Day 6 of COP30: Building Financial and Ethical Foundations for a Just Transition

Guillaume Lane
2 days ago
5 min read

Updated: 1 day ago

Last Saturday, Day 6 at COP30 focused intensely on finance, aligning global economic systems, ethical frameworks, and global co-operation to accelerate climate action. Thematic focus areas for the day included Energy, Industry, Transport, Trade, Finance, Carbon Markets, and Non-CO2 Gases. Outcomes showcased how global partners are constructing the enabling environment necessary to unlock capital at scale while upholding equity and shared responsibility. The day’s central theme was "Building the Financial and Ethical Foundations for a Just Transition".

Mobilising the $1.3 Trillion Vision

Finance took centre stage, with significant steps taken toward mobilising and directing capital to the frontline of the climate crisis.

Unlocking $1.3 trillion - A high-level ministerial convened climate leaders, finance ministries, Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs), and private-sector leaders to chart pathways for operationalising the Baku to Belém Roadmap and delivering its goal of $1.3 trillion annually. The COP30 President, Ambassador André Corrêa do Lago, emphasised that delivering this ambition relies on co-ordinated reforms across five priority areas: concessional finance, MDB mandates, domestic investment frameworks, innovative financial instruments, and strengthened regulatory ecosystems. Ambassador Corrêa do Lago stated that this marks "the beginning of an era of truth in climate finance".

Aligning sustainable finance standards - A critical step toward mobilising this capital was the advancement of global interoperability for sustainable finance standards. The Principles for Taxonomy Interoperability were launched, developed in collaboration with SB COP, the IDFC, and finance ministries. This effort, part of the Taxonomy Roadmap Initiative, also presented the Sustainable Finance Taxonomy Mapper, a digital tool designed to compare, navigate, and analyse sustainable finance taxonomies across different jurisdictions.

Blended finance sources - Furthermore, COP30 hosted the first-ever Asset Owners Summit as part of the official COP agenda, gathering around 30 leading global asset owners (representing approximately 10 trillion in assets under management). Focusing on climate solutions in hard−to−abate sectors and EMDEs (Emerging Market and Developing Economies), asset owners proposed establishing a standing COP Asset Owner Summit and signalled commitment to scaling partnerships with the public sector towards the 1 trillion required to meet the New Collective Quantifiable Goal (NCQG).

Solidarity Levies

Momentum grew behind innovative, equitable revenue streams for adaptation and addressing loss-and-damage.

Eight countries joining forces to generate revenue for adaptation, loss and damage - Solidarity levies were reaffirmed as an essential tool for generating fair, predictable, and debt-averting climate finance. Leaders highlighted the deepening commitment to the Premium Flyers Solidarity Coalition, with a new technical report outlining the significant revenue potential of levies across high-emitting, undertaxed sectors such as aviation, shipping, financial transactions, and cryptocurrencies. These levies embody the polluter-pays principle, generating concessional resources particularly for vulnerable countries.

The Coalition now includes Benin, Djibouti, France, Kenya, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Sudan, and Spain, and welcomed Antigua and Barbuda, Brazil, Fiji, and Vanuatu as observers, underscoring the growing commitment to this shared approach. Laurence Tubiana, COP30 Special Envoy to Europe, called for more countries to join the coalition to turn momentum into lasting global change.

Launch of new Country Platforms - To strengthen investment architecture, Brazil and the Green Climate Fund (GCF) supported the scaling of national pathways for climate and nature finance through new Country Platforms. In a major step towards aligning global support with national priorities, thirteen countries released plans to develop these platforms through the GCF readiness programme. The countries establishing platforms include Cambodia, Colombia, Dominican Republic, India, Kazakhstan, Lesotho, Mongolia, Nigeria, Oman, Panama, Rwanda, South Africa, and Togo. An accompanying Country Platform Hub was also launched, integrating the COP30 Plan to Accelerate Solutions (PAS) to connect countries to necessary assistance, knowledge, and funding.

Governance, Trade, and Emission Reduction

Day 6 also saw key developments in governance and emission reduction:

Integrated Forum on Climate Change and Trade (IFCCT): The COP30 President formally opened the work of the IFCCT, launched earlier in the Belém Climate Summit. Supported by vice-ministers from countries including China, the UK, and Australia, as well as organisations like the World Trade Organization (WTO), the Forum aims to foster co-operation on concrete solutions to reduce costs for exporters and enhance the role of trade in climate action.
Carbon Markets: A Ministerial Roundtable was held to advance the Open Coalition on Compliance Carbon Markets, now supported by 18 endorsements. The discussion emphasised the necessity of strengthened international co-operation to enhance the transparency, integrity, and effectiveness of these markets, focusing on co-operation around MRV systems and carbon-accounting methodologies.
Economic Risk: The Network for Greening the Financial System (NGFS), representing 146 central banks and supervisors, released the Declaration on the Economic Cost of Climate Inaction. The Declaration warned that climate impacts now pose imminent threats to financial stability and called for robust integration of climate and nature-related risks through scenario analysis and transition planning.
Non-CO2 Gases: The Super Pollutant Country Action Accelerator progressed through the launch of a Plan to Accelerate Solutions (PAS), aiming to help 30 developing countries cut dangerous super pollutant gases by 2030. This crucial effort begins with $25 million dedicated to seven pioneer countries: Brazil, Cambodia, Kazakhstan, South Africa, Indonesia, Nigeria, and Mexico.

Calls for Justice and Forest Protection

The focus on ethical foundations was amplified by global mobilisation. In Belém, thousands participated in the Marcha Mundial pelo Clima, organised by the People’s Summit, which included Indigenous peoples, youth, social movements, traditional communities, and workers, demanding climate justice and protection of territories.

In the Blue Zone, Indigenous leaders, including Chief Raoni, held a dialogue with climate negotiators, stressing the disconnect between negotiation rooms and the realities faced by communities who steward the forest. They affirmed that commitments on emissions, carbon markets, and finance are meaningful only when they translate directly into protection of standing forests and the recognition of Indigenous leadership.

In the realm of official negotiations, parties formally transitioned draft decisions from the Subsidiary Bodies into the main negotiating tracks, marking the shift from technical to political negotiations leading toward final decisions later in the conference.

Week 1 Highlights

Day 6 was the last day of Week 1. COP30 was clearly positioned as the Implementation COP, with over 30 major announcements, including:

$5.5B Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF)
Belém Declaration on hunger, poverty, and people-centered climate action
4X Sustainable Fuels Pledge
Advances in adaptation and resilience efforts
Negotiators have made progress on many of the 145 agenda items, with political-level talks now intensifying.

What to expect for Week 2 of COP30

The focus of Week 2 will be:

A unified push to place nature at the heart of climate solutions.
Reinforcing commitments to forest protection, Indigenous and local community rights, and nature-based solutions.

Key actions & events for Day 7 (Monday 17th November):

High-level forest finance dialogue building on the TFFF.
Donor governments mobilising support for the Adaptation Fund.
Launch of the Bioeconomy Challenge to translate G20 principles into global socio-bioeconomic strategies.
Major announcements on community rights and leadership, including:
- $1.8B land-tenure pledge for Indigenous and Afro-descendant communities
- Global Methane Pledge Ministerial
- A high-level roundtable on strengthening climate finance through Indigenous governance.

Climate Action for Associations (CAFA) are attending COP30 as official NGO Observer. This year we are attending in a virtual capacity, providing our members with direct reporting from the heart of the negotiations. We are committed to delivering daily insights and a comprehensive end-of-COP report to ensure you stay fully informed on the outcomes that matter to membership organisations and their members.

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