Inequity's deadly hold: COP30 must resist political capture and prioritise people over profits
Elite capture and fossil lies: Time for climate realism and a fair-shares reset
A new civil-society report, “Inequity, Inequality, Inaction,” delivers a stark verdict: three decades after the Rio Earth Summit and a decade on from the Paris Agreement, governments are still protecting profits over people - shielded by elite capture and fossil-fuel disinformation. Climate cooperation is breaking down, and COP30 must deliver a fair-shares reset rooted in justice, not greed.
The report shows that Global North countries have failed to cut emissions and are still expanding oil and gas, while also failing to deliver promised finance. The global finance system is failing too: instead of providing public funds at the scale needed, it traps many countries in debt and dependence. While the Global South is closer to meeting its fair share, it still needs to take more effective climate action but is all too often held back by this debt and lack of funds. Climate cooperation is paralysed, and global goals will remain out of reach unless COP30 delivers a reset - moving from loans to grants, from profit-driven finance to public support that enables countries to invest in clean energy, resilience, and jobs.
The collapse of ambition at COP29 in Baku left trust in ruins and cooperation stalled. The Global South’s calls for trillions in real public finance were met with token pledges and false accounting, leaving the poorest nations trapped between debt and disaster. COP30 in Belém is therefore more than another negotiation - it is a chance to rebuild trust, deliver fair shares, and keep climate ambition alive.
The report also warns that inequality within countries is driving the crisis. The global rich can shield themselves from many climate impacts while pushing the costs of transition and disaster onto workers and overstretched public systems. This elite capture - particularly by fossil fuel interests - of crucial political processes is deepening injustice, fuelling political paralysis, and blocking the stronger action needed to keep us within climate limits. This paralysis extends to militarised conflicts that divert trillions from climate action - COP30 must redirect those resources to peace and genuine multilateral cooperation.
In the face of this systemic failure, incrementalism is obsolete. COP30 must confront this political reality with a new climate realism - one that pushes ahead with rapid transformative change anchored in equity, justice, and cooperation.
Climate failure isn’t about a lack of ambition - it’s about injustice. COP30 must prove that ambition and justice are not opposites but inseparable: only fair shares can unlock the scale of action needed.
What COP30 must deliver
The report identifies three breakthroughs COP30 must achieve:
1. Fair-shares NDCs: clear commitments on finance and fossil fuel phaseout.
2. A finance reset: a radical overhaul of international financial architecture, shifting from debt and loans to substantial public, grant-based support, including debt cancellation and global taxation.
3. Just transition frameworks: putting workers, women, youth, and Indigenous peoples at the centre, breaking elite capture through progressive taxes and zero-carbon economic shifts, while redirecting militarised resources towards peace, cooperation, and strengthened democratic institutions and human rights law, with protection for jobs, schools, healthcare, housing, and transport.
The full report is available here, in English: https://equityreview.org/report2025,
Portugese: https://equityreview.org/report2025/pt
and Spanish: https://equityreview.org/report2025/es.
The list of well over 350 groups that have endorsed the report is available at: https://equityreview.org/signatories-2025
Drafting group members’ quotes
“The Report proves that the NDCs approach to international climate action where governments simply define what they are willing to do without any due regard for the consequences for the common climate goal, or for the principles of equity and fairness, and for what the science says is failing. Governments must be compelled through citizens actions to do what is right for humanity and for the planet. This is a call that we, all citizens of the world, must step up and escalate pressure on all governments, but especially those from the Global North.”
“Climate ambition and climate justice are not competing visions - they are one and the same. But both are being strangled by elite capture and fossil lies. Belém must break that grip, reset cooperation on fair shares, and put power back in the hands of people and communities. The Global North must end its wealth hoarding and deliver its overdue debt - in trillions for climate finance, in a rapid fossil-fuel phaseout, and in restoring trust through real solidarity, not empty rhetoric.”
“Ten years after the Paris Agreement we see the familiar story of wealthy Global North countries falling far short of delivering their fair share of emissions reductions and international climate finance, even as they gaslight and blame larger Global South countries for the accelerating climate crisis. Conversely, the majority of Global South countries, despite facing severe climate impacts, have made pledges close to, or exceeding their fair share of climate action. What is stark in this analysis is the role of elites in perpetuating this disastrous and wilful inaction. We must tackle inequality and elite emissions by confronting power, privilege, and historical injustice and fighting for system change.”
“This year’s report is a wake-up call for the climate community and beyond. The energy transition we urgently need — one that phases out fossil fuels and centres fairness — will not happen without a radical shift in the global economy and a deep reform of the international financial system. Without structural change, climate action will continue to fall short. The climate crisis is a justice crisis. Developed countries must take responsibility not only for their failure to deliver meaningful climate action, but also for perpetuating a global economic system that entrenches inequality and neo-colonial control. To unlock real progress, we need to democratise economic decision-making and redirect financial flows toward the global South. It’s time for wealthy nations to act in the interests of the global majority.”
“After 10 years of the Paris Agreement, it is absolutely unacceptable that rich developed countries are failing to contribute their fair share of climate action. These countries - especially the United States - have not cut emissions sufficiently in the past decade. Worse, they also are not making meaningful commitments to accelerate action in the future, even as global temperature goals are breached and the science is extremely clear that much more urgency is needed from the world’s historical polluters. On top of that, rich countries are also failing utterly to provide climate finance - support for poorer and more vulnerable countries to implement their own climate goals. Climate finance is a cornerstone of the Paris Agreement; without it, the entire structure of international climate cooperation falls apart. Rich countries must do their part - there is no time left to wait.”
“At a time when the need for scaled up climate action and support is blindingly obvious, and global conflicts and authoritarianism threaten to displace cooperation and multilateral institutions, a principled equitable approach to global climate action is more important than ever. This report cuts through the excuses and provides a clear vision for who should do what when as part of a fair and equitable effort-sharing to meet our shared climate objectives.”
“The new report shows how fossil fuels drive inequality in every sense - within nations, enriching elites at the expense of the people, and between nations, trapping vulnerable countries in poverty and debt. It reveals decades of sabotage: wealthy countries expanding fossil fuel exploitation while depriving the Global South of financing. We must end this injustice by tackling its source: delivering fair-share funding, equitably phasing out fossil fuels, and prioritizing people over profits. This crisis has never been about a lack of solutions, but about making the right political choices. Countries like Colombia and the Small Island States are leading the charge to build a fossil-free future through a Fossil Fuel Treaty. They are proving that true climate leadership comes from those most impacted, not from polluters blocking progress. The path forward is clear, the question is whether governments will finally follow the courage of those already leading the way.”