On June 20, 2025, the Brazilian COP30 Presidency released a fourth letter to reaffirm its commitment to advance a global Mutirão against climate change. The letter calls on parties and stakeholders to address the urgency of climate change “through an ambitious and integrated Action Agenda at COP30”, outlining 30 objectives across 6 areas.
This letter is now the fourth in a series of letters from the COP30 Presidency that has failed to deliver a bold and necessary stance on loss & damage, with the first and second letters omitting any mention of loss & damage entirely. Following civil society backlash, the third letter briefly touched on loss & damage, with the Presidency raising the need to “strengthen the institutionalization and interconnectedness among the three dimensions of loss and damage under the UNFCCC, the Executive Committee of the Warsaw International Mechanism, the Santiago Network and the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage — whilst successfully concluding the review of the Warsaw International Mechanism”. Yet this faint glimmer of hope was quickly extinguished by the fourth letter. While the message starts off by detailing a loss and damage event suffered in May 2024 by the population of Rio Grande do Sul, in southern Brazil, the terms themselves were never used in the letter.
Loss and Damage continues to be sidelined. This essential pillar of climate action is not afforded the urgency or political gravity it demands. Among the action agenda’s 30 objectives, loss and damage is neither prioritized nor presented as a critical, time-sensitive issue. This is more than a shortfall in political will, it reflects a failure to acknowledge the irreversible harm endured daily by frontline communities. It also reveals a persistent disregard for the injustice that developing countries have faced for over three decades, as they shoulder the burden of addressing loss and damage.
We, alongside other observers have regularly pointed out succinctly that the COP 30 presidency failed to address the glaring issue of loss and damage. This omission is not a minor oversight; it is a political decision, it is a pointed gun for developing countries to keep their head down and accept the bare minimum.
Loss and Damage represents the greatest injustice of our generation. It serves as a daily reminder that the world is choosing to ignore the harsh realities faced by frontline communities and developing nations, those who contributed least to the climate crisis. It is a stark indication that we remain far from achieving true global solidarity in climate action
With all due respect, we, as a coalition, wish to remind the COP presidency that loss and damage holds a central place in the discussions taking place in Belém. A stark illustration of the urgent need to address this issue at COP 30 is the current state of the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD), which remains critically underfunded—pledges amounting to less than 0.0001% of the actual needs. This is not a statistic that can be brushed aside, nor can the presidency ignore its significance.
Therefore, we strongly urge the Presidency to encourage parties to:
- Include Loss and Damage as a standalone item in the next Presidency’s letter, signaling the political urgency and gravity of the issue. Doing so would send a clear message within the UNFCCC process that Loss and Damage must be recognized as the third pillar of the Convention and the Paris Agreement. This would rightfully elevate it to a separate agenda item under the UNFCCC, ensuring that the priorities and concerns of developing countries are fully and independently represented.
- Integrate Loss and Damage finance into the ‘Baku to Belém $1.3 Trillion Roadmap’. The roadmap must explicitly commit to predictable and adequate resource mobilisation for the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD). This financial trajectory should be firmly grounded in the principles of Common But Differentiated Responsibilities and Respective Capabilities (CBDR-RC), as enshrined in Articles 7, 8, and 12 of the relevant decisions of the New Climate Finance Goal. These articles establish a baseline that the new global finance goal must reflect the evolving needs of developing countries among which Loss and Damage is a critical priority.
- Explicitly reject climate finance models rooted in debt, delay, and donor-driven control. It is imperative to establish a common definition of climate finance – one that guarantees it is new, additional, accessible, and grant-based. This definition must align with the priorities and needs of frontline communities confronting the adverse impacts of the human-induced climate crisis.
- Encourage the development of clear guidelines that ensure the inclusion of Loss and Damage in Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and Biennial Transparency Reports (BTRs). By COP30, this will help send a global signal of clarity, on where we stand, what is needed, and the direction we must collectively take to address Loss and Damage effectively.
- Ensure that youth, Indigenous peoples, and frontline communities are meaningfully engaged in shaping responses, and not merely mentioned for symbolic inclusion. This must begin by making the SBs and COP processes genuinely accessible to youth from the Global South. Each year, countless voices are excluded due to visa injustices, inaccessible accreditation pathways, and prohibitively expensive travel and accommodation costs. These barriers not only silence critical perspectives but also undermine the credibility of inclusive global climate action.