More than 160 governments are nominally signed up to the global methane pledge. Photograph: Orjan F Ellingvag/Corbis/Getty Images
Analysis published at Cop30 summit shows adhering to pledges offer world hope of avoiding climate breakdown
Sticking to three key climate promises – on renewables, energy efficiency and methane – would avoid nearly 1C of global heating and give the world hope of avoiding climate breakdown, analysis published at the Cop30 climate summit suggests.
Governments have already agreed to triple the amount of renewable energy generated by 2030, double global energy efficiency by then, and make substantial cuts to methane emissions.
If they follow through on these promises – still a big if, even though countries are meeting for climate crisis talks in Brazil this week – it would be a “gamechanger”, shaving 0.9C from projected temperature rises this century, according to the Climate Action Tracker coalition.
Achieving all of these measures, among G20 countries alone, would reduce global greenhouse gas emissions by 18bn tonnes in 2035 – enough to cut the rate of global heating by a third in the next decade, and halve it by 2040.
Bill Hare, chief executive of Climate Analytics, one of the organisations behind the report, said: “If [governments] achieve this by 2035, it would be a gamechanger, quickly slowing the rate of warming in the next decade and lowering global warming this century from 2.6C to about 1.7C.”
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A projection urges leaders to “get serious” about drawing down fossil fuel emissions in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil ahead of the United Nations Climate Change Conference on November 5, 2025. (Photo by Fabio Teixeira/Anadolu via Getty Images)
“We need to make sure that any and all plans towards a fossil fuel-free future are built with community and frontline needs at the heart, and implemented in a way that does not leave vulnerable communities behind.”
Despite concerns over the presence of hundreds of corporate lobbyists peddling “false solutions” at the United NationsClimate Change Conference in Belém, Brazil, campaigners on Monday expressed optimism about the “remarkable speed” with which global support has grown at the summit for a Transition Away From Fossil Fuels Roadmap.
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva opened the Leader’s Summit on November 6 with a call for the TAFF Roadmap, which would build on the 2023 conference’s (COP28) promise to “transition away from fossil fuels” in a “just, orderly, and equitable manner.”
He urged leaders to map out how their countries will “overcome dependence on fossil fuels,” reverse deforestation, and mobilize resources to achieve those goals, as the presidencies of this year’s conference (COP30) and last year’s released a Baku to Belém Roadmap with a plan to mobilize $1.3 trillion per year in climate finance for developing countries.
350.org found on Monday that within nine days, support for the TAFF Roadmap grew from one to 62 countries.
Suluafi Brianna Fruean, a 350.org Pacific Council elder, acknowledged that a call for “a transition away from fossil fuels is not a new concept for the Pacific, it’s a demand we’ve made at every COP and every room we’ve been in.”
Still, she said, “the growing support for a roadmap to this reality is a sign that the age of fossil fuels is over. We need to make sure that any and all plans towards a fossil fuel-free future are built with community and frontline needs at the heart, and implemented in a way that does not leave vulnerable communities behind.”
“The presidency calls on developing countries to lead, prioritize public, grant-based, concessional finance to protect the world’s most vulnerable, and break the vicious debt cycle. However, it misses the urgency to simplify direct access to finance for communities, especially Indigenous peoples.”
350.org analyzed public statements and written inputs from countries and country groups to the COP30 presidency, and released its analysis of the conference’s momentum as the Brazil presidency released its “consultation text.”
That document lays out options for a final agreement at COP30, including “the ingredients for a highly ambitious outcome,” said 350.org.
Options in the text include establishing a three-year program to implement Article 9.1 in the Paris Agreement, which requires wealthy countries to finance adaptation and a transition away from fossil fuels for the Global South; tripling adaptation finance; and implementing Article 3.5 of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, which requires parties to support an economic system that leads “to sustainable economic growth and development in all parties… thus enabling them better to address the problems of climate change.”
“Finance is the engine of climate action. The presidency calls on developing countries to lead, prioritize public, grant-based, concessional finance to protect the world’s most vulnerable, and break the vicious debt cycle,” said Fanny Petitbon, France team lead for 350.org. “However, it misses the urgency to simplify direct access to finance for communities, especially Indigenous peoples, who hold solutions on the ground yet face enormous barriers to securing the funds needed to scale them up.”
A second package of options is set to be released in the coming days and “will cover the more technical negotiating areas,” according to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).
Andreas Sieber, associate director of policy and campaigns at 350.org, credited Lula with injecting “real momentum into a global roadmap to move away from fossil fuels.”
But Sieber noted that Brazil recently gave its state-owned oil and gas company, Petrobras, license to drill a well in the Amazon rainforest, and Brazil is still one of the top 10 producers of crude oil globally.
“Lula spoke powerfully about justice and cooperation in a divided world, highlighting the need to get rid of fossil fuels and accelerate the energy transition,” Sieber toldArgus Media after the Leaders’ Summit. “But he cannot be both a champion of climate justice and one of the world’s biggest oil expanders.”
350.org added that in a TAFF Roadmap, “finance, technology transfer, and capacity-building must be central pillars—not peripheral details—if the transition is to lift up communities rather than deepen inequality.”
WWF also applauded the “momentum” at COP30, and urged “decisive political leadership” in order to “get back on track to the 1.5°C Paris Agreement temperature limit.”
Manuel Pulgar-Vidal, WWF global climate and energy lead, and the president of COP20, said that “COP30 could make history by agreeing on roadmaps for both a transition away from fossil fuels and to combat deforestation. It must also respond to the emissions gap in national climate plans, and make advances on finance, including to help countries adapt to climate change.”
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An Indigenous woman holds a sign reading, “The future belongs to the people” during the “Indigenous People Global March” at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Belém, Brazil, on November 17, 2025. (Photo by Pablo Poriuncula/AFP via Getty Images)
“A roadmap for delivering on 1.5°C without a credible fossil fuel phaseout at its core is hollow,” said one campaigner.
Climate justice organizers on Tuesday expressed some cautious optimism that a draft text out of the United NationsClimate Change Conference in Belém, Brazil contained “building blocks” of a climate justice package that is needed to draw down planet-heating fossil fuel emissions and help the poorest and least-polluting countries confront the climate emergency—but advocates said that with just three days to go until the summit is over, the document still falls far short of delivering solutions.
The draft text, released by COP30 President André Corrêa do Lago, includes references to a “transition away from fossil fuels,” and calls for annual reviews of countries’ Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), the efforts they pledge to make to reduce their emissions.
But a day after campaigners expressed optimism about 62 countries and country groups endorsing Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s call for a Transition Away From Fossil Fuels (TAFF) Roadmap, 350.org condemned the draft text for mentioning the roadmap only in paragraph 44—and excluding a fossil fuel phaseout from that section of the proposal.
The TAFF Roadmap, according to the draft, would recognize that “finance, capacity-building, and technology transfer are critical enablers of climate action.”
The text also calls for “a high-level ministerial roundtable” where countries would discuss national circumstances, pathways to limiting planetary heating to 1.5°C over preindustrial temperatures, and approaches to supporting government in developing just transition roadmaps, “including to progressively overcome their dependency on fossil fuels and towards halting and reversing deforestation.”
But 350.org condemned that call as an “exceptionally weak,” sole reference to a fossil fuel transition, warning that “a mandated ministerial and a report… offer symbolism, not action.”
“For the decision to carry credibility, the presidency must embed a fossil fuel transition roadmap directly into the 1.5°C response, not relegate it to the margins,” said the group in its analysis of the document. “The roadmap must be placed in the section addressing the 1.5°C ambition gap, where it is currently absent.”
Andreas Sieber, associate director of policy and campaigns for 350.org, said that “the draft text may contain the right ingredients, but it’s been assembled in a way that leaves a bitter aftertaste.”
“For the decision to carry credibility, the presidency must embed a fossil fuel transition roadmap directly into the 1.5°C response, not relegate it to the margins. The roadmap must be placed in the section addressing the 1.5°C ambition gap, where it is currently absent.”
“A roadmap for delivering on 1.5°C without a credible fossil fuel phaseout at its core is hollow. The COP30 presidency must heed the many parties, including President Lula, calling for a clear transition pathway and put it where it belongs: at the center of the 1.5°C response, balanced with adequate finance,” said Sieber. “Without this, the overall effort will fall short.”
The group emphasized that a credible COP30 final text will include “a balanced package that delivers climate finance, strengthened adaptation measures, and a clear road map for phasing out fossil fuels.”
“Without all three pillars in place, a durable and effective agreement will not be possible,” said 350.org
The text mentions climate finance 26 times, the Guardian reported, and urges wealthy countries to clearly lay out their plans to provide financial assistance to the Global South—at a ministerial roundtable in one option included in the document, or through a “Belém Global De-Risking and Project Preparation and Development Facility,” which would “catalyze climate finance and implementation in developing country parties by translating Nationally Determined Contributions and national adaptation plans into project pipelines.”
But 350.org noted that pledges made to a global adaptation fund on Monday “once again fell short with only $133 million secured out of the $300 million target.”
Fanny Petitbon, France team lead for 350.org, warned that “adaptation has long been forgotten in climate finance,” and called on the presidency to ensure it has a central role in the final text.
“Crucially, the call to triple adaptation finance must stay,” said Petitbon. “There is no credible ambition without supporting communities already facing the devastating impacts of the climate emergency. The presidency has begun to respond to strong demands for developed countries to pay their climate debt, which is key for rebuilding trust in all negotiating rooms.”
“But the text still lacks a plan to fully deliver on the collective climate finance goal agreed upon in Baku [at COP29]—ignoring innovative sources of finance like taxing major polluters and the superrich,” Petitibon added, “and fails to guarantee direct access for the most vulnerable, including Indigenous peoples.”
At Oil Change International, global policy leader Romain Ioualalen said the options related to fossil fuels presented in the draft were “wildly unacceptable and a blatant dereliction of duty while the world burns.”
“We don’t need a COP decision to convene a workshop or ministerial roundtable on fossil fuels. What we need is a clear collective direction of travel on how countries intend to phase out fossil fuels based on equity, and how rich Global North countries will provide finance and support to the countries that need it,” said Ioualalen.
“Ministers must fix this mess,” he added, “and deliver the progress that we need to make the fair and funded transition away from fossil fuels they promised in Dubai [at COP28] a reality.”
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Left, Bjorn Lomborg speaks at the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship Conference in 2023. Credit: ARC Forum, C0 Right, billionaire Microsoft founder and philanthropist Bill Gates. Credit: DOE/Ken Shipp, C0
Tax records reveal that the billionaire’s foundation has donated for years to Lomborg’s Copenhagen Consensus Center.
Bill Gates’ charity has donated more than $3.5 million to a think tank run by the Danish academic and climate crisis denier Bjørn Lomborg, according to U.S. tax records reviewed by DeSmog.
The donations, which were made between 2017 and 2022, were listed on IRS 990 Forms filed by the Gates Foundation. Those donations went to the Copenhagen Consensus Center, which describes itself as a “think tank that researches the smartest solutions for the world’s biggest problems, advising policy-makers and philanthropists how to spend their money most effectively.”
The center was created by Lomborg, who for years has argued in op-eds, lectures, and broadcast media that there are more important global issues to prioritize than climate change, writing in April that “it is not the existential threat that some would have us believe.”
Those views align closely with a controversial memo Gates recently published during the lead-up to the United Nations COP30 climate summit in Belém, Brazil, in which the philanthropist, who is worth an estimated $118 billion, argued that climate change “will not lead to humanity’s demise.”
The Microsoft founder and longtime public health philanthropist claimed that a “doomsday outlook” about the future of the climate is “causing much of the climate community to focus too much on near-term emissions goals” and that is “diverting resources from the most effective things we should be doing to improve life in a warming world.”
Gates’ “tough truths” post came on the heels of the United Nations Secretary General António Guterres noting that it is now “inevitable” that the world is on track to at least temporarily burst past the 1.5 degrees C (2.7 degrees F) warming target of the Paris Agreement, with “dramatic consequences.”
Gates’ arguments have drawn outcries of dismay from some of the world’s top climate scientists, who have pointed out that “this memo is already being championed by those seeking to misinform and sow doubt about climate change and delay climate progress–up to and including the executive branch of the United States government.”
But Lomborg is full of praise for the billionaire who has frequently donated to his think tank.
“Revolutionary climate truth: @BillGates nails it,” he posted on X.
Bjorn Lomborg praises Bill Gates’ climate memo in a tweet: “Revolutionary climate truth: @BillGates nails it for Brazil #COP30”
The Gates Foundation and the Copenhagen Consensus Center didn’t respond to a request for comment.
“He’s read some of my stuff”
In total, the Gates Foundation (formerly known as the The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation) has donated $3,519,491 to Lomborg’s think tank. The most recent tax filing on record includes a 2022 donation to the Copenhagen Consensus Center worth $1.25 million, which went to support “community engagement grantmaking.”
Lomborg’s center credits the Gates Foundation with providing “financial support” for a 2021 report identifying development priorities for Africa. That report ranked climate solutions such as “resilience to drought” and “solar energy for unreliable grids” in the bottom third of a list of investment opportunities for the continent.
The report ranked objectives such as “family planning,” “R&D for agricultural yield increase,” and “tobacco control” at the top of the list. “All other things equal, the policies producing high returns should be funded before the ones with low return,” it noted.
The relationship between Lomborg and Gates goes back at least as far as 2014.
That year, DeSmog reported that Gates had published a blog post promoting Lomborg’s views. In the post, Gates argued that as rich countries “push to get serious about confronting climate change,” telling poorer countries not to rely on fossil fuels is wrong.
“For one thing, poor countries represent a small part of the carbon-emissions problem. And they desperately need cheap sources of energy now to fuel the economic growth that lifts families out of poverty. They can’t afford today’s expensive clean energy solutions, and we can’t expect them wait for the technology to get cheaper,” Gates wrote.
In the video, Lomborg can be seen climbing a staircase with the words “Fighting poverty with fossil fuels” painted behind him.
Bill Gates was featuring the work of climate crisis denier Bjorn Lomborg at least as far back as 2014. This GatesNotes video shows Lomborg against a backdrop with the words “Fighting poverty with fossil fuels.”
As recently as 2023, Lomborg co-authored a GatesNotes post with Gates arguing that the UN Sustainable Development Goals are “too much of a good thing” because they say the world is not “stepping up to fund all of them.”
In response to the October 28 Gates climate memo, Lomborg told Newsweek that “I’ve met with Mr. Gates himself several times. He’s read some of my stuff.” However, Lomborg did not directly take credit with influencing Gates’ views in the “Three Tough Truths about Climate” memo.
Deniers Celebrate Gates
Shortly after the memo’s release, U.S. President Donald Trumpdeclared on his social media platform Truth Social: “I (WE!) just won the War on the Climate Change Hoax. Bill Gates has finally admitted that he was completely WRONG on the issue. It took courage to do so, and for that we are all grateful. MAGA!!!”
Trump is not alone in his celebration. Several long-time climate crisis deniers are cheering the statement from Gates, including Robert Bradley of the Institute for Energy Research, a nonprofit that attacks renewables and criticizes decarbonization plans.
Alex Epstein, who himself has cited Lomborg as an influence, said last week that “we should celebrate that Bill Gates has seen the light.” Epstein, the “fossil fuel philosopher” who helped shape the clean energy cuts in Trump’s domestic policy bill, claimed that Gates’ memo is in part a response to a Trump administration that “that is pro-fossil fuel and very anti-climate catastrophist.”
Gates’ backsliding on climate is not just words, it’s money and resources. For instance, in March, he made deep cuts to the climate policy staff of Breakthrough Energy, the “clean energy” organization he founded in 2015 and whose work he touted in his October 28 memo.
Explaining his “pivot” on climate change during an interview on CNBC, Gates said, “I’ll let the temperature go up 0.1 degree to get rid of malaria. People don’t understand the suffering that exists today.” Afterwards, Lomborg took to X to praise Gates, writing, “Exactly right!”
Arguments like this have garnered sharp criticism from climate leaders.
Gates is wrong to frame climate change and human well-being as disconnected, zero-sum issues, argues climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe. “We are nowhere near maxing out investment in & implementation of [solutions] that benefit people, health, climate and nature at the same time,” the Texas Tech professor and chief scientist at The Nature Conservancy posted on Bluesky. “[The climate, pollution, and nature crises] are already actively amplifying poverty, hunger, and division.”
“There is no greater threat to developing nations than the climate crisis,” Michael Mann, University of Pennsylvania climate scientist, told CNN in response to the Gates memo. “He’s got this all backwards.”
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