Reflections on the Road to COP30

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados – As the world prepares for COP30 in Brazil from November 10-21, the question is no longer whether climate change is an urgent issue—it is about whether we will rise to the occasion with the equity and ambition that the current crisis demands. The stakes are high, especially for the world’s most vulnerable and lowest-resilience countries.

Take, for example, Hurricane Beryl that struck Grenada in July 2024 or the volcanic eruption and Tsunami that hit Tonga in January 2022. Entire communities were devastated: homes obliterated, productive capacity halted, and lives turned upside down. For Small Island Developing States (SIDS) like Grenada and Tonga, such events are not isolated tragedies but harbingers of a future fraught with existential threats.

COP29 in Focus

COP29 convened amidst an urgent call to address climate finance—arguably the most contentious and critical issue in climate diplomacy. Following the $100 billion annual climate finance target set in 2009 that was only met in 2022, the global community was gripped with the daunting task (defining a New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG)) of mobilizing trillions of dollars to build clean-energy systems, adapt to a hotter world, and address climate-induced disasters. Finding common ground was challenging:

How Much Is Enough? Developing countries advocated for $1-2 trillion annually to meet escalating needs. Developed nations, however, focused on leveraging private sector financing and diversified sources such as green bonds and public-private partnerships. This approach often minimizes reliance on public funds, raising concerns about the predictability of such financing.

Who Should Pay? High-income nations, who have historically borne the burden, sought to include large emerging economies like China. For many developing nations, who pays raises questions of equity and historical responsibility.

What Should Be Funded? Developing nations prioritize direct financing for adaptation, mitigation, and loss and damage. Developed nations, however, emphasize private-sector involvement and mechanisms like carbon markets, often sidelining the specific vulnerabilities of SIDS.

Accountability and Timeframes. Developing nations contend that urgent and essential ambitions risk remaining as unfulfilled promises. Developed countries are reluctant to embrace robust frameworks that measure progress and ensure accountability.

As daunting as it seems, we cannot understate the magnitude of ambition required to solve the challenges we face. Let us consider how we got here. The Earth, in all its complexity, can be viewed as a dynamic system subject to natural laws that govern its behavior and interactions. Land-use change (expanding farmland and urban sprawl) meant trees— nature’s great carbon vaults—were felled, releasing stored carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. With their loss, the delicate balance of water retention was upset as soil was left bare.

The lost integrity of the soil meant more nitrogen and phosphorus flowing into waterways at unsustainable rates, fueling vast blooms of algae, ocean acidification, and loss of marine biodiversity. Coupled with the burning of fossil fuels and the excess use of chemicals and pollutants, the atmospheric balance deteriorates – the higher temperatures intensify storms, generate acid rain, and alter rainfall patterns that damage soil composition and destroy biodiversity.

As biodiversity diminishes, forests fail to regenerate, resilience of ecosystems weakens and increases vulnerability to new shocks, and the quality and distribution of freshwater plummets, impacting plant growth and human survival.

The upshot is that what started as a land-use issue rippled through the entire planet. Therefore, to restore stability, we need policies that address the full circular aspects of our actions. The nature of earth as a system dictates a multidisciplinary, adequately funded, and focused set of policies that integrate earth science, technology, economics, social development, and community action in a coherent way.

While progress was made at COP29:

• Ambitious commitments such as the $300 billion climate finance target.
• Increased emphasis on carbon markets and  food systems, though these often overlook the unique vulnerabilities of SIDS, such as coastal erosion and extreme weather.

opportunities were missed in:

• The failure to scale Loss and Damage funding, underscoring systemic inequities and posing existential threats to SIDS.
• Insufficient attention was paid to Nature-Based Solutions (NBS), despite their potential for mitigation and co-benefits.
• Inadequate integration of data and technology into policy and action, limiting initiatives (e.g., SIDS Global Data Hub) on predictive climate modeling and use of geospatial data.

The Pathway to COP30: Bridging the Gap

Therefore, the road to COP30 (and beyond) must bridge the gap between ambition and action. It is not merely commitments on climate finance, but a set of coherent commitments that together can deliver on outcomes — commitments on how much, on who provides, on what outcomes by when, on ensuring implementation capacity, and on accountability. This requires policies that redefine global systems to value nature, to prioritize the most vulnerable, and to empower nations to embrace ecological sustainability, particularly their climate goals.

We highlight a few policy priorities that are necessary for deploying the finance with sustainable effectivenes:

• Begin implementing the UN-defined Productive Capacity Function (PCF) (initially, the Productive Capacity Index) as an operational framework. These tools measure progress beyond GDP, incorporating environmental health, social equity, and wellbeing.
• Focus on maximizing productive capacity within planetary boundaries, ensuring long-term sustainability (versus degeneration) of nature.
• Advocate for valuation methodologies –based on a redefined total cost — that reflect the contributions of natural assets such as forests and oceans to ecological sustainability. Incentivize nature-based regenerative solutions, like afforestation and marine restoration, and foster regeneration policies as central to addressing climate challenges.
• Empower SIDS through initiatives like the SIDS Global Data Hub and SDG Data Alliance — bridging the digital divide ensures equitable access to climate solutions.
• Implement projects that leverage interlinkages of earth’s system: for example, design land reforestation not just to store carbon, but to restore biodiversity, water retention, and soil health; and integrate blue natural capital and ocean economy initiatives into global food system transformations.
• Promote financial instruments (especially state-contingent instruments) that reward ecological sustainability and resilience-building efforts, and foster equity by prioritizing funding for the most vulnerable communities, particularly Indigenous peoples and small island states.
• Foster multi-stakeholder partnerships among governments, the private sector, and civil society, aligning efforts with mission-driven national goals.
• Advocate for international agreements that embed the right to a stable planetary ecology in development policies.

These solutions require not just political will, but an understanding that earth operates as a system of interwoven, self-regulating forces. Further, the effectiveness of policies will depend on recognizing feedback loops, unintended consequences, and the intricate dependencies of planetary processes.

The road to COP30 must prioritize predictable, accessible, and sufficient climate finance for building resilience, safeguarding ecosystems, and ensuring a just transition to a low-carbon future. The global community must collectively ensure meaningful action.

Dr. Gene Leon is the Executive Director, Development Bank for Resilient Prosperity Program, PVBLIC Foundation, and can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Ashaki Goodwin is Director, Government Affairs, PVBLIC Foundation and can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.