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climate finance
The Planet Wreckers Are Holding the World Back; We Must Call Them Out at COP30
Leaders have a choice: continue shielding fossil fuel interests, or stand with the majority of the world demanding a fast, fair, and funded transition away from oil, gas, and coal.
Nov 10, 2025
As world leaders gather in Belém for COP30, the stakes could not be higher.
Ten years after the Paris Agreement, despite the progress made the world has reached a breaking point. We’ve temporarily breached 1.5°C of warming, climate impacts are accelerating faster than even scientists feared, and people, especially in the Global South, are suffering the consequences. The past year has brought record-breaking heat, deadly floods, and wildfires from California to the Amazon. But despite the mounting evidence, the fossil fuel industry and a handful of rich countries continue to pour fuel on the fire.
According to our new analysis Planet Wreckers: Global North Countries Fueling the Fire Since the Paris Agreement, just four Global North countries—the United States, Canada, Australia, and Norway—are responsible for nearly all of the global increase in oil and gas production since the Paris Agreement. While the rest of the world combined has reduced production by 2%, these four countries have increased theirs by almost 40%. The US alone accounts for over 90% of that increase, making it the undisputed Planet-Wrecker-in-Chief.
These rich countries undermine the commitments made at COP28, when the world agreed to transition away from fossil fuels. Instead of leading the phaseout, they are leading the expansion: approving new oil fields, subsidizing fossil fuel companies, and blocking fair global finance rules that could help the Global South transition to clean energy.
The fossil fuel era is ending. The only question is whether it ends fast enough, and fair enough, to give us a livable future.
It’s immoral and arguably criminal. Keeping the 1.5°C limit in reach requires ending fossil fuel expansion and rapidly phasing out oil, gas, and coal production and use. The legal case for this has also been recently bolstered by international courts, including the International Court of Justice. Every new well drilled in Texas, Alberta, or the North Sea is a violation of international law and a betrayal of climate justice.
Meanwhile, the same countries hoard wealth while delivering pennies in climate finance. Since 2015, all Global North governments have provided only $280 billion in public climate finance, a fraction of what’s needed, and five times less than the $1.3 trillion in profits their oil and gas corporations made in the same period. The money to fund a just transition exists, but it’s in the wrong hands.
At COP30, leaders have a choice: continue shielding fossil fuel interests, or stand with the majority of the world demanding a fast, fair, and funded transition away from oil, gas, and coal, and lead on phasing out first and fastest as their historical responsibility demands.
That transition has already begun. From the first global conference on fossil fuel phaseout announced by Colombia, to countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America developing people-centered renewable energy pathways, momentum is building. The question now is whether the biggest polluters will step up or be remembered as the governments that chose profit over survival.
Belém must be the moment when leaders stop hiding behind greenwashing and false solutions. That means rejecting carbon offsets and “net zero” distractions; kicking fossil fuel lobbyists out of the talks; and putting justice, workers, and public finance at the center of the just transition. It also means solidarity with people fighting fossil-fueled violence, from Gaza to the Niger Delta, and demanding accountability for those who profit from destruction.
The fossil fuel era is ending. The only question is whether it ends fast enough, and fair enough, to give us a livable future.
If the United States, Canada, Australia, and Norway continue to block progress, they will not only be remembered as the Planet Wreckers, they will be held accountable, by people, by history, and by the law.
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COP30: Climate Course Correction or Another Collision Course?
With 2024 confirmed as the hottest year ever on record, the US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, and the massive financial shortfalls left by lackluster negotiations at COP29, this year's climate talks are pivotal.
Nov 09, 2025
The 30th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change will take place in Belém, a remote, underdeveloped, and poor region of the Brazilian Amazon.
Delegates from over 190 countries, NGOs, Indigenous representatives, and Brazil's President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, alongside COP President André Corrêa do Lago, will all participate in this year's high-stakes climate negotiations.
Missed Targets and Weak Ambition: It's Now or Never
With 2024 confirmed as the hottest year ever on record, the US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, and the massive financial shortfalls left by lackluster negotiations at COP29, this year's climate talks are pivotal.
A 2024 report by the UN revealed that current policies put the planet on track to reach a catastrophic 3.1°C warming by 2100 (Emissions Gap Report). This scenario would expose 600 million people to flooding, reduce food yields by half, cause severe water shortages, lead to insurmountable habitat and biodiversity loss, create month-long brutal heatwaves and wildfires, heighten the risks of insect-borne diseases, and profoundly deepen inequalities.
Progress will be stalled unless the global climate investment gap can be closed and pledges are finally turned into real investments.
At last year's summit, it was agreed that at least $1.3 trillion in annual climate finance would be mobilized for developing countries by 2035. This funding is intended to support a just transition to clean energy, climate adaptation policies, and addressing loss and damage from climate change.
Tackling the climate crisis is IMPOSSIBLE without adequate funding. Since President Donald Trump took office, at least $18 billion has been stripped from climate finance—6% of the new global $300 billion annual target. The current pace of financing is entirely insufficient to meet the agreed-upon goals.
At COP30, all members of the UNCCC are expected to publish their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), outlining their national plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to climate impacts.
The NDC Synthesis Report was released in October 2025, which, according to Melanie Robinson, global climate, economics, and finance program director for World Resources Institute, "lays bare a frightening gap between what governments have promised and what is needed to protect people and planet."
Progress will be stalled unless the global climate investment gap can be closed and pledges are finally turned into real investments. This will prove even more difficult as militarization grips the planet. NATO has increased its spending commitments to an unprecedented 5% of GDP, and the EU Special Debts for Rearmament will further siphon money into warmongering, posturing, and weapons stockpiling.
A new initiative, the Global Ethical Stocktake, launched by the President of Brazil, Lula da Silva, and the United Nations Secretary-General, António Guterres, aims to integrate ethical considerations into climate negotiations, an aspect that has previously been omitted.
Jaded by a lack of action in previous COPs, former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, along with other influential figures such as Mary Robinson and Christiana Figueres, labelled the current climate policy process "no longer fit for purpose."
Finally, a COP President with Credentials: André Corrêa do Lago
This year's COP president holds higher hopes than others. He is a veteran climate diplomat and serves as the current secretary for climate, energy, and environment at the Brazilian Ministry of External Affairs.
He has worked with Brazil's diplomatic corps since 1982 and has represented Brazil in similar negotiations, including as chief negotiator at Rio+20, COP28, and COP29.
In a positive initial call to action, he has called on all stakeholders in the climate negotiations process to "act decisively in the face of climate urgency through an ambitious and integrated Action Agenda at COP30."
A COP Built on Deforestation: Brazil Controversy
The location of this year's climate summit is highly contentious. Destroying thousands of acres of rainforest to make way for a new four-lane highway, which is intended to ease congestion for COP visitors, is a blatant contradiction. This is the very environment Brazil has pledged to protect.
Rather than addressing the concerns, classic greenwashing terms like 'sustainable" are being used to describe the 8-mile road. Cutting through the Amazon rainforest, the road will fragment the ecosystem, disrupt the movement of wildlife, affect the livelihoods of local communities, and be inaccessible to those who live on either side of the highway. It will, however, have bike lanes and solar-powered lights!
The lack of infrastructure in the area means that more than 30 large-scale construction projects will be taking place to accommodate and prepare for the 50,000 expected visitors. The port is being redeveloped for cruise ships, and $81 million will be spent on expanding the airport to double its current capacity.
Emissions, emissions, emissions!
The expansion of the fossil fuel industry seriously contradicts the Brazilian government's climate narrative and threatens the country's credibility at COP30.
After three climate conferences in countries with restrictions on protests, Amazonian leaders and social movements are wary that their participation may be discounted and silenced. Since February, Indigenous groups have been occupying the Secretary of Education and blocking roads that cut through their territories. The protests have already begun.
Brazil is also no climate leader, but rather an empire built on oil. Its vast mining, fossil fuel, and agribusiness sectors mean that Brazil is responsible for more than 4% of total global emissions. In 2023, it emitted 2.3 billion tonnes of greenhouse gases, making Brazil the world's fifth worst polluter.
In this country of deep inequalities, the poor are disproportionately affected by climate change, including sea-level rise; heatwaves; and heavy, erratic rainfalls.
Just weeks before the conference begins, a new bill to dismantle Brazil's environmental license framework was passed. It eases restrictions on oil exploration and road development in the Amazon. A self-licensing process enables fossil fuel and construction companies to act with impunity and avoid the need for impact studies and mitigation measures.
Immediately after the bill change, Petrobras, the country's majority state-owned, scandal-ridden oil company, began drilling for oil a mere 200 miles away from Belém. The license was previously denied due to the risk of widespread biodiversity loss in this fragile ecosystem in the event of a spill. A new report reveals that since 2024, big banks have provided $2 billion in new financing for oil and gas in the Amazon.
Estimates suggest that up to 60 billion barrels of oil may exist in the Brazilian Amazon. If burned, they could emit 24 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide—more than Brazil's emissions over the past 11 years. The expansion of the fossil fuel industry seriously contradicts the Brazilian government's climate narrative and threatens the country's credibility at COP30.
Good COP, Bad COP
"Climate is our biggest war," said Ana Toni, chief executive of COP30.
Hopes are high. Expectations are low. Change is happening, it is just painfully slow.
We need this to be the "delivery COP." One thing is for sure, COP30 will be make or break for people, our precious flora and fauna, and our planet as a whole.
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Ahead of COP30, Report Finds Oil and Gas Expansion Continues to Outpace Climate Action
"While the Loss and Damage Fund sits almost empty, oil and gas companies are investing more than $60 billion each year into new exploration," said one campaigner.
Nov 04, 2025
The fossil fuel industry is "racing toward climate breakdown with its foot on the accelerator," said one official at the German environmental rights group Urgewald on Tuesday as the group released its Global Oil and Gas Exit List.
The report shows that as world leaders prepare to meet in Brazil for the annual United Nations climate summit, any discussion they have there regarding a green transition is being undercut by massive expansion in oil and gas extraction and production, including in the fracking and liquefied natural gas (LNG) industries.
Four years after the International Energy Agency (IEA) stated that no new oil and gas fields have a place on a pathway to limiting planetary heating to 1.5°C—marking global energy experts' public endorsement of warnings that had come from climate scientists for years prior—96% of fossil fuel firms are exploring and developing new oil and gas resources, said Urgewald.
Short-term expansion is up 33% since 2021, when the IEA issued its warning, with fossil fuel giants planning to bring 256 billion barrels of oil and gas equivalent (bboe) into production in the coming years.
Five companies account for about one-third of global short-term expansion: QatarEnergy (26.2 bboe), Saudi Aramco (18.0 bboe), ADNOC in the United Arab Emirates (13.8 bboe), Russian state-owned entity Gazprom (13.4 bboe) and US firm ExxonMobil (9.7 bboe).
Nils Bartsch, head of oil and gas research at Urgewald, said the largest fossil fuel companies in the world "are treating the Paris Agreement like a polite suggestion, not a survival plan."
The analysis comes a decade after 195 countries signed the legally binding Paris Agreement, committing to develop and implement national climate action plans to draw down fossil fuel emissions.
"With 256 billion barrels of new projects on the table, this is not a transition—it is defiance," said Bartsch.
The Paris Agreement also included a demand for wealthy countries to contribute funds to help the Global South mitigate and adapt to the climate emergency, and annual UN conferences have addressed climate finance, but the industry is still spending about 75 times more on oil and gas exploration than governments have pledged to the UN Loss and Damage Fund, according to the report.
On average, companies listed in the Global Oil and Gas Exit List (GOGEL) spent an average of $60.3 billion over the last three years on oil and gas expansion.
“Brazil is showing an alarming level of climate hypocrisy—presenting itself as a climate leader at COP30 while allowing oil and gas expansion right at the summit’s doorstep, threatening one of our most fragile ecosystems."
The US has pledged just 17.5 million to the Loss and Damage Fund, while two of its biggest fossil fuel companies, Chevron and ExxonMobil, have spent $1.3 billion and $1.1 billion on oil and gas exploration, respectively, in the last three years.
"While the Loss and Damage Fund sits almost empty, oil and gas companies are investing more than $60 billion each year into new exploration, exacerbating the problem the fund is meant to alleviate. This is financial and moral negligence. Regulators and supervisory authorities need to start treating this as a risk, not a footnote," said Fiona Hauke, oil and gas researcher and financial regulation expert at Urgewald.
The report was released a week before world leaders are scheduled to meet in Belém, Brazil for the 2025 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP30), even as state-owned fossil fuel company Petrobras begins drilling in Foz do Amazonas Basin in the fragile, biodiverse Amazon rainforest.
Petrobras was named in GOGEL as the 15th largest fossil fuel exporter worldwide, currently spending $1.1 billion annually searching for new reserves, as Brazil prepares to host a meeting that is meant to focus on implementing emissions reduction plans.
“Brazil is showing an alarming level of climate hypocrisy—presenting itself as a climate leader at COP30 while allowing oil and gas expansion right at the summit’s doorstep, threatening one of our most fragile ecosystems,” said Nicole Oliveira, executive director of the Arayara International Institute in Brazil.
GOGEL also pointed to oil and gas expansion in the US under the Trump administration, with the US overtaking China as the number-one developer of gas-fired power even as a recent UN and World Bank report found that nine out of 10 renewable energy projects are cheaper than even the lowest-cost fossil fuel alternatives.
The US is home to the largest LNG export developer worldwide, Venture Global, as companies are planning an export capacity of around 847 million tons per year—a 171% increase from current operational capacity.
Urgewald noted that even TotalEnergies CEO Patrick Pouyanné recently acknowledged that the LNG sector is "building too much."
"Analysts warn that if current plans proceed, the world could face an oversupplied gas market within five years, with far more capacity than global demand can absorb," reads GOGEL. "Yet despite industry leaders acknowledging the risk, investment continues."
"US fracking companies are producing far more gas than they can sell domestically," adds the report, noting that the country is turning to Mexico as an export platform. "Now faced with a flood of excess gas, companies are racing to build new LNG facilities to liquefy their surplus and push it onto countries around the globe."
Pablo Montaño, director of Conexiones Climáticas, Mexico, said new LNG projects "are not for the benefit of Mexicans."
"They will import fracked gas from the US, liquefy it in Mexico and send it straight to Asia. Gas liquefaction is an incredibly dirty business," he said.
Despite clear warnings from energy and climate experts, said Cathy Collentine, Beyond Dirty Fuels campaign director at the Sierra Club in the US, "fossil fuel expansion continues to put communities and the climate at risk."
"Under the Trump administration," she said, "we are seeing a disregard for both to do the bidding of Big Oil and Gas."
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