COP30’s Message to The Climate Movement: It’s Up to Us

First Take on the 2025 International Climate Negotiations in Belém, which ended Nov 22, 2025

The COP30 Take-Away

For the most part, the ambition for the latest international climate negotiations or COP30 — especially when it came to a roadmap to phase out fossil fuels — was not realized.

So what is COP30’s message to us?

It’s simple. The Climate Movement is indispensable — that’s the most important thing for us to learn from COP30.

We must get it out of our heads that overcoming climate change is up to “them.”

It’s not.

Not presidents. Not premiers. Not negotiators. Not experts. Not environmental professionals. Not billionaire philanthropists. Whoever we think has the power to do what needs to be done — they don’t.

Simply put, here’s the take-away from COP30 — it’s up to us.

We’re the only power on Earth capable of leading humanity to achieve our vision, purpose, and Major Goal: to overcome climate change by creating a just and prosperous sustainability that enhances wellbeing for everyone and everything. We’re the only power on Earth to create the conditions for achieving the speed and scale that’s needed. We’re the only power on Earth who will continue to push for humanity to do the three actions of justice — to stop bad stuff, set wrong right, and make things better — until doing so enhances wellbeing for everyone and everything.

Here’s the thing. We’re not yet what we need to be.

We haven’t yet achieved our destiny to become the greatest and most long-lasting social change movement in the history of the world, 400 million strong by 2030. We must reach into the future and pull our destiny into the present. We must make our destiny come faster.

We must reach into the future and pull our destiny into the present. We must pull forward. We must make our destiny come faster.

As we do, today’s ambitions will become tomorrow’s stepping stones. Once the momentum of needed change gets going, we will race past what seems ambitious today as we make the impossible possible and the possible actual and the actual beautiful and our future come faster.

A Key Achievement at COP30 Made Possible by Today’s Climate Movement

Even without a full-fledged Climate Movement the international climate negotiations can achieve some good things, important things. COP30 did.

One of the most important is the Just Transition Mechanism (JTM), which requires the change from dirty to clean energy to be done in a fair way that protects the rights of workers and Indigenous people.

The Climate Action Network International called it “one of the strongest rights-based outcomes in the history of the UN climate negotiations.” They went on to say that:

No COP decision has ever carried such ambitious and comprehensive language on rights and inclusion: human rights; labour rights; the rights of Indigenous Peoples, Afro-decendants; and strong references to gender equality, women’s empowerment, education, youth development, and more.

This outcome did not happen by accident. This is the result of the hard fought struggles and collective power of trade unions, communities, social movements, Indigenous Peoples’ organisations, and civil society over many years and especially escalating this year for an outcome at this COP.

In other words, the Climate Movement of yesterday and today pushed COP30 to approve this Just Transition Mechanism (also called the Belém Action Mechanism or BAM by activists).

However, we must be under no illusions. This mechanism, whatever the text may say, is not self-enforcing. The Climate Movement, including climate organizations and other concerned organizations, will have to monitor and keep up the pressure and call on the rest of us to raise our voices when the times are right. For some of us this may be one of our Olympian Fields of Action.

The COPs Can’t Do It Without Us

We can’t expect the international climate negotiations to go any further than the political will of each country, even as some of those present at COPs try to create momentum and raise the ambition through the human process of striving together. On some issues COPs can achieve a bit more than, say, powerful countries want. And these can be good things, important things, like the JTM. But they will be nowhere near all that justice requires, especially when it comes to reducing climate pollution to keep us in the ballpark of 1.5C, or helping poor countries adapt, or making amends through things like the Loss And Damage Fund.

At the same time, the climate negotiations are vital to our success. They have a strategic role to play. It’s just that they can’t play it without us.

Until we become our destiny there won’t be the political will to have the climate negotiations fulfill their promise.

Pope Leo, in an address to the Catholic Bishops at COP30, who were gathered at the Amazonian Museum of Belém, had the correct diagnosis. There’s nothing wrong with the Paris Agreement from the 2015 COP, which created the framework for nations to work towards overcoming climate change. It is

“our strongest tool for protecting people and the planet”… [but] it is not the Agreement that is failing, we are failing in our response. What is failing is the political will of some.”

We are indispensable. We must supply the political will. Then we will be able to wield “our strongest tool for protecting people and the planet” to create the future we envision.

We are indispensable, but we are not alone in overcoming climate change by creating a just and prosperous sustainability that enhances wellbeing for everyone and everything. Indeed, the stage is set for us to enter the scene and play our part, to achieve greatness together on all of our Olympian Fields of Action.

We Have Help

We are indispensable. But we have help.

Climate change will be overcome by The Catalytic-4 working together:

1. The Climate Movement

2. Climate Action Supporters

3. ARTC (the accelerating rate of tech change)

4. Governments-&-Markets.

The good news? The other three — well, two and a half, anyway — are already poised to play their parts.

As polls have shown (here and here and here), all around the world Climate Action Supporters, the Second Catalytic Source of Transformation, are strong enough to achieve what is needed. But as polling also shows, most of these folks don’t know how strong they are together. They feel alone and powerless, which depresses action. The Climate Movement must help them see that they are not alone, that they have power to play their part — and can do even more by joining The Climate Movement.

As for the Third Catalytic Source of Transformation, with clean energy now outcompeting dirty in markets all around the world, the ARTC of the past 50 years has already done its job of giving us what we need. But ARTC isn’t stopping. It will continue to make things better through (1) innovation of existing tech, and (2) invention of new tech. Our job as The Climate Movement is to push to make ARTC strategic. Change must go faster, become bigger, become cheaper, become ubiquitous.

So two of The Catalytic-4 are playing their part, and the fourth, Governments-&-Markets, is creating a clean energy transition, and is thus poised to be pushed to deliver a transformation.

While governments have helped create this transition, they won’t fulfill their role in overcoming climate change without continual and growing pressure from The Climate Movement to have the markets go from transition to transformation.

The markets are starting to do their job, but they are still hobbled by out of date regulations and policies and governmental infrastructure set up to help the fossils of the past. And those powerful fossils want to keep us trapped in their past as they leech off the rest of us through markets that are anything but free.

It is governments that are lagging, as this year’s COP demonstrates. And only The Climate Movement can get them playing their part. Only The Climate Movement can push and support them to create the conditions for speed and scale.

Because we’re on the climate-clock, even if we get markets doing exactly what we want with cheap clean energy happening bigger and faster, it won’t be enough. Given the need for speed and scale we cannot simply push the switch to clean energy to go faster, which, of course, must happen.

We must also stop using fossil fuels on an accelerated timeframe. Keep this gunk in the ground. Actively retire coal-burning power plants and other fossil infrastructure. We can’t wait for it to age out. The folks behind some great efforts have understood this for quite some time — e.g., Sierra Club’s highly successful Beyond Coal campaign, the Beyond Fossil Fuels effort in Europe, and the Fossil Fuel Treaty (18 countries thus far).

Markets cannot and will not do this on their own. It must be governments. But they won’t do it without a strong push and active support from The Climate Movement.

Thankfully, at Belém 24 countries recognized that nations joining together on this cannot be held hostage by the consensus process of the COPs and fossil countries like Saudi Arabia.

We, the undersigned, gathered at COP30 in Belém do Pará, reaffirm our shared determination to work collectively towards a just, orderly and equitable transition away from fossil fuels, aligned with pathways consistent with limiting global temperature rise to 1.5°C.

These countries were reaffirming what was agreed to by all nations at COP 28 in 2023. What should have happened but didn’t at this COP was to flesh this out in a “roadmap” or plan of implementation. Worse, even the words “fossil fuels” couldn’t make it into this year’s approved text.

To make progress, Columbia and The Netherlands are moving forward outside the COP process with the First International Conference on the Just Transition Away from Fossil Fuels. It will take place on April 28-29 2026, in the port city of Santa Marta, Colombia.

On the last day of COP30, when it was clear the COP itself wouldn’t create a roadmap, the COP30 President (who is always from the host country, in this case, Brazil) announced he would help lead such a process, acknowledging the support for such an effort provided by the conference in Santa Marta.

This pulling back from ditching fossils at this year’s COP demonstrates once again why The Climate Movement must pull its destiny into the present. We must pull forward.

So to sum up, we have some help from our Catalytic-4 partners. But we must help the other three help us.

The Most Important Place For You To Be

I surely hope some of you aren’t thinking: “If I were really hard-core, if I were really important I’d be at the COPs. That’s where all the really serious people are. That’s where the most important action takes place. Well, I can cheer from the bleachers back home while all the real activists, the really committed, the really important super serious people go to the climate negotiations.”

No, no, no!

While it’s good for The Climate Movement to have a presence at the COPs, it’s much more important to have a strong presence in each and every country. We are the only way to create the political will in each nation. Indeed, the Paris Agreement from the 2015 COP, baked this right into the international process with its “Nationally Determined Contributions.” If we want these voluntary commitments to add up to pollution reductions in keeping with the temperature goal of 1.5C, then the place for us to bring forth our people power is our own backyard.

The three actions of justice can also be partially achieved through the COP process — e.g. the Loss and Damage Fund set up at the 2023 Dubai COP with anemic progress at COP30 — but, again, real progress is contingent upon political will, which is what we must provide.

That’s why the most strategic thing all of us can do is grow and improve The Climate Movement where we are. That means the most important people for you to talk to and communicate with are not obscure negotiators half way around the world.

Rather, they are those you can bring into The Climate Movement. People who know you. People who like and respect you. People you bug until they say yes. People in your Social Media channels. People in your social gathering places — schools, faith communities, the local pub. People in all the groups you belong to.

To make a difference for the world, one that lasts for generations, the place to do so is your own backyard. The time is now.

Polls from the US show that many don’t talk about climate change with family and friends. International polls (see above) show many people want climate action but feel they are alone, meaning they aren’t talking to others about it. Let’s start bucking that trend!

No one else can play your part. You must fill the place where you need to be. Only you can be you. You’re the world’s leading expert in being you. Only you have the power to make your contribution.

Be where you are. Be you where you are. Be present in now-time, our-time, drawing inspiration from the past as we make our future come faster. We must be heroes, but for more than one day. We must be heroes for the rest of our days.

Help us build The Climate Movement into what it must and will become, the greatest and most long-lasting social change movement in the history of the world. But help us do so faster. To achieve 5% of the world’s population, 400 million, by 2030, we’ve got a lot of work to do — and we need you to be you where you are.

We are the hope we’ve been waiting for. We are making hope happen. We are hope-makers and beauty-creators. We are pulling our destiny into the present as we make our future come faster and our world more just. Together, we are heroes not just for one day, but for the rest of our days. Join Us!

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