Members of Oxford Net Zero travelled to Belém, Brazil last month to contribute their expertise at the COP30 summit.
This year marked 30 years of COP and 10 years since the Paris Agreement. After so many rounds of negotiations, COP30 was to be the “implementation COP” – a time for countries to turn their commitments into reality. As the first COP to be held in the Amazon, this year’s summit also had a significant focus on forest protection.
10 members of Oxford Net Zero attended COP30 to present new research, speak at events and make connections with other researchers, policymakers and activists. Dr Aline Soterroni, Research Fellow on Nature-based Solutions, served as the Deputy Head of the Oxford delegation, which was led by Dr Erika Berenguer of the Environmental Change Institute. Together with Professor Nathalie Seddon, head of the Nature-based Solutions Initiative and an ONZ Co-Investigator, they spoke at an official side event focusing on how climate and biodiversity policies can be better aligned, to the benefit of both.
During COP30, Brazil launched the Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF), which is raising investment in order to reward countries for conserving their tropical forests. Biodiversity researchers, conservation experts and activists were hoping for the final text of the negotiated deal to include a roadmap to halting and reversing deforestation by 2030. In the end, this did not happen, just as there was no legally binding commitment in the final deal to phasing out fossil fuels. As Dr Soterroni said:
“It’s impossible to reach consensus when some countries are deliberately blocking progress. That’s why I hope the global discussion on roadmaps to phase out fossil fuels and end deforestation evolves beyond the COP process. Positive mechanisms like the TFFF are already underway, and I truly hope the real mutirão for collective implementation continues to grow, bringing together multiple actors and relying on the best available science.”
One under-explored lever for taking action on climate change is public procurement. Globally, public procurement represents between 13% and 20% of GDP and 15% of greenhouse emissions, so it has the potential to make a huge difference to sustainability efforts. At COP30, the Brazilian government launched the Belém Declaration on Sustainable Public Procurement, which sets out how governments can shift high-impact markets and production chains so that they align with the Sustainable Development Goals. The Declaration drew on the research of Oxford Green Approaches to Public Procurement (OxGAP), a joint initiative between Oxford Net Zero and the Net Zero Regulation and Policy Hub that is co-led by ONZ Fellow Kaya Axelsson and Dr Emma Lecavalier of the Oxford Climate Policy Hub. At the time of the launch, four countries had joined Brazil in supporting the Declaration and four more were in active discussions about participating.
A defining feature of COP30 was the presence of civil society. More Indigenous people attended this COP than ever before, and there were also Indigenous and community-led protests that aimed to hold COP negotiators and leaders to account. This year, Oxford had the unique opportunity to support an initiative called the Banzeiro da Esperança, or Boat of Hope. In the run-up to COP, the boat sailed from Manaus to Belém, carrying Indigenous people from all over the Amazon to the summit to present their community-based adaptation plans for addressing climate change. Kaya Axelsson travelled with them and shared her reflections:
“It felt like the real highlight of COP was the civil society presence, the vibrancy of the culture and community and Brazilian hospitality all around the venue, if not inside. The indigenous presence at COP and those of Amazonian forest stewards created a strong sense of clarity and duty as to what it is we are protecting. And this contrasted with the abstraction and relative lack of progress through the formal system, which highlighted the importance of keeping research and engagement focused on local communities and local work when it comes to climate implementation – always, but especially, in a period of geopolitical instability.
ONZ Knowledge Exchange Officer Rosalind Chaston, who attended her first COP this year, also shared her thoughts on civil society participation in Belém:
“Activism plays a crucial role in keeping COPs (and all international dialogues) honest and accountable. Activists bring moral clarity, public pressure, and lived experience into a process that can otherwise become overly technical or politically cautious. They remind negotiators that climate policy isn’t abstract – it affects communities, livelihoods, and ecosystems in real time. I appreciate Brazil for allowing civil society voices to engage –protest is not always allowed! However, I would like to see a much more tangible connection between the voices outside the negotiation rooms and the decisions being made inside them. Too often, activism is physically present but institutionally distant. Bridging that gap – by creating formal avenues for civil society input, elevating youth and frontline voices, and ensuring transparency – would strengthen both the legitimacy and the ambition of the COP process.”
Oxford Net Zero and the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment once again had the privilege of supporting five members of the most recent Global Youth Climate Training cohort to attend COP, thanks to the generous support of the ClimateWorks Foundation. One member of the group, Beatriz Pontes, shared her frustrations and hopes as she reflected on the experience:
“For me, the lack of ambition and commitment best sums up what COP30 was like. It was my first experience in an international decision-making forum, hosted in my country, in a scenario of faith in Brazil’s diplomatic skills. However, even though we were in the middle of the Amazon, experiencing the lack of climate adaptation with high temperatures and rainfall, as well as a lack of infrastructure, the feeling was that only a minority could hear our surroundings. And we ended COP without major successes, without significant advances in financing and adaptation, without affirming what science has been saying for years about fossil fuels, without much ambition and commitment from the parties. But even though everything seems so negative, I still have hope, because without hope, my work and that of so many other colleagues seems meaningless.”
If you would like to hear more from members of the Oxford delegation, a COP30 Debrief panel discussion will take place on 27 January 2026 from 12:30 to 13:45 GMT. Register to attend in-person at the Oxford Martin School or online.
Photo by Boudewijn Huysmans on Unsplash.
