FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: 11/22/2025
MEDIA CONTACT: Edder Díaz Martínez, Communications Director, 602-832-6039, [email protected]
Belém, Brazil — GreenLatinos joined frontline communities, Indigenous leaders, workers, youth, and civil society allies from across the world at COP30. As negotiations wrapped in the heart of the Amazonia, one truth became clear. Movements won a major breakthrough for justice, but governments failed to deliver the full protection and ambition that vulnerable communities urgently need.
Despite the historic absence of the United States and persistent efforts by Global North governments to weaken outcomes, community power reshaped the negotiations. Countries adopted strengthened Just Transition commitments that center people and rights in the global shift away from fossil fuels. This stands as one of the strongest justice focused outcomes in UN climate negotiations to date.
“And just like that, BAM, a victory for Just Transition. Communities arrived at COP30 demanding equity, protection, and inclusion, and we delivered the most ambitious just transition framework yet. The Belém Action Mechanism marks a historic step forward and proves that when communities speak and governments listen, victories follow.” Ean Thomas Tafoya, Vice President, GreenLatinos
These commitments reflect years of organizing by workers, Indigenous Peoples, Afro descendant communities, trade unions, and global justice movements. They embed human rights, labor rights, gender equality, youth development, and protections for displaced and marginalized people into the climate transition. They also open the door to new conversations about the financial and structural support needed to move countries off fossil fuels in a fair and orderly way.
However, COP30 ultimately fell short of delivering the full justice package the moment demands.
The outcome on Adaptation finance is dangerously weak. Instead of committing to tripling adaptation finance for vulnerable countries, governments pushed the timeline back to 2035 and avoided meaningful references to the Global Goal on Adaptation. This failure leaves communities already living climate impacts with little hope of receiving the support they need in time.
The final decision also contains no reference to phasing out fossil fuels, despite overwhelming scientific evidence and the calls of more than eighty countries demanding a clear path forward. The refusal of developed countries to provide finance across all areas, including mitigation, the fossil transition, and adaptation, emerged as the defining faultline of COP30 and severely undermined trust in the process.
Process concerns also overshadowed the talks. An alarming 1600 of fossil fuel lobbyists gained access, while many frontline, and indigenous communities faced exclusion from key rooms, . Negotiations increasingly took place behind closed doors, further eroding public trust and transparency.
Still, COP30 made clear that movements are reshaping what is possible. The strengthened Just Transition commitments represent the beginning of a new phase of global climate action, one rooted in rights, equity, and community leadership.
“We celebrate this victory, but we are not fooled,” added Meisei Gonzalez, Climate Justice and Clean Air Advocate with GreenLatinos “Justice requires more than recognition. It requires action, resources, and accountability. We will take this momentum home and continue fighting for the full protections our communities deserve.”
GreenLatinos will continue working across the United States and Latin America to hold governments accountable, demand real investment in frontline communities, and ensure that the transition off fossil fuels is fair, inclusive, and rooted in justice.
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About GreenLatinos
GreenLatinos (NOTE: GreenLatinos is ONE WORD) is an active comunidad of Latino/a/e leaders, emboldened by the power and wisdom of our culture, united to demand equity and dismantle racism, resourced to win our environmental, conservation, and climate justice battles, and driven to secure our political, economic, cultural, and environmental liberation.
GreenLatinos (NOTA: GreenLatinos es UNA PALABRA) es una comunidad activa de líderes latinos/a/e, envalentonados por el poder y la sabiduría de nuestra cultura, unidos para exigir equidad y desmantelar el racismo, con recursos para ganar nuestra justicia ambiental, batallas de conservación, climáticas e impulsados a asegurar nuestra liberación política, económica, cultural y ambiental.
