European Economic
and Social Committee
EESC PLENARY: After COP30 civil society urges renewed commitment to necessary global climate action
At its December plenary, the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) held a debate on ‘Thirty COPs later and a decade after the Paris Agreement: assessing global climate action and opportunities for civil society’, with reactions to the outcome of COP30 – the annual meeting of the parties of the agreement – at the centre of discussion. Elisa Morgera, UN Special Rapporteur on Climate Change and Human Rights, Ivone Kaizeler, Deputy Head of Multilateral Affairs Unit within the Directorate-General for Climate Action (DG CLIMA) of the EU Commission, and Samira Ben Ali, EESC Youth Delegate to COP, participated in the debate. The conference in Belém closed with a now-familiar warning: the world remains far from the ambition needed to keep global warming within 1.5°C.
While COP30 preserved the United Nations' climate governance framework, negotiators once again failed to agree on a roadmap for phasing out fossil fuels – a gap that scientists and civil society argue leaves the world drifting further off course. For the EESC, which has long called for a decisive shift away from fossil energy and deeper emissions cuts, this shortfall is a serious concern.
EESC President Séamus Boland captured the stakes clearly, urging resilience in the face of climate fatigue: Today we reflected on the COP’s outcomes and the broader issues shaping future climate discussions. It is easy to feel overwhelmed by the negativity that often surrounds the climate debate, but we must not allow this. I urge you and those around you to hold on to optimism, commitment, energy and hope. Without them, we risk losing a battle we cannot afford to lose.
Several members of the EESC's Civil Society Organisations' Group contributed to the debate:
Civil Society Organisations’ Group President Cillian Lohan reaffirmed that the EU's transition to a climate-neutral economy with net-zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2050 cannot happen with governments and states alone; we need civil society organisations, business and workers to take the lead and drive the change we so urgently need
.
Stoyan Tchoukanov, president of the Committee's Section for Agriculture, Rural Development and the Environment (NAT), who was part of the EU delegation to Brazil, highlighted the gap between public expectations and political action, stating that he witnessed the dissonance between what people want and talk about, and what politicians choose to address. It is essential to keep communication with civil society alive because our perspectives reflect real-life experience and can drive meaningful change.
Corina Murafa Benga expressed her disappointment that an agreement on the fossil-fuel phaseout could not be reached, noting that fossil fuels are driving the triple planetary crisis
: climate change, biodiversity loss, and air pollution. She emphasised that the EU should actively engage in this initiative and walk the walk at home.
Adja Pistotnik stressed that 30 COPs later, global emissions are still rising and inequalities are still widening because the architecture of climate governance is protecting the very system driving the crisis: economic growth.
Anna Schoemakers agreed that the UN climate conference has been another chapter in a uniquely longstanding diplomatic effort for climate action to save our planet, but half the countries did not commit to a fossil-fuel phaseout, which renders it a failure.
Read the EESC’s news: https://www.eesc.europa.eu/en/news-media/news/cop30-ends-warnings-lost-momentum-civil-society-demands-bolder-action
Watch the debate at: https://webstreaming.europarl.europa.eu/ep/embed/embed.html?event=20251204-0900-SPECIAL-OTHER?