COP30 negotiations in Belem are mired in secrecy, with no progress reported on the Global Goal on Adaptation indicators.
Observers criticise lack of transparency, as contentious issues remain unresolved.
The African Group and LMDCs demand further technical work, while developed countries resist finance obligations.
The indicators to measure the progress of the various thematic and dimensional targets under the Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA) framework that was to be adopted at the 30th Conference of Parties (COP30) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Belem, Brazil is stuck on various issues and no one knows what progress is happening behind closed doors.
On November 19, 2025, no news of progress on the COP30 presidency’s Mutirao proposal or the other major and contentious negotiation items such as the GGA indicators came forth. Observers following the negotiations highlighted the lack of clarity, transparency and inclusivity on part of the COP30 presidency.
“At the start, the COP 30 Presidency smartly managed to avoid an agenda fight over the most politically sensitive issues and also the consultations were open to observers, so it was all good. But now everything is behind closed doors. That’s when transparency matters the most,” Pratishtha Singh, international diplomacy manager at Climate Action Network, Canada, told Down To Earth.
The COP30 Presidency sent out a note to Parties and Observers on November 19, saying, “The COP30 Presidency is reflecting on consultations held and written inputs received. Delegates may wish to leave the venue. Draft texts will be released in the morning of November 20.”
The Presidency took the negotiations behind closed doors on November 18 itself and the observers were waiting for some movement in terms of text or informal consultations but nothing really happened, according to Singh.
Specifically on the GGA indicators, the negotiations have had Parties differing on a range of issues in the past couple of weeks. Parties have not even agreed upon whether the list of 100 indicators, which have been filtered down from the original list of 5,000 in a painstaking process over two years, should be adopted at COP30 or if there should be further technical work on them.
“Most groups (least developed countries, European Union, United Kingdom, Canada, Grupo SUR consisting of like-minded Latin American and Caribbean countries) support adoption. Others (Alliance of small island states, like-minded developing countries, Arab Group, African Group of Negotiators) are resisting, arguing that they are not fully ready and need more technical work,” said Singh.
The African Group wanted “a two-year policy alignment process to refine the indicators, alongside technical work on methodologies and meta data,” according to the Earth Negotiations Bulletin (ENB) of the International Institute of Sustainable Development.
The African Group also pointed out that the list of indicators “is problematic as it includes ‘intrusive indicators’ that track domestic policies and shifts responsibility from developed to developing countries, eroding solidarity”, according to ENB.
The like-minded developing countries bloc, that includes India, wanted the UNFCCC secretariat to prepare a technical paper on the indicators and an analysis of reported information on thematic and dimensional indicators, ENB reported. LMDCs also wanted testing of indicators through a piloting phase which was opposed by Japan that did not want new processes and work streams.
Australia was of the opinion that “some proposals make the indicators seem like a ‘finance tracking regime’ and that ‘the narrative that domestic resources are irrelevant is false”.
The most contentious issue still remains the inclusion of indicators on means of implantation, which includes finance and technology to track the indicators and other GGA-related assessments and processes. “Means of implementation (MoI) indicators are still acting as a pressure point. Developing countries want stronger, more concrete MoI indicators that reflect finance, technology and capacity-building gaps. While, developed countries want to avoid creating implicit finance obligations through indicators,” said Singh.
On their part, the COP30 Presidency said during a press conference they want COP30 to be an “Adaptation COP” with: GGA as the central outcome, and a strong push for increasing adaptation resources.
Whether this closed doors policy of the Brazilian presidency is able to achieve their own ambitions remains to be seen on the last two days of COP30, with the draft texts awaited on the morning of November 20 (Belem time).