November 2025 marked the 30th convening of the United Nations climate conference (COP). Woodwell Climate has been a pivotal player in the annual COP since our founder, Dr. George Woodwell and early staff members, played an instrumental role in the creation of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) which enacts the annual conferences. This year was an important milestone for Woodwell due to its focus on tropical forests and nature-based solutions. Woodwell Climate sent 17 staff and scientists to Belem, Brazil, where they spoke at 52 events, and continued the Center’s legacy of advancing science-informed climate policy. Here are 4 takeaways from this year’s conference.

What is COP? Learn more about what goes on at climate’s biggest event of the year in this explainer.

1. COP30 was Brazil’s time to shine

As host country, Brazil used COP 30 to vault themselves into global leadership, to press the importance of international cooperation, and to build bridges between the global north and south. COP30 served as the launchpad for several forest-centered initiatives spearheaded by Brazil, including the Tropical Forests Forever Facility, a new financial solution that would pay tropical countries to keep their forests standing. Woodwell Senior Policy Advisor Frances Seymour and Associate Scientist Dr. Glenn Bush provided input and technical assistance to help launch the TFFF. In addition, Brazil launched a global initiative on wildfire resilience and a global coalition to harmonize carbon markets. Brazil also announced that they will publish two roadmaps in 2026: one to chart the course towards ending halting and reversing deforestation, and another for transitioning away from fossil fuels.

2. NDCs were one of the trickiest issues at COP30 

Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) are the promises each party country to the UNFCCC makes every five years, to reduce their emissions. Ahead of COP30, countries were supposed to submit their third round of NDCs to raise their ambition. However, many NDCs were missing by the start of the conference, and those presented would reduce emissions only by 10-12% from 2019 levels by 2035, a far cry from the 60% the IPCC says is needed to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. The European Union, Latin America, and small island nations attempted to advance this conversation but this was opposed by major emerging economies, who view the NDCs as a commitment to be worked out at the national level.

During several speaking events, Woodwell Senior Research Scientist Dr. Christina Schaedel emphasized the importance of including growing emissions from Arctic permafrost thaw in NDCs and estimates of the global carbon budget. Schaedel’s research has focused on modeling the contributions of permafrost-thaw emissions to sea level rise, temperature increases, and damage costs.

Given strong opposing interests, the issue of NDCs was not resolved by the end of the conference. The UNFCCC instead set up two workstreams to discuss NDC ambition: the Global Implementation Accelerator and the Belem Mission to 1.5. Details about what shape these discussions will take is still forthcoming.

3. Climate finance took center stage

During COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, countries agreed to mobilize $1.3 trillion per year by 2035 for climate adaptation and mitigation. Many hoped COP30 negotiations would identify funding sources to reach that goal: developing countries wanted public finance from industrialized countries, while industrialized countries insisted that finance must also come from major emerging economies and non-governmental sources. Again, the official outcome was to launch work programs to address the issue outside of conference. The programs created will tackle questions of finance obligations and climate-friendly investments.

Woodwell experts provided important contributions to the complex climate finance debate: Seymour played a lead role in the Forest Finance Roadmap for Action highlighted by a coalition of 34 countries, and Vice President of Science, Dr. Wayne Walker introduced a roadmap for carbon and biodiversity credits that takes a community-based and Indigenous-led approach for generating climate finance. 

4. Measurements of progress towards resilience

Countries did reach an agreement on indicators to help measure progress on adaptation and resilience goals in sectors like water, agriculture, health, ecosystems, infrastructure, poverty eradication, and cultural heritage, as well as on resilience efforts, including risk assessments, adaptation planning, and early warning systems. 59 indicators were identified for countries to use in their future progress reports. Woodwell Climate has been supporting adaptation efforts through the Just Access program, which provides cost-free risk assessments to local, state, and national governments around the world.  

Next year’s COP will be hosted jointly by Türkiye and Australia in Antalya, Türkiye, and while the agendas are not fixed, the outcomes of this year’s conference have indicated that NDCs and climate finance will continue to be high priority issues. In addition, a new global stocktake, a required moment under the Paris Agreement to re-evaluate the state of the planet and progress towards goals, is on the horizon.

Every five years, all 195 signatories of the 2015 Paris Agreement must submit updated plans to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions to limit global warming. These plans, known as Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), are key components of the agreement and represent countries’ highest ambitions for emissions reductions over the next decade. 

“The NDC is a pledge,” Director of International Government Relations at Woodwell Climate Dr. Matti Goldberg says. “It’s a pledge by a government to reduce their emissions by a certain amount, by a certain time frame. It can also be a pledge of taking certain types of actions. Each NDC also contains plans and measures to put it into action.”

This year, countries must submit their third NDC ahead of COP30 in Belém, Brazil.

How do NDCs fit into the Paris Agreement?

The Paris Agreement is a legally-binding international treaty under the UNFCCC. The treaty states that signatories should work together to limit global temperature increase to “well under 2°C” above pre-industrial levels and pursue efforts to keep the increase below 1.5°C. Nationally Determined Contributions outline how countries plan to achieve this goal and take other measures as part of the global climate effort.  

Each NDC must build upon a country’s previous submission and reflect the party’s “highest possible ambition,” according to the Paris Agreement. While parties are legally required to submit an NDC and pursue actions to reach the target, they are “not legally bound to reach the target,” Goldberg says. “It’s a gigantic loophole in a way…although such flexibility is obviously necessary for countries to agree to this, and it does create a structure of pressure.” 

After NDCs are submitted, the UNFCCC assesses the combined impact of countries’ NDCs on projected global emissions in a synthesis report. Parties in the Paris agreement also submit a Biennial Transparency Report (BTR) every two years, which outlines each country’s progress made towards accomplishing their NDCs. 

“It’s the country’s own assessment,” Goldberg says. “But if a country announces a metric, then others can, of course, also look at whether that metric is being followed. This information creates the basis for civil society and other governments to put pressure on those governments.” Further transparency is created by a process where international experts review each country’s biennial reports.

Despite the ambitious intent of NDCs, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Simon Stiell determined last November that previous pledges fell “miles short of what’s needed to stop global heating from crippling every economy and wrecking billions of lives and livelihoods across every country.”

What is in the 2025 NDCs?

NDCs were initially due in February 2025, but with only 13 Parties submitting on time, the UNFCCC Secretariat announced a cut-off date in September to have enough time to prepare its synthesis before the start of COP30 in November.  China, the United States, India, the European Union, Russia and Brazil were the world’s top emitters in 2023. Together, these six parties accounted for 62.7% of all global emissions. Of the top greenhouse gas emitters, only the U.S. and Brazil sent in their NDCs as of early September 2025.

The United States submitted its NDC in 2024 under the Biden Administration and set a target of reducing its net greenhouse gas emissions by 61 to 66% below 2005 levels in 2035. After taking office, President Trump issued an executive order announcing the U.S.’s intent to withdraw from the Paris Agreement, which will go into effect in 2026. After January 2026, the U.S. will no longer be required to submit new NDCs or Biennial Transparency Reports.

Despite the country’s withdrawal, Goldberg says the U.S. may see a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions because of its continuing transition from coal to natural gas, renewables and nuclear power — which, according to Goldberg, is driven more by economics and less by policy. Still, Dr. Christopher Schwalm, Vice President of Science at Woodwell Climate, predicts there is “no way” the United States will hit the targets set out in the NDC given the current global political climate. Even if the U.S. does reach its goals, the NDC still does not align with the global 1.5°C limit, according to the Climate Action Tracker. Schwalm calls the 1.5°C target “dead as a doornail.” To reach this goal, we would have needed global greenhouse gas emissions to peak by 2025. 

Brazil’s most recent NDC states a goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions 59% to 67% compared to its 2005 emissions. Goldberg calls it a “pretty ambitious” absolute target for a country classified as a developing country under the UNFCCC. However, the Brazilian climate organization Observatório do Clima states the NDC goals do not align with the global 1.5°C limit.

How could reaching targets in NDCs impact warming trajectories?

Woodwell Climate research scientist Dr. Abigail Lute wanted to see how much of a difference just two of the top-emitting countries’ NDCs could make.

“Are we moving the needle here or not?” she says. “How much are we moving the needle? Are we moving it enough to avoid 2°C? That’s the big picture, to see how ambitious these new pledges are.” 

Lute modeled how both the U.S. and Brazil’s promises together could change the global warming trajectory using a “middle-of-the-road” scenario for future greenhouse gas emissions — though, at the moment, that scenario might be more optimistic than our current trajectory, she says. 

For the first ten to 20 years after implementing the NDCs, temperatures will temporarily increase. This is due to the reduction in polluting gases such as sulfates that actually have a cooling effect in the atmosphere. After about a decade or two, the reduction in warming gases such as methane and carbon dioxide will cause temperatures to fall. 

According to Lute’s calculations, under moderate emissions scenarios, the probability of exceeding 2°C is 25% by 2050 and 78% by 2100. If both the U.S. and Brazil reach their NDC targets, the probability of exceeding 2°C stays about the same for 2050 but drops down to 73% for 2100. 

Global warming is expected to reach 1.8°C  by 2050 and 2.3°C by 2100 under the medium emissions scenario. With the U.S. and Brazil’s combined NDCs, Lute expects warming to be reduced by about 0.01°C in 2050 and 0.06°C by 2100. 

While these contributions may seem small, Brazil and the U.S. only represent two of the 195 parties in the Paris Agreement. 

“It’s two of the larger ones for sure, but it’s only two,” Lute says. “If we extrapolate it to everybody, then it can make a meaningful difference…the story here is that everybody needs to contribute. This is a collective problem, and even one large country can’t solve it.”

While the annual climate Conference of Parties (COP) each fall is the largest and most visible event of the global climate effort, international climate action happens all year long. Each June, United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) holds a preparatory conference in Bonn, Germany. These summer climate meetings, often referred to in shorthand as “Bonn,” bring together up to 7000 delegates for the nitty gritty work of international cooperation.

At Bonn, government delegations negotiate the full range of issues surrounding global climate collaboration, scientific organizations present their latest findings, civil society groups advocate for climate action, and diverse coalitions showcase their efforts. The June meetings lay the groundwork for decisionmaking and collaboration at the upcoming COP, and often give a clear indication of the challenges to come in the fall negotiations. This year, from June 16 to 26, conversations at Bonn spanned topics including the development of indicators for global resilience, clarifying how the world should pursue the global energy and forestry related targets agreed on at COP 28, mobilizing climate finance, increasing countries’ ambition for emissions reduction, and ensuring a just global transition away from fossil fuels. 

This year’s summer meetings proved a tough one for governments attempting to move forward on nearly every issue, though delegates did manage to achieve clarity on the decisionmaking agenda for the upcoming COP30, to be held in Belém, Brazil in November. In the science realm, the UNFCCC launched a systematic mapping of what research needs are currently being met by the scientific community and where there are still gaps in actionable information. 

Beyond the intergovernmental negotiations the conference included a wide range of events and activities by observer organizations. A Woodwell Climate delegation was in attendance again this year, taking part in some of the key activities of the conference. Here are 3 highlights from The Center’s engagement at this year’s June climate meetings.

On top of substantive agenda items, participants tried to grapple with the logistical issues arising around the conference in Belém, with affordability and accessibility being particularly acute concerns for non-governmental organizations and Global South participants. Despite the questions remaining on this front, the outcomes from this June’s climate meetings have built the foundations for a pivotal COP30 agenda— at a time when ambitious climate action couldn’t be more important.