversify sources of income to attain self-reliance and resilience to recurring droughts. Credit: EU/ECHO/Martin Karimi
 
The 30th "Conference of the Parties" (COP30) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) will take place from 6-21 November 2025 in Belém, Brazil. It will bring together world leaders, scientists, non-governmental organizations, and civil society to discuss priority actions to tackle climate change. COP30 will focus on the efforts needed to limit the global temperature increase to 1.5°C, the presentation of new national action plans (NDCs) and the progress on the finance pledges made at COP29.

By Martha Bekele and Nkiruka Chidia Maduekwe
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia / ABUJA, Nigeria , Nov 5 2025 (IPS)

Three decades after the first Climate COP, the multilateral climate process – which was intended to serve as an instrument of justice and a guardian of the planet’s atmosphere – has fallen far short of its goals.

Over the past 30 years, climate change has arrived and intensified, while the COP process has become a tiresome bureaucratic exercise that continually fails to hold the most responsible to account. It has also become an industry unto itself – and an exclusive one at that.

Without urgent and radical reform to its structure, financial architecture, and participatory mechanisms, the COP will continue to perpetuate the very injustices it was created to address. For the poorer and more vulnerable countries of the world – those that are least responsible for the climate crisis, yet most acutely affected – this situation is untenable.

The next 30 years will not be any different from the first 30, because the climate crisis will continue to worsen. In order to survive, we need a fundamental shift on three fronts: the financial architecture, knowledge sovereignty and accountability. And the changes need to start now.

First, we need a new structure for climate finance

Time and again, we have argued that the climate financial injustice epitomizes the need for a reformed approach to climate finance across the board. There is need for a new system that reduces the cost of capital, provides direct access to climate finance, minimizes transaction costs and bureaucratic barriers, and increases the share of grant-based support.

We must also operationalize the Loss and Damage Fund with equitable governance and resource allocation and to ensure the climate financing plans include clear sub-targets for adaptation, loss and damage, and finance for energy transition – all aligned with energy sovereignty and green industrialization. Climate finance must be seen not merely as a quantum to be delivered, but as a means of achieving justice.

Related to finance, and what is not much talked about, is the exorbitant cost attached to attending the COP itself. Everything related to this process comes at a price. For example, many negotiators, especially from Africa’s least developed nations, rely on external funding just to attend COP.

Civil-society actors are expected to pay exorbitant costs to observe a process and protest injustice. In Belém, hotel rates are reportedly touching $900 per night, the cost of a modest climate-adaptation project in a rural community. An African Participation Fund, supporting both negotiators and non-state actors, could ensure that representation and resistance are not privileges of means.

Second, we need knowledge sovereignty

The data and science shaping global climate targets are still largely produced in the North, leaving Africa to depend almost entirely on foreign research institutions for its climate models and risk assessments. Without their own data repositories and regional research capacity, African delegates are forced to negotiate with borrowed evidence. This cannot stand.

We must build Africa’s knowledge sovereignty by investing in Indigenous knowledge systems, local research institutions and South-South cooperation to generate solutions that are adapted to local needs. It is essential to build African climate-data infrastructure and regional research capacity, enabling negotiators to advocate with their own evidence.

Challenging the dominance of external technical assistance by fostering homegrown expertise and enhancing climate diplomacy capacity is vital. Capacity building for African research institutions and integrating local expertise into COP processes are necessary steps toward equitable participation.

Third, we need accountability

We must develop robust monitoring and reporting frameworks, such as the African Climate Finance Taxonomy and the Africa Climate Finance Strategy, to safeguard against greenwashing and ensure transparency. These tools should provide clear definitions of climate-aligned investments, ensuring that financial flows are directed toward projects meeting both climate and local development priorities.

The taxonomy serves as a countermeasure to the ambiguity of the multilateral process – verifying that mobilized funds are high quality, non-debt-creating, and genuinely transformative. Enforceable commitments, with clear timelines and consequences for non-compliance, are essential for restoring trust and ensuring accountability from developed countries.

As the world looks to COP30 and beyond, the call for urgent, empathetic and authoritative action must be answered with tangible change on these three fronts – climate finance, knowledge sovereignty and accountability. Incremental change will no longer suffice. We need transformation and accountability – and justice for Africa.

Martha Bekele is the co-founder and Director at DevTransform; Dr. Nkiruka Chidia Maduekwe is an Associate Professor of Law at the Nigerian Institute of Advanced Legal Studies and a former lead climate negotiator for Nigeria.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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A BBC investigation finds evidence that young African women are being tricked into building Russian drones.

UN Photo/ICJ-CIJ/Frank van Beek
 
The 30th "Conference of the Parties" (COP30) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) will take place from 6-21 November 2025 in Belém, Brazil. It will bring together world leaders, scientists, non-governmental organizations, and civil society to discuss priority actions to tackle climate change. COP30 will focus on the efforts needed to limit the global temperature increase to 1.5°C, the presentation of new national action plans (NDCs) and the progress on the finance pledges made at COP29.

By Joan Russow
VICTORIA, British Columbia, Canada, Nov 5 2025 (IPS)

At COP15, the developing countries were calling for the temperature to not rise above 1.5 degrees and they ignored the Copenhagen Accord which agreed to 2.0 degrees

Then at COP21, while the developing countries were still calling for the temperature to not arise above 1.5, they were ignored again. And then, the developing countries praised for their resilience for adapting to the climate change, which has been caused by developed states. In 2024, the United Nation General Assembly sought a legal opinion from the International Court of Justice on Climate change

The response was the following:

“Not only what states are required to do under international law to avert further climate change through both now and in the future, but they also have to assess the legal consequences under these obligations both through what they do and fail to do have caused significant harm to climate systems in other parts of the environment and harm to future generations as well as for those countries by virtue of geographical circumstances are vulnerable to adverse effects of climate change.”

However, a legal opinion from the court is not binding. The court can, however, provide interpretations of international law via customs or treaties such as the UN Framework on Climate Change UNFCCC.

All states are parties to UNFCCC. The objective of the Convention in Article 2 is: “stabilization of greenhouse gases at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.

‘Such a level should be achieved within a time frame to allow ecosystems to adapt naturally to ensure food production is not threatened and to enable economic development is done in sustainable way.’“

Under Article 4, the principles include the following:

“The parties should take precautionary measures to anticipate, prevent, and minimize any adverse effects on developing countries. Lack of full scientific certainty should not be used as a reason for postponing such measures.”

Given that the developing countries are the most affected, but least responsible for climate change, perhaps developing countries could launch a case to seek an interpretation by the ICJ of both the article 2 and the precautionary principle

Dr Joan Russow is founder of the Global Compliance Research Project, formed in 1995 to document state non-compliance with international law.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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