COP30 Dispatch

What Congress Needs to Know from Brazil

Happy Halloween! And welcome to the first issue of EESI’s COP30 Dispatch. November is a busy month for international cooperation on climate change. Next week, subnational leaders will gather in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, for the COP30 Local Leaders Forum, and national leaders descend on Belém, Brazil, for the COP30 Heads of State Summit. Then, the UN climate conference kicks off on November 10, bringing together stakeholders from around the world to advance global climate action.

Track the happenings with us! Join EESI on November 4, 5, and 6 at noon EST for our Congressional briefing series:

What’s on the Table for the Negotiations: This briefing will cover key issues on the negotiating agenda, including determining metrics for climate adaptation and charting the path towards international climate finance goals.
Keeping it Cool: International Efforts to Reduce Emissions from Refrigerants: Panelists will explore progress made towards the Global Cooling Pledge—from nature-based and passive cooling to low global warming potential refrigerant technologies.
International Trade and Climate Policy: This discussion will focus on multilateral efforts to reduce trade-related greenhouse gas emissions, as well as climate-related policies being proposed in the U.S. and abroad.

And keep an eye out for this newsletter in your inbox—daily coverage starts on November 7. We’ll bring you quick notes on key happenings in and around COP30, with a specific focus on what Congress needs to know about the proceedings.

P.S. If you remember loving this newsletter in past years, share it with your colleagues and friends who want to follow developments at COP30. If you were forwarded this newsletter, you can sign up to get all future issues here.

You can find all EESI’s COP30 resources here. Getting lost in the COP lingo? Check out EESI's glossary of terms and other helpful guides in our Resources section! Looking for more information? Reach out to Anna at [email protected].

Key Takeaways for Congress

The COP30 Presidency published a letter calling for international cooperation on climate adaptation and underscoring deficiencies in adaptation finance. (Negotiations)
Countries were due to submit updated nationally determined contributions in February 2025. As of today, 67 countries have submitted updated commitments. (Around the World)
RSVP for EESI’s What Congress Needs to Know about COP30 briefing series and join us next week!

Negotiations

Ambassador André Corrêa do Lago, president of COP30, speaking at the “Social Participation in the COP30 Action Agenda” event earlier this month. | Credit: Rafa Neddermeyer via Flickr.

COP30: The 30th Conference of the Parties (COP30) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) begins on November 10 and is scheduled to conclude on November 21, though it is very common for the negotiations to run long. All the official proceedings are taking place in Belém, Brazil; however, there are COP-adjacent activities happening across the country, especially in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. The UNFCCC itself has a host of useful resources to keep up with the official negotiations on its website, and provisional agendas are available now.

Letters from Belém: Last week, the COP30 Presidency released its eighth in a series of informational letters, each targeting a key theme, leading up to COP30 in Belém. “As the age of warnings gives way to the age of consequences,” the letter reads, “humanity confronts a profound truth: climate adaptation is no longer a choice that follows mitigation; it is the first half of our survival.” The Presidency then called for renewed efforts on climate adaptation through international cooperation and underscored deficiencies in global climate finance dedicated to adaptation. Negotiations on the Global Goal on Adaptation are expected to be some of the most significant conversations at COP this year.

And Letters from Bonn: While most observers tune into international climate talks for a few weeks every fall, the UNFCCC secretariat, based in Bonn, Germany, works in partnership with country representatives year-round to advance a range of work programmes and standing committee efforts. Executive Secretary Simon Stiell’s quarterly letter from mid-October highlights recent work, including that over 100 developing countries received technical assistance on the UNFCCC’s greenhouse gas reporting tools, the fourth UAE Just Transition Work Programme dialogue took place in Ethiopia in September, and Pre-COP took place in Brasilia, Brazil, earlier in October.
Introducing ENB: The Earth Negotiations Bulletin (ENB) is an essential resource for following any international environmental governance process. EESI’s COP30 Dispatch will link to their daily summaries of the negotiations in every issue. ENB writer Jennifer Bansard answers questions in a “What to Expect at COP30” explainer about the state of multilateral cooperation and outlines key issues to follow at COP30, including the new collective quantified goal on climate finance, the global goal on adaptation, and the gender action plan.

Around the World

World map indicating which countries have submitted a new NDC. | Credit: Climate Watch. 2024. Washington, D.C.: World Resources Institute. Available online at: https://www.climatewatchdata.org. NDCs: UNFCCC. 2024. NDC Registry. Available at: https://unfccc.int/NDCREG.

NDC Transparency: The World Resources Institute’s (WRI’s) Climate Watch platform provides interactive climate data visualizations that increase transparency and compare progress on national climate goals. The platform’s NDC Tracker, launched at COP29, provides a snapshot of progress on the new round of nationally determined contributions (NDCs). Countries were due to submit their updated NDCs, which map out national climate ambitions through 2035, in February 2025. As of today, 67 countries—representing 36% of global emissions—have submitted a new NDC, while 130 countries have yet to submit one. So far, this latest round boosts the emission reductions from the 2020 NDCs by 1.9 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent, equal to the annual emissions from roughly 500 coal-fired power plants.

NDC Breakdown: Notably missing from the new NDC submissions are China and the EU. China, the world’s largest emitter, foreshadowed its NDC at the September 2025 UN General Assembly meeting, promising to peak emissions by 2030 and achieve net-zero emissions by 2060. Meanwhile, the EU, the world’s fourth-largest emitter, shared in September that its upcoming NDC is expected to include a 66.25-72.5% cut in emissions by 2035 and a net emissions reduction of 90% by 2040, both compared to 1990 levels. Trying to keep up with all the NDC ongoings? In addition to WRI’s NDC Tracker, the Business Council for Sustainable Energy’s issue brief, Climate Analytics and NewClimate Institute’s Climate Action Tracker, and the UNFCCC’s NDC registry are great places to start!

Diving into Ocean Action: Back in June, Brazil and France announced the Blue NDC Challenge, a global call for countries to incorporate ocean-oriented mitigation and resilience actions into their NDCs or NDC implementation plans. Actions can range from coastal restoration and marine conservation to shipping decarbonization and fishery resilience. So far, Brazil and France have been joined by Australia, Fiji, Kenya, Mexico, Palau, and Seychelles. More countries are expected to join over the course of COP30—check back with COP30 Dispatch to keep track of it all!
- EESI article: “Making Waves: The Importance of Oceans at COP28”

Update on Global Stocktake Progress: A new report from the International Renewable Energy Agency, the COP30 Presidency, and the Global Renewables Alliance assesses global progress following the first global stocktake, which was agreed to at COP28. The resulting UAE Consensus established a goal to triple renewable energy capacity and double energy efficiency efforts by 2030. The report finds that two years later, energy efficiency modifications in buildings have been nominal and renewable energy growth has fallen short—despite record-breaking renewable energy capacity being added to grids around the world.
- EESI briefing: The First Global Stocktake

Climate Action off the Rails: Last week, WRI’s Systems Change Lab published the State of Climate Action 2025. The annual report uses 45 indicators to assess global progress on meeting the Paris Agreement goal of limiting warming to 1.5°C (2.7°F). The Systems Change Lab determined that, of the 45 indicators, 29 are “well off-track,” six are moving in the right direction but falling behind, five are going in the wrong direction completely, and there are insufficient data for the rest.

Granary of Solutions: Each year, the COP Presidency appoints a high-level climate champion responsible for advancing the “Action Agenda” around COP. The Action Agenda is designed to connect the negotiations to real-world, on-the-ground climate work. This year, it has six themes and 30 objectives, as well as a “Granary of Solutions” that provides case studies of “existing solutions [that] accelerate and scale up impact in alignment with the global stocktake and the goals of the Paris Agreement.” There is an open call for engagement, solutions, and input. In alignment with the Action Agenda, the Business Council for Sustainable Energy has created its own Granary of Solutions to highlight U.S. businesses leading the way on greenhouse gas emissions reductions at home and abroad.
- EESI briefing: 2025 Sustainable Energy in America Factbook

Pine-ing for Progress: According to Nature4Climate’s Nature Commitment Tracker, countries have announced 26 new nature-focused commitments since COP29—five times more than the number of commitments made between COP28 and COP29. However, the tracker also shows that only 50% of these commitments saw any reported progress on implementation after six months.
- EESI article: “A New Tool for Realizing the Potential of Nature-Based Solutions: U.S. Nature4Communities”

Resources

EESI Resources

Briefing series: What Congress Needs to Know About COP30
- What's on the Table for the Negotiations? (November 4)
- Keeping it Cool: International Efforts to Reduce Emissions from Refrigerants (November 5)
- International Trade and Climate Policy (November 6)
Climate Change Solutions: Bi-weekly newsletter covering climate, energy, and environmental issues
EESI's United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Glossary of Terms

Tracking the Negotiations

CarbonBrief: Reporting and analysis on the UN climate talks, with in-depth tracking of country positions in the negotiations
COP30 Resource Hub: World Resources Institute's extensive set of resources on the climate negotiations
Earth Negotiations Bulletin: A play-by-play of the negotiations, plus expert analysis from the International Institute for Sustainable Development
ECO Newsletter: The climate advocate’s perspective from Climate Action Network International
C2ES Newsletter: Daily key takeaways from COP30 experts observing the negotiations
Nature Updates: Nature4Climate brings daily updates on all the nature-based solutions happenings at COP to your inbox

Background and Logistics

Brazil COP30 presidency website: Priorities, details, and logistics for the negotiations from this year’s host country
UNFCCC COP30 website: Conference details and all updates on documents produced during the negotiations
Congressional Research Service: Reports related to the UNFCCC

Questions about COP30?

Reach out to EESI Policy Director Anna McGinn with your questions. We will get back to you or include the information in an upcoming newsletter.

Thanks for reading!

This newsletter covering COP30 will be running from November 7 - November 24.
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Staff contributors: Daniel Bresette, Alison Davis, Laura Gries, Amaury Laporte, Anna McGinn, Nicole Pouy, and Hannah Wilson-Black

About EESI

The Environmental and Energy Study Institute (EESI) is an independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit advancing science-based solutions for climate change, energy, and environmental challenges to achieve a sustainable, resilient, and equitable world. Founded on a bipartisan basis by members of Congress, EESI has been informing policymakers about the benefits of energy efficiency, renewable energy, and environmental conservation since 1984.

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