The outcomes of the recent COP30 climate conference in Brazilian Amazon city of Belém have rung alarm bells among humanitarian agencies.

The past three years are the warmest on record, and 2025 has seen major disasters from major flooding in Kashmir, drought across Africa and Hurricane Melissa, one of the most destructive storms ever seen, that devastated Jamaica and other parts of the Caribbean.

And, for the first time ever, the final agreement at COP countenanced the prospect of an “overshoot” of 1.5C of global warming.

Governments agreed at the landmark 2015 Paris Agreement to try to limit warming to 1.5C above preindustrial levels to avoid the most dangerous effects of hotter climate change, though any increase is harmful.

A lack of funding was one negative aspect of the COP. Observers say developing countries will not be able to fund their own transition away from fossil fuels while drowning in debt and climate disasters.

A lack of money also affected the humanitarian presence at COP 30, with fewer numbers attending than previous recent summits.

Head of Policy at the Global Risks and Resilience program at the London-based ODI think tank Mauricio Vazquez told the conference that low-income countries will suffer the most.

“Because these countries have high levels of humanitarian needs and they’re in protracted crises, they are considered ‘high risk’ for loans and other sources of climate finance – which makes them reliant on vertical climate funds and bilateral ODA related to climate, both of which are being squeezed. If you are a country reliant on these sources of finance, the outlook is grim,” he said.

Hopes for increasing ‘adaptation finance’ also did not eventuate in Belém.

Adaptation finance is funding to help lower-income countries prepare for and live with climate change impacts,

This has been underfunded for years, with just $US26 billion provided in 2023, despite an identified need for hundreds of billions.

Brazil’s COP 30 President André Aranha Corrêa do Lago said the summit was a chance to reach a “turning point”.

But the final decision amounted merely to a call for “efforts to at least triple adaptation finance by 2035”. 

The Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD) was officially launched at Belem. 

But while the fund has been set up and is preparing to start accepting funding proposals, it remains underfunded, observers say.

There was also little focus on conflict avoidance and its intersection with climate and humanitarian crises.

“COP 30 did not do enough to further discussions on how we make the climate finance architecture more suitable for the most under-served. It shied away from tough topics, like how to help people living in conflict-riven places, displaced persons, refugees, and people living in areas under non-state armed groups,” Mr Vazquez said. 

“The hard truth is that many of the most climate-vulnerable people often live in the most difficult, intractable settings, often affected by conflict and crisis – which inevitably means that you will be dealing with fragile or contested governments and non-state armed actors.

“But climate funds aren’t set up for investing in these areas, and climate projects are rarely dealing with these complex, highly political on-the-ground dynamics,” he said.