COP30’s Presidency has initiated two roadmap processes: one on transitioning away from fossil fuels and another on halting and reversing deforestation by 2030.
Country submissions show wide differences in national priorities, shaped by development needs, energy security concerns and domestic economic conditions.
Developing countries have placed finance at the centre of both processes, calling for predictable, accessible and grant-based support from the developed world.
The submissions reveal familiar fault lines between historical emitters and countries still navigating development, with the Bonn climate conference expected to test whether the roadmaps move beyond process.
During the closing plenary of the 30th Conference of the Parties (COP30) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Belém, Brazil, COP President André Corrêa do Lago unveiled two roadmaps, one outlining a just, orderly, and equitable transition away from fossil fuels, and the other setting out actions to halt and reverse deforestation and forest degradation by 2030.
The roadmaps are central to the process initiated by the COP30 Presidency with the aim to share views on national strategies, context-driven challenges and financing mechanisms that would play a crucial role on both fronts in transitioning to sustainable alternatives in the long term. However, it is also important to note that the roadmaps are not a negotiated text or binding instrument under the UNFCCC.
Countries, or Parties, and non-party stakeholders were invited in March 2026 to make submissions to the two roadmap processes, setting out their positions on the two issues. They are summarised below.
Submissions to the roadmap on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels (TAFF) and the roadmap on halting deforestation are based on national circumstances. This means the strategies and challenges they identify are also shaped by local contexts, reflecting the diversity of views in both processes.
On the roadmap for TAFF, developed countries such as the European Union, Norway and Iceland converge around carbon pricing and carbon capture and storage as ways to address the phase-out of fossil fuels. Japan, meanwhile, aims to approach decarbonisation through a phased strategy that includes transition technologies.
Developing countries place reform of the international financial architecture at the centre of their submissions. Colombia and Costa Rica both flag that existing financial flows are misaligned with national climate priorities.
Least developed countries (LDC), however, explicitly demand grant-based finance as the primary strategy for the transition. Countries such as Bangladesh, Sierra Leone and Cambodia point to weak grid infrastructure, limited fiscal space and the high upfront costs of renewable energy as barriers to their transition. Notably, Jordan anchors its entire energy transition strategy in its world-leading solar irradiance and making no demands for external finance.
Small Island Developing States (SIDS) show a sharp divide. Vanuatu is the most ambitious, demanding a binding fossil fuel treaty with a “polluter pays” surtax and proposing concrete phase-out timelines. At the other end of the spectrum, Suriname plans to expand oil and gas extraction to fund development, making it the only SIDS submission that does not advocate an accelerated phase-out.
The Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) aims to balance the ecological fragility of ecosystems with the fragility of their economies. It calls for mechanisms such as debt-for-nature swaps and advocates simplified access to international funds. Guyana and Suriname, in separate submissions, demanded that countries with already low rates of deforestation should be financially rewarded for maintaining standing forests.
This tension between ambition and action is also reflected across LDCs. They, too, demand scaling up results-based finance, but the challenges they face in halting deforestation are shaped mainly by economic constraints.
Sudan is a stark example. Ongoing conflict has driven 70 per cent reliance on biomass for energy, making deforestation a survival issue rather than simply a policy choice. Across many LDCs, reliance on fuelwood and a lack of alternative energy heighten the central issue of energy security.
Among developing countries, Indonesia and Mexico make the most operationally detailed submissions. Indonesia’s social forestry programme has allocated more than eight million hectares to local communities. Mexico targets zero net deforestation by 2030 and identifies pasture expansion as responsible for 73 per cent of domestic forest loss.
For most developed countries, the challenges relate to a range of pressures, including forest fires, agricultural expansion and illegal logging. Many of them converge on supply-chain accountability and market mechanisms such as Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation, or REDD+ as strategies to mitigate deforestation.
Further, implementation of the European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) by the EU signals a shift towards deploying consumption-driven deforestation signals; as opposed to submissions by developing countries such as Indonesia and Mexico that target production-side measures such as Payment for Ecosystem Services.
Taken together, the country submissions on TAFF and deforestation reveal the divergence between historical emitters and countries still navigating development needs. The roadmaps capture the diversity of national priorities, shaped by domestic economic circumstances.
However, with finance continuing to be a fault line, it is also a lens through which the lack of trust in multilateralism becomes visible. The finance question — especially whether funds are predictable, grant-based, accessible and available at scale — will again be a litmus test of the political will of developed countries to help deliver these roadmaps.
Neither the TAFF nor the deforestation roadmap can deliver on its stated goals if the cost of capital for renewable energy financing remains high, or if standing forests remain financially invisible for the Global South.
Up next, the 64th session of the UNFCCC Subsidiary Bodies, or the Bonn climate conference, beginning June 8, 2026 offers the first significant multilateral moment to understand whether these roadmaps translate into a structured dialogue or remain procedural documents.