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Climate justice activist Yeb Saño says the Philippine delegation’s silence at COP30 is a “diplomatic and moral failure.”

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Turkey will host the COP31 climate summit in 2026 with Australia leading the negotiation process, a document released at the COP30 summit in Brazil showed on Friday, November 21, confirming an earlier announcement that a split hosting arrangement was expected.

The statement was issued by Germany after a meeting of the Western European and Others Group, which was tasked with selecting the 2026 host.

The deal, which resolved a lengthy standoff with both vying to host the UN climate talks, set out that Turkey will serve as the venue while delegating negotiating responsibilities to Australia.

“If there is a difference of views between Türkiye (Turkey) and Australia, consultations will take place until the difference is resolved to mutual satisfaction,” the statement said.

A pre-COP summit will be held in a Pacific Island country, and Australia will lead the year-long process that shapes the agenda and priorities ahead of COP31.

Asian Peoples’ Movement on Debt and Development coordinator and Filipino climate activist Lidy Nacpil warned on Friday, November 21, against a “simplistic and duplicitous narrative” at COP30 that the Global South was the “obstacle to ambition” when it comes to discussions on a fossil fuel phaseout roadmap.

“It is absolutely disgusting how they (Global North) have been branding themselves as climate champions. The hypocrisy is also clearly seen in the contradiction between pushing for this roadmap and the refusal to talk about — much less deliver — the climate finance needed to make it possible. It is not surprising that many developing countries are refusing a roadmap that is empty and lacking in the vital elements of a meaningful roadmap.”

She added: “We want to remind the world that there is no one with more stake in a rapid, equitable, and just transition out of fossil fuels than the people and countries of the Global South. We cannot be less ambitious. But to be ambitious also means to be realistic about the requirements for ambition.”

As COP30 enters its final hours on Friday, November 21, prominent Filipino climate activist Yeb Saño said the Philippine delegation’s “silence” on a fossil fuel phaseout roadmap — already supported by at least 86 other countries despite absence of the language in draft negotiating texts — was “deafening.”

“The fact that we are not among the…nations — including fellow developing nations like Colombia and many others backing this roadmap is a diplomatic and moral failure…. We cannot claim to be the face of climate vulnerability and moral leadership while sitting on the fence and allowing the fossil fuel apparatus to persist.”

A G20 draft leaders’ declaration includes references to “climate change” in defiance of US objections, a source familiar with the matter said on Friday, November 21.

The draft declaration was agreed ahead of this weekend’s summit in Johannesburg without US input.

US President Donald Trump recently called climate change a “con job”, and has not sent a delegation to the COP30 climate summit in Brazil.

Aksyon Klima Pilipinas, a coalition of environmental and climate groups, urged the Philippine delegation to be one of the champions for “an urgent and just transition away from fossil fuels here at COP30.”

The coalition said in a statement on Friday, November 21, that the Philippine delegation’s silence on this issue at the climate talks “weakens our positioning here in Belem, already hindered by a small delegation.”

In the final hours of COP30, a think tank called on the COP presidency to deliver on a pact that paves the way for a fossil-free future.

“We cannot afford to walk away from Belem with anything less,” Avril de Torres of the Center for Energy, Ecology, and Development said in a statement on Friday, November 21, following the release of a draft decision text where there were no mentions of a phaseout roadmap.

Torres said the text “now totally refuses to not only name the single biggest driver of the climate crisis, but to also establish the necessary institutional arrangements to transition.” 

During a press conference on Friday, November 21, World Resources Institute’s international climate director David Waskow said one of the most contentious issues parties will see in the next 24 hours is the draft texts’ language on tripling adaptation finance.

“The verbs here are relatively soft: ‘Calls for efforts to triple adaptation finance by 2030 compared to 2025 levels.’ The verbs are soft, but that date is a quite aggressive date in terms of the target for tripling adaptation finance. So, we will see how parties respond to that. I anticipate that developed country parties will not be comfortable with a date that’s that close,” Waskow noted.

“One thing, though, to note is the way in which this is structured echoes the way in which the [New Collective Quantified Goal on Climate Finance], the $300 billion, is structured in that it implies a broader set of donors and actors that would be involved in tripling adaptation finance, not just developed countries.”

The draft texts released by the COP30 presidency on Friday, November 21, mentioned a “Belem Mission to 1.5,” and World Resources Institute’s international climate director David Waskow said there are “many open questions” as to what this report is.

“For example, what would that report cover? What would it really be intended to do?” Waskow said.

“This could be a roadmap. I think there’s a really open question here as to whether that could be a roadmap that would address the energy paragraph…and the forest paragraph. So, that to me is an open question that could, of course, also include transition away from fossil fuels…. So, there are ways for this Belem Mission to be much more concretized and clear about what it’s aiming at and what it’s meant to do.”