The UN Climate Summit 2025: What’s at stake?

This November, the annual UN Climate Summit will take place in Belém, Brazil. World leaders, activists, and negotiators will meet in the middle of the Amazon rain first to decide the next steps in the fight against climate change. It sounds far away, but this conference is extremely important. What happens in Brazil has the potential to shape the climate policies my generation and the generations to come will encounter. 

Stronger Promises 

COP30 is the moment when countries are expected to submit stronger climate commitments, officially called Nationally Determined Contributions. These are the targets nations set for cutting emissions, and right now, most of them aren’t nearly strong enough. Hopefully, this summit can be the reset button on these promises and make them strong enough to start working for our climate goals. 

Money

Another major focus is climate finance. Developing countries need funding to adapt to disasters like floods and heat waves, and to build clean energy systems instead of sticking to fossil fuels. The plan “Bake to Belém Roadmap” aims to scale climate finance to $1.3 trillion a year by 2035. It sounds like a massive amount but when compared to the costs of inaction, it could be nearly not enough. The larger issue is whether wealthier countries will actually deliver on what they’ve promised. 

Forests and the Amazon 

Since Brazil is hosting, forests are front and center. The amazon is often called the lungs of the planet, and its protection is directly tied to the global climate. Brazil has proposed the Tropical Forest Forever Facility which would channel billions of dollars into protecting tropical forests starting in 2026. If countries back it, this could be one of the most important outcomes of COP30. 

Adaptation 

Mitigation isn’t the whole story. Countries also need to support adaptation. That means helping vulnerable communities deal with climate impacts that are already happening. Negotiators will also discuss how to make the energy transition just, so that people aren’t left behind as economies move away from fossil fuels. 

Challenges 

The challenges are clear. Some countries still haven’t submitted updated climate plans. Divisions between wealthy and developing nations over who pays for what remain unresolved. Even the logistics of the summit are complicated – Belém doesn’t have enough hotels to host everyone and the cost of accommodation could shut down smaller delegations and youth groups. That matters, because the people most affected by climate change are too often excluded from the decisions being made, especially the youth. 

Why this matters to youth 

At the end of the day, it’s easy to see COP30 as just another round of speeches. But the reality is that the choices made in Belém will ripple into the future we inherit. Whether it’s unbearable heat waves, rising seas, or the possibility of a clean energy economy, these negotiations decide what our world will look like. That’s why youth involvement matters. From protests to lawsuits to advisory groups, young people have already been forcing leaders to pay attention. 

Climate summits don’t solve everything. They are slow and often disappointing. However, they remain one of the only places where the entire world comes together to act on this crisis.