The 2025 UN climate summit ended with a whimper at the edge of the Amazon, as nearly 200 governments compromised on actions that fail to effectively combat the galloping impacts of climate change. In a year marked by the second withdrawal of the US from the Paris Agreement, India faced at least a heatwave, storm, flood, landslide or drought worsened by climate change on 245 out of the first 273 days (nine months), according to a report by the New Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment; 4,064 lives were lost and 47 million hectares of cropped area were affected.

Similar disasters hit many other parts of the world. But at the fortnight-long summit held near the mouth of the Amazon in Belem, governments could not agree on a strong measure to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG) causing climate change. Despite exhortations by conference president André Correa do Lago of host country Brazil to “accelerate the implementation of the 2015 Paris Agreement”, progress was stymied, largely by the refusal of rich nations to provide public finance to developing countries to help combat climate change and its impacts.

And this despite UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Executive Secretary Simon Stiell telling the assembled ministers from around the world, “Climate finance is not charity — it’s smart economics. Because climate action, underpinned by climate finance, is the growth story of the 21st century... when finance flows, ambition grows. And when ambition grows, implementation flows — creating jobs, easing the cost of living, improving health, protecting communities, and securing a prosperous, more resilient planet for all.”

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres made a public appeal “to all delegations to show willingness and flexibility to deliver results that protect people”. He wanted “a fair outcome — concrete on funding adaptation, credible on emission cuts, bankable on finance”.

Guterres pointed out, “Ten years after the Paris Agreement, we have moved — but nowhere near enough. The UNEP Emissions Gap report shows that today’s Nationally Determined Contributions — even if fully implemented — would put us on a path well above 2 degrees of global warming [since pre-industrial times]. That is a death sentence for many.” He also said the “renewables revolution” made emission cuts possible.

All governments agreed, but developing nations pointed out they could do little without a lot more money, and the summit floundered on this essential issue. Right now, rich nations have an ongoing agreement to mobilise $300 billion per year through public and private means after 2035, while developing nations had estimated their requirement at $1.3 trillion a year.

‘Predictable roadmap’

Bhupender Yadav, India’s minister for environment, forest and climate change, spoke repeatedly of the need for a predictable roadmap for the delivery of the promised finance. At the start of the conference, Li Gao, China’s vice minister for ecology and environment, called on developed countries to “present an implementation roadmap for the delivery of the $300 billion... including short-term and medium-term actions for providing the necessary guarantee.” But there was no sign of that by the end.

The conference did start two important initiatives: one, to find money to safeguard tropical forests; and the other, to deal with health impacts of climate change. Forests are the major GHG sinks on land; the Tropical Forests Forever Facility (TFFF), started by Brazil, aims to raise low-interest loans totalling $125 billion on the strength of grants pledged by various governments. Currently, the pledges total $6.5 billion. Brazil hopes the corpus will yield an annual interest of $4 billion, to be used to safeguard tropical forests.

The second initiative, the Belem Health Action Plan (BHAP), is meant to help the health sector adapt to climate change impacts. Its concept note says, “Adaptation measures must address health inequities and inequalities, which are exacerbated by climate change.” Responding partially to repeated demands by indigenous groups in the Amazon basin for more decision-making powers in climate negotiations, BHAP “advocates for full, equitable, and bottom-up approaches that ensure the active participation of civil society, particularly representatives of the most affected peoples and communities, in all stages of policy formulation.”

The Brazilian government aims to bring BHAP under the aegis of the UNFCCC by 2028, but it has been criticised by activists for not doing so from the start. The activists point out that more and more climate actions — most importantly raising money through carbon markets or from private investors — are taking place outside the control of UNFCCC. Investors remain reluctant to finance projects in developing countries with relatively small economies and projects for adaptation to climate change impacts because they do not find these projects bankable; that is why many countries want public finances and for UNFCCC to control the money.

But many climate actions are no longer under UNFCCC control. On the day the summit was scheduled to close, the organisers listed a number of initiatives, many of which are being controlled by private organisations or individual governments, though there were repeated attempts by the UN body to claim credit for these activities.

Adaptation finance

With so many countries hit by climate-induced disasters, developing countries had demanded a tripling of adaptation finance at this year’s summit. But there was little sign of that as the conference meandered to an end. The proposed resolution called only for “efforts” to triple adaptation finance by 2030, relative to 2025, without providing any mandate. The UN Environment Programme has projected the adaptation finance gap will reach $310-365 billion by 2035.

Many countries had also pushed for a “just transition” from GHG-emitting coal, oil and gas to renewables through what was called a Belem Action Mechanism (BAM). A concrete move on that was blocked by some rich nations, though it found mention in the draft declaration of the Brazilian presidency.

There was agreement on ways to deal with loss and damage being suffered due to climate change. Governments agreed to streamline the work of various groups working on this issue. While welcoming this, Harjeet Singh, Member of the UN Technical Expert Group on Comprehensive Risk Management (TEG-CRM), pointed out that the agreement “glaringly fails to mandate a specific focus on the finance and capacity gap. The institutional machinery is now being made ‘fit for purpose’, but machinery cannot rebuild homes without money.”

Overall, climate activists were vocal in their disappointment with the outcomes in Belem. Bronwen Tucker of the NGO Oil Change International said, “The transition away from fossil fuels has to happen in a just, equitable, and orderly way. Rich countries need to show they are serious about phasing out fossil fuels first and fastest at home and put real, debt-free public money on the table to fund climate adaptation and a just energy transition.”

Pooja Dave of the umbrella NGO group Climate Action Network said, “At least $120 billion in annual grant-based, public and predictable finance is needed for adaptation by 2030 from developed countries to developing countries. But developed countries are shying away yet again from showing the money on adaptation.”

Mohamed Adow of Power Shift Africa said that “to prove multilateralism still works”, climate agreements had been “whittled down through horse-trading to the lowest common denominator… The result is a package that neither reflects scientific urgency nor responds to the lived realities of vulnerable communities already contending with climate collapse.”

(The writer is India Manager, Earth Journalism Network)

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Published on November 24, 2025