From Paris to Belém, via Beijing

Keir Starmer will be attending COP30 in Brazil, after all, ending weeks of speculation that he wouldn’t and what that signalled for the UK’s climate commitments. The Prime Minister’s presence will add weight to the launch of the Tropical Forests Forever Facility (TFFF), which the UK co-designed along with Brazil, Canada, Germany, and the US in 2024. 

The TFFF – a large-scale, long-term fund to pay tropical countries to conserve their forests – will be front and centre of negotiations. It is a mechanism for preventing the Amazon Rainforest (the “lungs of the Earth”) from reaching a critical tipping point by 2050 (as a result of water stress, land clearance and temperature increase) where the entire ecosystem fails and becomes a carbon hazard. Brazil has invested an initial US$1 billion, and the intention is to raise additional US$125 billion from sovereign nations and private investors.

As with most negotiations at this symbolic COP – taking place a decade after the historic Paris Agreement – all eyes will be on China. The world’s largest emitter has publicly endorsed the TFFF and is likely to make a substantial contribution. Since Paris, the chessboard of global climate policy and influence has changed dramatically. The US is now a laggard, not a leader, and the EU continues to procrastinate on flagship targets and policies. In fact, the epicentre of progress has moved to the South and East with China dominating the state of play.

If Britain wants to lead in the green transition – “the economic opportunity of the 21st century”, according the Starmer’s office – it had better be at that table. Amongst the many ‘hot topics in the tropics’, negotiating the trade-offs between preserving natural ecosystems and the extraction of the rare earths will be key, especially as Beijing tightens its grip on the flow of minerals to the West. Earlier this month, it imposed sweeping restrictions on exports of the raw materials and technologies needed to power the transition (not to mention AI). The move was partly a counterstrike in Trump’s ongoing tariff war but is also part of a long-play strategy to position itself as the world leader in the new, clean economy.