COP30 Fossil Fuel Phase-Out: Promises, No Delivery – Activists Call It a Betrayal
By: Abudu Olalekan
Belém, November 22, 2025. The gavel fell. COP30 was over. Everyone clapped politely, then the real talk started outside the plenary hall.
And it wasn’t pretty.
Another climate summit, another stack of shiny new words. But when you flip through the final text looking for the bit that says “we’re actually going to stop burning coal, oil and gas,” you come up empty. Again.
That’s the verdict from the people who’ve been in these halls for years – the ones with cracked voices from shouting in corridors and blisters from marching in the Amazon heat.
They’re not shocked. Just tired. And angry.
Yeah, there’s one big win everyone keeps pointing to: the Belém Action Mechanism – or BAM, as the activists started chanting in the hallways until security told them to keep it down. For the first time ever, a COP decision has proper, beautiful language on human rights, labour rights, Indigenous Peoples, Afro-descendants, gender, youth – the works. It’s the strongest rights-based text these negotiations have ever produced.
Trade unions, Indigenous delegations, kids with face paint and grandmothers in traditional dress – they fought like hell for this. And they got it.
But walk ten metres outside the celebration circle and people are already saying: cool, now what?
Because the rest of the package? It’s gutted.
Adaptation finance – the money vulnerable countries desperately need so people don’t die when the next flood or drought hits – got kicked down the road to 2035. 2035! Tell that to someone whose house just washed away last month.
Rich countries, led by the EU and Japan, basically said “we’ll triple adaptation finance… eventually… maybe… details TBC.” Then they threatened to walk out when pressed to put actual numbers on the table.
Classic move.
And fossil fuels? Not a single mention of phasing them out. Not one. The thing that literally causes the crisis didn’t even make it into the final decision.
The Just Transition mechanism is supposed to help workers and communities when the shift finally happens, but without a hard signal that the shift is actually coming, it’s like building a lifeboat and forgetting to tell anyone the ship is sinking.
Ilan Zugman from 350.org stood outside the venue, sweat dripping, voice hoarse: “In Belém the Indigenous leaders made it impossible to ignore them. They showed what real leadership looks like. But inside those rooms, the fossil fuel industry still has the loudest voice. Nearly 90 countries now want a proper roadmap to get off oil, gas and coal. The momentum is there. Next stop has to be Colombia in April – that’s where we turn noise into a plan.”
Andreas Sieber didn’t mince words either: “This COP didn’t stumble. It was steered into failure. Lula and Marina Silva started strong, talking tough on fossil fuels. Then the negotiating team disappeared behind closed doors and the rich countries refused to pay. Same old story.”
Fenton Lutunatabua from the Pacific looked exhausted: “Our islands are literally disappearing and the best COP30 can do is give us a mechanism and a promise for 2035. That’s not leadership. That’s a death sentence dressed up as progress.”
Even Tasneem Essop, who’s seen more COPs than most people have had hot dinners, sounded done: “We came for the Belém Action Mechanism and we got it – carved out through pure struggle. But without finance and without a fossil fuel phase-out, it’s just words. Nice words. But words don’t keep anyone alive.”
Outside, the drums kept going long after the official closing ceremony ended. Young Brazilians, Indigenous leaders in full regalia, Pacific Islanders with tears in their eyes – they danced like tomorrow wasn’t already underwater.
Because for them, it kind of isn’t.
COP30 gave the world a rights-based Just Transition mechanism to be proud of. Historic, no question.
But it also proved, once again, that when it’s time for the rich countries to pay their climate debt and kill their addiction to fossil fuels, ambition suddenly vanishes.
The fight’s not over. It just moved to the streets. And to Colombia next year.
See you there.
