Crows are not an endangered species. Strangely enough. Yet there should be fewer of them left, given the number of years that environmentalists and those interested in the sustainability of our ecosystems have been eating crows about the targets to be achieved... It is against this increasingly disillusioned and cynical backdrop that COP30 begins this Monday 10 November in Belém, Brazil.
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva last week unveiled the Tropical Forests Financing Facility (TFFF), billed as one of the potentially main concrete outcomes of COP30. Brazil is contributing one billion dollars and hopes to mobilise 25 billion from "sponsor" states, before attracting up to 100 billion from private investors. Norway has pledged up to 3 billion, subject to conditions; Indonesia will also contribute 1 billion, France 500 million euros by 2030, Colombia 250 million, while Germany will participate without yet putting a figure on its commitment. Portugal has announced a symbolic million and the United Kingdom has chosen not to finance the fund directly.
Its mechanism is original: the capital will be invested on the markets, and the returns will be used to pay developing countries each year sums proportional to the hectares of forest actually preserved. The aim is to make conservation more profitable than deforestation in regions where cutting is still more profitable than protecting. Brazil, Indonesia and the Democratic Republic of Congo could, in theory, rake in several hundred million dollars a year if they manage to eradicate deforestation.
Energy efficiency gains plateau...
This launch comes at a time when the decade has seen a proliferation of commitments and reports pulling in opposite directions. On the energy side, the International Renewable Energy Agency (Irena), the Brazilian Presidency of COP30 and the Global Renewables Alliance note a record number of renewable installations in 2024 (582GW), but point out that the trajectory for tripling capacity by 2030 now requires an average of 1,122GW added per year. And energy efficiency gains are stagnating at around 1% per year, far from the 4% required to stay within 1.5°C. The message to governments is clear: include credible renewable targets in NDCs (Nationally Determined Contributions) 3.0, remove investment and network bottlenecks, and massively de-risk projects in emerging countries.
On the architecture of national commitments, a briefing from the European Parliament's research department reminds us that COP30 is the first key deadline for NDC 3.0, to be submitted with 2.035 targets aligned with the first "global balance sheet". At the beginning of September, only a minority of Parties had submitted their plans, while current trajectories are still drifting towards 2.6-3.1°C by 2100.
A trajectory "compatible with science"
On 4 and 5 November in Brussels, the environment ministers of the 27 reached a major political agreement: to enshrine in the climate law a binding target of -90% net emissions by 2040 compared with 1990. This target, supported by Luxembourg, includes a number of flexibilities, notably the possibility of recourse to high-quality international credits of up to 5% under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement. At the same time, the ministers adopted the European Union's new NDC for 2035, setting a reduction of between -66.25% and -72.5% in emissions compared with 1990.
Present in Brussels, Luxembourg Environment Minister 
Fight against deforestation and IT problems
Another hot topic: the Commission's proposal to simplify the European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR). While Luxembourg supports the principle of reducing the administrative burden for primary producers in low-risk countries, it rejects disguised deregulation. The government is proposing to postpone the entry into force of the text until the IT problems blocking its implementation have been resolved. It also proposes to limit due diligence to the first time a product is placed on the European market and to guarantee legal certainty and predictability for companies.
On the sinews of war - financial flows - two dynamics are superimposed. On the one hand, the OECD estimates that the target of $100 billion a year in climate finance for developing countries has "probably" been reached again in 2023, and the Baku agreement (COP29) calls for these public flows to be increased to $300 billion a year by 2035 and to catalyse $1,300 billion a year by including private capital and other sources.
On the other hand, the International Energy Agency stresses that the still too-narrow category of "transition finance" - capital earmarked for sectors that are difficult to decarbonise and emerging economies - is still too narrow. It indicates that the latter should represent 400 to 500 billion dollars a year over the next decade. And this is because of the need to accelerate tangible emission reductions where they are harder to achieve, with credible plans, sectoral indicators and rigorous monitoring.
The coherence of the financial world, that blind spot
In this context, Lula's TFFF comes across as a prototype for "pay for results" financing that attempts to enlist the markets in forest protection. But the blind spot remains the coherence of the financial system. An investigation by Global Witness puts the revenue received since 2016 by banks and asset managers from financing 50 companies linked to deforestation at $26 billion. Among the main beneficiaries? American, European and British players. For the NGO, until these "brown" flows are dried up or strictly supervised, increasing "green" funds amounts to rowing against the tide.
In Luxembourg, COP30 is also finding a local echo: on Friday 7 November, Greenpeace organised a giant Amazonia installation and an immersive show on the Place Guillaume II to raise awareness of deforestation and the struggles of indigenous peoples. The NGO is critical of the Grand Duchy's support for the EU-Mercosur agreement and its position, deemed too flexible on the EUDR regulation, calling for coherence between climate diplomacy and trade policies.
The issue of credibility
In the halls of Belém as in the European Council, the issue is now credibility. The international financial system is still riddled with paradoxes: banks and asset managers are raking in billions in deforestation-related revenues, while "green" funds are struggling to reach critical scale.
If the TFFF fund manages to reward preservation better than destruction, if NDC 3.0 raises trajectories in time and if investment in networks and energy efficiency accelerates, Belém could mark a turning point. Otherwise, COP30 risks embodying yet another paradox: that of a world that funds forest protection on stage, while continuing to subsidise their disappearance behind the scenes.
