Sixth Letter from the Presidency

In my third letter, I invited negotiators to engage as co-builders of a global infrastructure of trust, by working together in a task-force mode to ensure significant progress in SB62. The June Bonn sessions reached satisfactory results that can pave the way to successful outcomes at COP30, including on outstanding negotiating issues related to (i) the Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA) indicators under the UAE–Belém Work Programme, (ii) the UAE Dialogue on implementing the Global Stocktake (GST) outcomes, and (iii) the UAE Just Transition Work Programme (JTWP).

The incoming Presidency deeply appreciates the invaluable leadership of the COP29 Presidency and of the SB Chairs, without which the progress achieved in Bonn would not have been possible. I feel privileged to count on your partnership and guidance with a view to COP30. I also thank all delegates, observers, and Secretariat staff who demonstrated extraordinary dedication and engagement in moving forward our collective work within the subsidiary bodies.

Though the results of SB62 were not ideal, our collective work in Bonn was not business as usual either. Our process did show that together we have shifted gears towards accelerating results for further intersessional work and subsequent formal consideration by the COP, the Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (CMP), and the Meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement (CMA). Most importantly, SB62 sent clear signals around the unwavering commitment by all Parties to multilateralism and to the climate change regime we have built together since our Convention was opened for signature 33 years ago at the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (Earth Summit), in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

In 2025, the international community will be coming back to Brazil bearing the weight of great responsibility. Back in 1992, no one could have imagined we would achieve so much – and yet find ourselves today so close to frustrating the ultimate objective of the Convention, to prevent dangerous human interference with the climate system.

The task of honoring the legacy we have built together in previous COP sessions rests on the shoulders of us all – from COP1 in Berlin in 1995 and COP3 in Kyoto in 1997 to COP21 in Paris in 2015. It is now up to us to take the next step at COP30, following the historic conclusion of the first Global Stocktake (GST) under the Paris Agreement at COP28 in Dubai in 2023, and the finalization at COP29 in Baku of both the Paris Rulebook and the last remaining negotiating mandate from COP21 – the New Collective Quantified Goal on climate finance (NCQG). Carrying this legacy forward is our collective responsibility. We must take the next step at COP30.

COP30 is a moment to celebrate the ten-year anniversary of the Paris Agreement. Throughout its first decade, the Paris Agreement has shown both efficiency and resilience. The treaty is working. Its ambition and implementation cycle are fully in motion. Yet, global warming is now occurring much faster than scientific projections had indicated in 2015. At the same time, geopolitical and economic obstacles are raising new challenges to international cooperation – including under the climate regime.

Guided by equity and the best available science, we must now unite to unleash the next wave of ambitious climate action. We have no choice but to achieve exponential progress through concrete results. The science is clear: humanity’s ability to win the fight against climate change in the long run depends on the choices we make today – and how we act upon them over the next five years.

During SB62, I conducted consultations with all negotiating groups of Parties. I thank you for your engagement, openness, and trust. My team and I are genuinely dedicated to ensuring a fair, inclusive, transparent, and predictable process with a view to COP30. With the humility required by the complexity of the task before us, I will continue to need your creativity in finding new solutions to new challenges, as well as your constant and honest feedback from now until November to shape the outcomes of COP30.

COP30 is not about the incoming COP30 Presidency, nor about our delegations individually. COP30 is about the collective work we all need to deliver. It is about present and future generations. As I referred to in my fifth letter of 12 August 2025, the UNFCCC is ultimately about people. People are at stake. My team and I are driven by a strong sense of purpose that comes from a deep understanding that COP30 will carry implications that go far beyond the conference itself as an event. I invite all delegates to join the incoming Presidency in this purpose.

It is not up to the incoming COP30 Presidency to make history. It is up to us all to respond appropriately to the historical context we are living in. As the incoming steward of our process, I understand that we will all be judged – now and in the future – by how successful we are in honoring and preserving the legacy of our predecessors, whilst making the way for its further expansion from negotiation rooms to cabinet, board, and living rooms.

To all Parties to the Convention, the Kyoto Protocol, and the Paris Agreement, please be assured that the incoming COP30 Presidency is determined to serve as a vessel for your will to emerge in a balanced and coherent manner. Collective intelligence and procedural rigor will be safeguarded for a legitimate and truly effective process, as bias and short-term thinking would risk impairing the sustainability of our results in the longer term.

In protecting our Party-driven process, I remain committed to impartiality in raising our collective ambition. Humankind cannot afford further delay due to potential shortcomings in trust and cooperation, as COP30 marks the midway point of the decade the best available science assesses as critical to our efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 °C and thus significantly reduce the risks and impacts of climate change. Every fraction of a degree and every year over 1.5 °C matter towards keeping the ultimate objective of the Convention alive.

What we heard from Parties at SB62

At SB62, the incoming COP 30 Presidency listened carefully to you, the Parties, that COP30 must respond to how our nationally determined contributions (NDCs) in aggregate effectively promise humanity a safe, prosperous, and sustainable future. I have also noted outstanding divergences on the form and scope of our response to the NDCs and the synthesis report to be published by the UNFCCC Secretariat in October. Those divergences can and must be bridged, and I am determined to provide all conditions for frank, open, and creative dialogue towards this end.

Far from representing mere climate targets for 2035, our NDCs represent the vision of our shared future. They are vehicles of cooperation, enabling us to realize this vision together. If the image shown by our integrated NDCs turns out disappointing, it is our collective responsibility to convert it into a picture that will ensure a livable planet, protect all economies, and improve living standards and life opportunities for all peoples, for all generations – a picture that will make our children proud, relieved, and hopeful for their own future.

As we crossed the 100-day mark before COP30, around four-fifths (4/5) of the membership of the Paris Agreement have yet to come forward with new 2035 NDCs. Parties know how important it is that the UNFCCC receive NDCs in time to be reflected in the synthesis report. No action is a stronger demonstration of commitment to multilateralism and to the climate regime than the NDCs our countries present as a national determination to contribute to the Paris Agreement. First and foremost, NDCs are demonstrations of governments’ commitments to their people. The high-level event to be organized by the United Nations Secretary-General on 24 September 2025, on the margins of the 80th session of the UN General Assembly (UNGA80), will provide a major platform for countries that have yet to do so to unveil new 2035 targets as their ultimate show of support for COP30, to the multilateral climate regime, and to a more prosperous future.

At SB62, the incoming Presidency undertook consultations with the COP29 Presidency on the ‘Baku to Belém Roadmap to 1.3T’, aiming at scaling up climate finance to developing country Parties. The incoming Presidency equally listened to many Parties’ concerns about their ability to engage in ambitious climate actions when there are frustrations related to climate finance and to measures that impact international trade. We heard, moreover, expectations from some Parties regarding synergies among climate, biodiversity, desertification, and sustainable development, as well as the implementation of global calls for efforts towards halting and reversing deforestation and forest degradation by 2030, and for accelerating the global energy transition – including on tripling renewable energy capacity globally, doubling the global average annual rate of energy efficiency improvements, and transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems, in a just, orderly, and equitable manner. We have similarly noted some views that COP30 should reflect on the first cycle of Biennial Transparency Reports (BTRs), National Adaptation Plans (NAPs), and loss and damage. As with NDCs, these issues are all relevant, but they do not all appear as individual agenda items for discussion in Belem.

COP30 Presidency Consultations

To ensure our work around such issues is strongly grounded in an inclusive, transparent and predictable process with a view to COP30, I am immediately launching incoming “COP30 Presidency Consultations” throughout the intersessional period to advance progress that would otherwise be left for the two weeks of the COP. The consultations during the intersessional period will be undertaken in coordination with the COP29 Presidency and the SB Chairs, who will be fundamental to success in Belem. Over previous COPs, Presidency Consultations have proven to be a uniquely effective mode of work in addressing issues of high political profile, as well as deadlocks in technical discussions, while ensuring inclusiveness and transparency. We hope incoming COP30 Presidency Consultations will provide space for Parties to channel priorities that are not currently covered under formal agenda items.

I encourage Parties to use these incoming Presidency Consultations if they feel they need to raise matters that are not covered by the provisional agendas of COP30, CMP20, CMA7, and SB63. These consultations can also address proposed items already added to agendas for which consensus is anticipated to be challenging. We should all aim for the smooth adoption of the agendas and the launch of work at COP30 and SB63, and I encourage Parties to refrain from introducing potentially contentious new agenda items that could further burden the process or detract from agreed priorities.

Our incoming COP30 Presidency Consultations will start in the coming weeks with an online session with all Parties, where I hope to collect preliminary views on the form and content of our response to the NDCs and the Synthesis Report to be published by the Secretariat in October. I will also be collecting views on additional issues that Parties believe deserve attention alongside our collective response to the NDCs Synthesis Report. Detailed information on the first online session of the intersessional incoming Presidency Consultations will be communicated soon by the Secretariat. As many Parties pointed out, we do not seek to prejudge the second GST or undertake an intermediate assessment. Rather, we will be seeking to enhance implementation.

Based on that initial exchange, we will then hold two subsequent in-person incoming COP30 Presidency Consultations with all negotiating groups and other Parties. The first incoming Presidency Consultation will take place on 25 September 2025, in New York, on the margins of UNGA80. The second will take place on 15 October, in Brasília, following the Pre-COP High-Level Ministerial Meeting. Related information will be communicated by the Secretariat. Online sessions with all Parties, admitted observers, and constituencies will be held after each in-person incoming Presidency Consultations. We ask Parties to plan accordingly in advance.

After the online session following the Pre-COP, consultations can continue virtually during the intersessional period and in-person during the pre-sessional week with negotiating groups and other Parties towards the smooth adoption of the agendas and the launch of work.

At COP30 itself, I will resume Presidency Consultations from 10 November 2025.

In parallel to incoming Presidency Consultations, I will rely on the ministerial pairs to support additional consultations on five major building blocks for the COP30 final deliverables: mitigation, adaptation, means of implementation, just transition, and the GST. More information on the designation of ministerial pairs will be forthcoming.

Against a background in which climate urgency interacts with compounding geopolitical and socioeconomic challenges, the incoming Presidency hopes we remain guided from now to November by three interconnected priorities: (1) to reinforce multilateralism and the climate change regime under the UNFCCC, (2) to connect the climate regime to people’s real lives, and (3) to accelerate the implementation of the Paris Agreement by stimulating action and structural adjustments across all institutions that can contribute to it.

Let us work jointly, in the spirit of the Global Mutirão, to ensure COP30 is remembered as the moment the world chose unity over division, action over delay, and legacy over inertia – changing by choice, together.

André Aranha Correa do Lago
COP30 President Designate