From 10 to 21 November 2025, the 30th Conference of the Parties (COP30) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) will take place in Belém, Brazil. Ten years after the Paris Agreement, this conference marks the transition from negotiation to implementation, as countries are expected to submit new, more ambitious Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) aligned with the 1.5°C pathway. This phase of implementation will be supported by a revitalised Action Agenda, designed to mobilise all actors around concrete initiatives, in the spirit of a Global Mutirão. Located at the confluence of the Amazon and the Atlantic, Belém embodies Brazil’s ambition to place nature at the heart of climate action. This highly symbolic location serves as a reminder that nature-based solutions are essential to achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement and strengthening the resilience of territories in the face of climate change.
Making Belém a turning point for implementation
COP30 will take place in Belém, Brazil, from 10 to 21 November 2025, under the Brazilian presidency. It will open in a complex international context marked by geopolitical tensions, a crisis of multilateralism, and growing mistrust towards science. Despite these divides, expectations are high. Following COP29, whose results were deemed insufficient in light of the urgency of climate action, the Brazilian presidency faces a major challenge: to restore confidence in multilateralism and international cooperation, particularly among developing countries.
COP30 coincides with the tenth anniversary of the Paris Agreement and the end of its first cycle – including the submission of initial Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and their assessment through the first Global Stocktake in 2023. It therefore marks a crucial shift from negotiation to implementation. This new phase begins as the 2023 Global Stocktake revealed a worrying gap between commitments and action, showing a trajectory exceeding 2.5°C of warming. The new NDCs, expected before the conference, will be decisive in realigning collective action with the 1.5°C target and strengthening the credibility of climate COPs.
The ocean at the heart of climate action
Among Brazil’s ambitions for this conference is to place nature back at the centre of climate action, recognising both its vulnerability and its potential for mitigation, adaptation, and resilience. In Belém, where the Amazon meets the Atlantic, the ocean should be recognised, alongside the forest, as the other great lung of the planet. As a regulator of our climate, the ocean is also a major source of solutions to address climate change. Ocean-based solutions could contribute up to 35% of the emission reductions needed by 2050 to maintain the 1.5°C pathway, while strengthening the resilience of ecosystems and coastal communities.
Realising this potential requires that ocean-climate solutions be fully integrated into national climate strategies. In this regard, Brazil and France launched the Blue NDC Challenge in June. The objective is to expand this coalition and create a cooperation platform facilitating access to technical and financial support for the implementation of ocean-based climate solutions. Brazil, by including the ocean in its NDC for the first time, sent a strong political signal and reaffirmed its commitment to nature-based climate action.
While States will focus on implementing their commitments at COP30, negotiations will continue on adaptation-related issues, including the definition of indicators to monitor progress towards the Global Goal on Adaptation. The challenge will be to ensure the inclusion of nature-based and ecosystem indicators – especially coastal ones – to recognise their role in maintaining and enhancing territorial resilience.
However, these ambitions will only materialise through the mobilisation of adequate and sustainable funding – an essential condition to turn political commitments into tangible action.
Unlocking finance for ocean-climate action
Financing the ocean means financing the climate. Yet, only 1% of global climate finance is dedicated to the ocean (1). Following the adoption of the New Collective Quantified Goal at COP29 – setting a global target of USD 1.3 trillion per year by 2035, including USD 300 billion from developed countries – the question now is how these funds will be distributed across sectors.
To this end, the COP29 and COP30 presidencies developed the Baku to Belém Roadmap, setting out priorities and early actions to guide States, institutions, and the private sector in collectively directing climate finance towards concrete solutions. The roadmap highlights that “it is essential to increase ocean finance to support marine protected areas, blue carbon ecosystems and coastal community resilience.”
The roadmap also stresses that “as implementation accelerates under the Rio Conventions, it is essential to strengthen coherence between the agendas on climate, biodiversity and land degradation.”
Strengthening synergies among the Rio Conventions
At the dawn of this implementation phase, it is essential to recall that ocean-based solutions can simultaneously contribute to the implementation of the Paris Agreement and the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, adopted under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). To date, these two frameworks remain largely disconnected: policies are still developed in silos, addressing climate and biodiversity goals separately. Yet their impact could be amplified and optimised through an integrated approach. The CBD’s adoption of a strengthened cooperation mandate with the UNFCCC at COP16 (2024) marked a decisive step forward. It is now up to States to adopt a similar mandate at COP30, to advance this collaboration within the UNFCCC – potentially leading, for instance, to the creation of a joint working group ahead of COP31.
The Ocean & Climate Platform (OCP) supports this approach through its report Blue Thread: Aligning National Climate and Biodiversity Strategies, which calls for joint planning of NDCs and National Biodiversity Strategies, and better coordination of monitoring and financing frameworks. By placing the ocean at the centre of this alignment, States can enhance coherence and effectiveness while maximising co-benefits for climate, biodiversity, and coastal communities.
Moreover, while effective implementation requires greater institutional collaboration, it also depends on concrete cooperation among States, local actors and civil society to turn political commitments into collective, sustainable, equitable and just action.
Civil society driving implementation
By inaugurating the era of implementation, Brazil aims to bring together governments, local authorities, businesses, scientific institutions and civil society to ensure coordinated action around concrete solutions, in the spirit of a Global Mutirão. To this end, the presidency has elevated the Action Agenda — revised and strengthened — to the same level as the negotiations, focusing on practical solutions and medium-term goals designed to correct course before the second Global Stocktake in 2028. André Corrêa do Lago, President of COP30, aims to make this dynamic a demonstration of collective efficiency, “transforming climate action from cacophony into an orchestrated symphony, where multilateral negotiations set the score and where the NDCs and the Action Agenda provide the instruments.”
Within this framework, the OCP, as focal point of the Marrakech Partnership Ocean & Coastal Zones, joined the secretariat of one of several groups created to support the realisation of the Action Agenda. In close collaboration with the Climate Champions and the COP30 presidency, the OCP coordinated the efforts of many initiatives working on the ocean-climate nexus to develop the Blue Package: a roadmap to accelerate the implementation of ocean-climate solutions by 2028.
The Ocean Breakthroughs form its strategic foundation, defining five positive tipping points to be achieved by 2030 in marine conservation, shipping, coastal tourism, marine renewable energy, and aquatic food systems. These science-based targets aim to accelerate the deployment of ocean-based solutions that support mitigation, adaptation, and resilience for the benefit of climate, nature, and people. An online platform will be unveiled during the conference to track progress across sectors and identify areas where further action is needed.
A COP to rebuild trust and action
Ten years after Paris, COP30 will open the era of implementation. States must translate their commitments from the past decade into concrete actions, alongside new strategies commensurate with the climate emergency. To meet the objectives of the Paris Agreement, these strategies must fully integrate ocean-based solutions, which offer significant potential for mitigation, adaptation, and resilience. The OCP supports this transition to implementation and seeks to guide decision-makers through this new phase. Through its new policy recommendations, A Collective Change of Course for the Ocean, Climate and Biodiversity, it encourages decision makers to Understand, Deliver and Reshape. It presents a clear vision of a future where decisions are guided by science, solutions are implemented with urgency, and our political and socio-economic systems are transformed to halt the decline in ocean health. Indeed, to ensure that commitments deliver tangible outcomes, it is essential to rethink our relationship with the ocean, its governance, and its use. The transition to come must restore balance by building sustainable economies and societies living in harmony with nature.
(1) Barber, M., Mitchell, W., von Hirsch, T., & Vyas, T. (2021, November). A drop in the ocean: Closing the gap in ocean climate finance. Deloitte, Whale and Dolphin Conservation, Marine Conservation Society
Authors: Margaux Escudier, Cyrielle Lâm