CAN-Rac celebrates Just Transition decision at COP30, while major gaps remain on finance, adaptation and energy

Belém, Brazil, 22 November 2025:

Climate Action Network Canada celebrates the COP30 decision to develop a Just Transition Mechanism—a model for how the international climate negotiations can centre justice and ambition, which are sorely lacking from the other decisions adopted in Belém today.

Caroline Brouillette, Executive Director of Climate Action Network Canada, said:

“For the first time at COP30, the world has committed to center justice for workers and communities in the UN climate talks. Our movements’ efforts have paid off: the Just Transition decision has the most ambitious language on rights and inclusion that we have ever seen at a COP, recognizing marginalized groups like women, youth and Afro-descendant people. It also calls for the respect and promotion of the individual and collective rights of Indigenous Peoples, including their self-determination and right to free, prior, and informed consent, affirmed in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. There’s a lot of work ahead to turn these principles into reality—but today, we celebrate this big step towards connecting climate action with people’s lives.

“COP30 had a challenging task: keeping climate multilateralism alive in the midst of massive geopolitical upheaval. Despite the best efforts of civil society and champions from the Global South, governments failed to agree to a response that matches the scale of the gap between the crises we face and the promise of the Paris Agreement. Until rich countries live up to their responsibilities on finance and adaptation, the world will continue to slip closer to disaster. And as long as the trend of closed-door negotiations continues, COPs will continue to fuel cynicism and yield weaker outcomes than what inclusion and transparency could achieve.

“Canada’s general silence at this COP and climate backsliding at home did not help. It marks the weakening of years of progress and has been noticed by our allies.  Here in Belém, we saw real momentum building around implementing the global transition away from fossil fuels. It’s disappointing that this wasn’t reflected in the final text—and it’s equally disappointing that Canada’s fossil fuel expansion is so out of step with where the world is heading.”

Further analysis:

• After a three-year hiatus, civil society was able to openly demonstrate and show its power at a COP held in a democracy. But in the final week of COP, the Brazilian Presidency contradicted its own spirit of inclusion, openness and “mutirão” by holding very few open meetings and providing little space for parties to find landing ground on key issues—which led to a less ambitious outcome than what COP30 could have otherwise achieved. This also contributed to the turbulent closing plenary, where several Latin American countries raised objections that they hadn’t had the opportunity to speak before the decisions on the Global Goal on Adaptation and Mitigation Work Programme were gavelled through.
• The rights and inclusion of Indigenous Peoples have rightfully dominated the story of this COP, with leaders from the Amazon shining a light on the destruction their communities are confronting from agribusiness and extractive industries. The UNFCCC’s reprehensible response to these legitimate protests has mirrored the violence and militarization that land and water defenders face around the world, including in Canada, for asserting their rights and protecting their territories.
• Canada’s retreat from any attempt at climate leadership was on display at this COP: from Prime Minister Carney’s absence to his major projects announcement including fossil fuel expansion. Minister Dabrusin failed to bring anything of substance to COP30, and Canada’s lack of support on adaptation finance contributed to the disappointing outcome.
• The Mutirão text includes a call to least triple adaptation finance by 2035, in the context of the New Collective Quantified Goal—a weaker outcome than what the Global South was calling for, given the flaws of the NCQG, and the estimated adaptation finance needs of US$310 billion per year. The Global North’s failure to provide adequate finance for adaptation, and the lack of clarity on grant-based, public provision of finance, have blocked progress across negotiating tracks at this COP. Canada showed up to Belem with no new climate finance commitment, despite calls from civil society to come to COP with an adequate, high-quality post-2026 pledge.
• On Just Transition, in addition to defending language on human rights, gender equality and the rights of Indigenous Peoples in the decision, Canada shifted its position and showed openness to options on institutional arrangements—a result of civil society’s collective efforts.
• With unilateral trade measures becoming increasingly contentious in the past years, the Mutirão text found a compromise on trade, which affirms the legitimate concerns of Global South countries, and creates formalized dialogues for these conversations to continue.
• This COP saw further attacks on gender equality and 2SLGBTQ+ rights, including attempts to adopt definitions of gender that exclude trans, non-binary and intersex people. While these restrictive definitions of gender were not incorporated in the COP texts, these interventions—along with other homophobic and racist remarks in the final plenary—are extremely harmful and reflect dangerous trends in the real world.

Quotes:

Julie Segal, Senior Manager of Climate Finance, Environmental Defence Canada:

“The Canadian government is failing to do its own homework on climate action. COP30 made it clear that other countries are continuing to deliver on the group project of reducing global emissions. The Prime Minister did not attend COP30, and instead focused on finding support for expansion of polluting oil and gas projects domestically. This opposes the commitments Canada made to the Paris Agreement on Climate Change ten-years ago. This COP30  reaffirms that the priority – and purpose  – of climate action is human, Indigenous, and labour rights. Climate change is harming our communities across the country and it is devastating to see Canada during the time of global climate negotiations fail to deliver either a plan or action at home to keep our planet safer.”

Stu Solomon, Climate Lead, Plan International:

“Over one billion children remain at extreme risk from climate impacts. Plan International’s global evidence shows that girls—especially adolescent girls—face heightened exposure to early marriage, gender-based violence, and lost education as families cope with climate-driven crises. Yet less than 3% of global climate finance targets children with less than 0.3% going to education despite the evidence on impact to both adaptation and mitigation. Plan International urges governments to turn COP30 outcomes into real climate action and deliver on the promises made in Belém. Governments must scale up rights-based climate finance that reaches girls, youth, and communities most at risk to meet legal and moral obligations for present but also future generations outlined in the International Court of Justice Advisory Opinion.”

Andrea Koehle Jones, Founder & Executive Director, The ChariTree Foundation:

“It’s alarming and heartbreaking that forests nearly vanished from the core Amazon COP30 deal, especially when children will face the worst impacts of ecosystem loss. With more than a billion children and youth already at extreme climate risk, urgent forest protection must be non-negotiable. The ChariTree Foundation welcomes the Just Transition decision and its strongest-ever rights-based language — a key step toward climate action that safeguards children’s rights and futures as accelerating climate change threatens their health, education, and survival.”

Liz McDowell, Senior Campaigns Director, Stand.earth:

“For the first time at the UN climate talks, more than 80 countries are calling for a roadmap away from fossil fuels and an end to global deforestation. Although major oil-producing countries, in lockstep with fossil fuel lobbyists, blocked these roadmaps from making it into the final decisions at COP30, they can’t stop the global momentum that’s building for a just, equitable and orderly phase out of fossil fuels. This context makes Canada’s backwards slide on climate leadership even more heartbreaking. Instead of stepping up on climate finance and supporting a global plan to transition away from fossil fuels, our government is pursuing aggressive oil and gas expansion at home. But one thing is crystal clear: the vast majority of the world is moving towards a renewable energy future, and if Canada doesn’t get on board, we’re going to get left behind.”

Beth Lorimer, Ecological Justice Program Coordinator, KAIROS Canada:

“By arriving at COP30 without new commitments and resisting clarity on Article 9.1 obligations, Canada and other developed countries have pushed the $1.3 trillion target of the NCQG further out of reach. Communities facing climate injustice cannot endure vague pledges or debt-creating finance. KAIROS calls for a Jubilee response from Canada grounded in responsibility and robust public, and non-debt-inducing climate finance.”

Dr. Melissa Lem, President, Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment (CAPE):

“Communities facing fires, floods, and toxic pollution don’t need roadmaps with no legal guardrails: they need real commitments, grounded in science and justice, to phase out fossil fuels driving these climate disasters, not industry narratives and climate disinformation. Civil society noted Canada’s lack of leadership, which contributed to this low-ambition deal. As physicians and health advocates, we’re calling on governments — Canada included — to deliver real ambition, real finance, and a real plan to phase out the fossil fuels that are driving this health emergency.”

Dean Dettloff, Research and Advocacy Officer, Development and Peace – Caritas Canada:

“While parties at COP30 recognized the need for more grants-based financing and concessional loans, we leave Belém disappointed to see a lack of ambitious action on the global debt crisis. Sovereign debt is holding back countries’ ability to invest in adaptation, mitigation, and just transition, and climate catastrophes are compelling more borrowing. To truly create fiscal space to address the climate crisis, unjust and unsustainable debt must be cancelled. Rather than a matter of generosity, this is a matter of justice.”

Karine Ruel, Executive director, Lawyers without borders Canada:

“Following COP30 in Belém, Lawyers without Borders Canada is deeply concerned that many States are turning away from the obligations imposed on them under international law, notably the International Court of Justice’s clear advisory opinion requiring emission reductions consistent with the 1.5°C limit. We call for a political awakening that meets the scale of the climate emergency, grounded in equity and respect for the law.”

Joy Kennedy, Canadian Interfaith Fast For the Climate:

“Some progress may have been made into the future, but people on the ground are suffering now. And it will increase. So the lack of contributions to the Loss & Damage Fund is troublesome. An empty water pitcher does not quench thirst. An empty plate does not feed the hungry. An empty Fund is an unfulfilled promise. So Fill the Fund Now!”

Sabaa Khan, Climate Director and Director General for Quebec and Atlantic Canada, David Suzuki Foundation:

“COP30 confirmed governments of wealthy, developed nations are failing the world’s most vulnerable — and Canada is no exception. Canada speaks of climate ambition on the global stage while simultaneously approving new fossil-fuel expansion projects at home and pursuing investment agreements with petro-states like the UAE-agreements. This COP outcome proves, once again, that trade and climate cannot be treated as separate worlds. Every trade decision that deepens dependence on fossil fuel economies undermines the commitments made in climate negotiations. If developed countries want to serve the global public’s best interests rather than fossil fuel interests, they must align their trade, investment, and domestic energy policies with a rapid, just transition away from oil and gas.”

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