More than 80 countries at COP30 – including Germany, Ireland, Kenya, Sweden and the UK – have backed a proposal for national plans on “how to quit oil, gas and coal”, the Financial Times reports. The aim of the “roadmap” is to build on an agreement made at COP28 in Dubai, in which countries pledged to “transition away from fossil fuels”. The Guardian notes that the countries behind the plan want the “transition away from fossil fuels” to be a “central outcome of the talks” – despite “stiff opposition from petrostates and some other major economies”. The newspaper reports the Brazilian presidency of COP30 has “refused to put any mention of the ‘transition away from fossil fuels’ on to the official agenda” and has “excluded” the topic from ongoing “presidency consultations” focused on finance, trade, transparency and how to increase the ambition of countries’ emissions-cutting plans. 

Climate Home News notes that a draft outcome decision presented on Tuesday evening “mentions the ‘transition away from fossil fuels’ among a wide sweep of options”. However, the proposed text “appears to refer to domestic blueprints and stops short of advocating for a global roadmap [away from fossil fuels]”, the outlet adds. On Tuesday evening, COP30 president André Corrêa do Lago said the text “opens the door” between two “extremes”, adding that “most of the countries are either very favourable [to the fossil fuel roadmap] or it is a red line”. Bloomberg quotes Marshall Islands climate envoy Tina Stege saying: “Let’s get behind the idea of a fossil-fuels roadmap. The current reference is weak and it’s an option. It must be strengthened and adopted.” Politico also covers the story.

MORE ON ENERGY TRANSITION

• BusinessGreen and Euronews report on the UN and Clean Air Coalition’s 2025 “global methane status report”, which predicts an 8% net reduction of methane emissions by 2030 – far below the 30% goal set four years ago at COP26.
• The Guardian covers a Climate Action Tracker report which finds that sticking to three key climate promises – on renewables, energy efficiency and methane – would avoid nearly 1C of global warming.

The Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva will make an “unexpected” return to Belem today, after COP30 negotiators produced a “first draft” of an outcome deal on Tuesday, Agence France-Presse reports. The draft covers “trade measures, demands for greater finance for poorer nations and the inadequacy of national carbon-cutting pledges”, according to the newswire – including a suggestion that financial assistance from wealthy countries to developing ones for climate adaptation is tripled by 2030 or 2035. The newswire carries quotes from EU climate chief Wopke Hoekstra, who says the EU has “zero appetite” to reopen discussions about climate finance and did not want to have a “phony conversation about trade measures”. Bloomberg notes that the nine-page draft agreement leaves several topics “unresolved”, setting out how the text includes multiple options for transitioning from fossil fuels, increasing ambition of national emissions-reduction plans and raising climate finance. The Hindustan Times reports that the presidency is aiming to get parties to agree on the most “contentious” texts by Wednesday evening.  

MORE ON COP30

• Reuters: Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese says he “will not oppose” a successful Turkish bid to host COP31, even if the country has not dropped its rival bid to host next year’s summit.
• Agence France-Presse explores why trade and carbon taxes have made it high up the agenda at this year’s COP.
• German chancellor Freidrich Merz has been heavily criticised by Brazilian politicians for disparaging comments made earlier this week about the COP30 host city of Belem, Associated Press reports. (The Para state governor said Merz had made “a prejudiced speech”, the Belem mayor said the comments were “prejudiced and arrogant”, whereas the Rio mayor called Merz a “Nazi”.)
• The Associated Press has counted that more than 24 sessions on artificial intelligence took place during COP30’s first week.
• Context reports on the launch of the “wildfire action accelerator”, an initiative backed by Ecuador, Peru, Ghana and Kenya, as well as three dozen environmental and Indigenous groups, which aims to secure funding to strengthen wildfire prevention and response.
• Inside Climate News explores how the recent landmark ruling from the International Court of Justice on nations’ responsibility to tackle climate change is impacting proceedings in Belem.
• Associated Press notes that South Africa wants this weekend’s G20 meet in Johannesburg – the first-ever meeting of the group of nations in Africa – to “prioritise issues affecting poor countries, including responses to disasters made worse by climate change”.

China’s climate envoy Liu Zhenmin has told Politico at COP30 that the EU and other developed countries should achieve net-zero before 2040. However, China and the EU “could step up their cooperation” on climate issues, Liu is described as saying, according to the outlet. He also states that the absence of the US “really creates a very bad example”, but stresses there is “no real replacement” for the US in fighting climate change, the outlet adds. Todd Stern, former US climate envoy, tells the Shanghai-based news outlet the Paper that the participation of some US Democrat leaders at COP30, “while it may not have the same impact as the personal involvement of the US president, it is still very important and sufficient to demonstrate to the world: the US has not abandoned climate action; it remains ‘all in’”. Li Shuo, director of the China Climate Hub at the US-based Asia Society Policy Institute, says that “oversimplifying Beijing as a climate laggard could mean reali[s]ing too late that Chinese companies have already far outpaced their Western counterparts in the clean-tech sector”, Deutsche Welle reports.

MORE ON CHINA

• China Daily: “China tackles N2O emissions, leading change.”
• Xinhua reports that China has exported 2m “new energy vehicles” (NEV) in the first 10 months of 2025, a year-on-year increase of 90.4%, according to data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers.
• Xinhua has published another article refuting the “misconception” that China’s “massive production of solar panels, batteries and electric vehicles is flooding global markets”.
• Reuters: “China seeks more cooperation with Russia in energy, agriculture.”
• Xinhua reports that new-energy solutions such as “nuclear heating, biomass clean heating and air source heat pumps” have been introduced to provide “clean heating” in north China.
• Bloomberg: “China’s rare-earth product exports falter as talks go on with US.”

Environmental campaigners in the US have sued Donald Trump’s administration in an attempt to block its first auction of oil and gas leases in the Gulf of Mexico, the Financial Times reports. The newspaper notes that “several green groups” allege the interior department failed to carry out “necessary environmental” reviews prior to arranging a sale of leases covering 80mn acres, according to a lawsuit filed in Washington federal court. Reuters reports that the lawsuit, filed in US district court for the District of Columbia, targets the first of 30 oil and gas sales planned in the Gulf of Mexico through to 2040. 

MORE ON LITIGATION

• A court case kicking off today in a commercial court in the city of Tournai, Belgium will see a farmer take on French oil giant TotalEnergies for damage to his farm caused by climate change, according to Agence France-Presse.
• In a “strange legal twist”, Energy Transfer – the oil and gas infrastructure company which won a nearly $670m judgment against Greenpeace earlier this year over protests against its Dakota Access Pipeline – are exhorting North Dakota’s Supreme Court to block a countersuit filed in the Netherlands from an international branch of Greenpeace, the New York Times reports.
• The Associated Press says a US appeals court has paused a California law set to take effect in January which requires large companies to report every two years on how climate change could “hurt them financially”, after a case brought by the US Chamber of Commerce.
• Tyson Foods Inc has agreed to stop attaching the term “climate-smart” to its beef products, as part of a settlement with an environmental group that accused the meat giant of greenwashing in its marketing, Bloomberg reports.

There is widespread media coverage of ExxonMobil’s decision to shutter its chemicals plant in Mossmaran, Scotland. Agence France-Presse quotes a company spokesperson saying the closure “reflects the challenges of operating in a policy environment that is accelerating the exit of vital industries, domestic manufacturing and the high-value jobs they provide”. ExxonMobil says around 179 employees are directly affected, plus about 250 contractors, according to the newswire. The Financial Times says that UK government ministers have “privately accused” ExxonMobil of “failing to engage constructively during months of negotiations”. During talks, it adds that the company requested free allowance allocations from the UK’s emissions trading scheme – which allows companies to avoid having to buy credits to offset their emissions – and a “contracts-for-difference” scheme for ethane. The newspaper says correspondence it has seen between ministers and the plant’s local Labour MPs “reveals frustration among ministers” over Exxon’s “lack of engagement”.

MORE ON UK:

• The Guardian covers new analysis by consultancy Cornwall Insight which says the price of energy in the UK is expected to fall in January before increasing again in the spring due to the “cost of the government’s energy policies”. BBC News and Bloomberg also cover the story.
• Highview Power has raised £130m to build a new plant to store “green energy” in Scotland, the Times reports.
• BBC News says the SNP has shelved heat-pump legislation in Scotland for the second time this year.
• Next week’s budget will see £2,500 grants introduced for smaller air-to-air heat pumps as part of the UK’s clean-heating subsidy programme, according to the Times. 

For Backchannel, Colombia’s minister for environment and sustainable development argues last week’s launch of a new tropical forest fund – the Tropical Forests Forever Facility – will be the “legacy of this COP”. Irene Velez-Torres notes the TFFF represents a “key opportunity to advance justice-based financing” and “supports tropical forest countries without imposing debt, conditionalities, or market pressures”. She adds that “nations that sustain the planet’s climate balance must have both the right – and the means – to shape how the protection of their forests is financed and governed”. Deforestation is not just a “tropical forest country problem”, she notes, adding that when forests burn, so do “the chances of keeping the Paris Agreement alive”.

MORE ON COMMENT

• For Context, Amitabh Behar, the executive director of Oxfam International, and Kenyan-American climate activist Wawa Gatheru argue for a tax on the “super-rich” to raise climate finance for developing countries. 
• In an interview with the Guardian, the prime minister of Bhutan – the “world’s first carbon-negative nation” – says wealthy countries “must do more to fulfil their moral and legal obligations [to tackle climate change]”.
• The Independent’s Nick Ferris looks at why some observers have “been disappointed with the UK’s seemingly lacklustre showing” at COP30.
• In Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper, Mariam Saleh Khan, co-founder and director of the Weather and Climate Services thinktank, argues that Pakistan’s position at COPs “has remained ambiguous and subdued, shaped less by scientific urgency and more by geopolitical alignment” – despite the country’s “extreme vulnerability” to climate change. 
• In the Conversation, Brian Mantlana and Basanda Xhanti Nondlazi from the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research argue the African Group of negotiators need to “make their voice louder” and work with other developing countries to “increase the chance that adaptation indicators are adopted with the funding needed to implement them”.