On a warm morning at Matemwe, a small crowd gathers behind a rope barrier as the sand begins to tremble. A tiny head pushes through a soft mound of earth, then another, and another. Within minutes, the shallow nest—protected for weeks by a ring of wooden stakes and mesh—comes alive with the rustle of dozens […]

By M. Zakir Hossain Khan
DHAKA, Bangladesh, Nov 25 2025 – COP30 in Belém is not just another annual climate meeting, it is the 32-year report card of the world governance architecture that was conceived at the Rio Earth Summit of 1992. And that is what report card says: delivery has been sporadic, cosmetic and perilously disconnected with the physics of climatic breakdown.

M. Zakir Hossain Khan

The Amazon, which was once regarded in Rio as an ecological miracle of the world, is now on the verge of an irreversible precipice. Even the communities that struggled to protect it over millennia also demonstrate against COP30 to make it clear that they do not oppose multilateralism, but because multilateralism has marginalized them many times.

Rio Promised Rights, Take Part, and Protection, But Delivery Has Been Fragmented

Rio Summit gave birth to three pillars of international environmental control: UNFCCC (climate), CBD (biodiversity) and UNCCD (desertification). Every one of them was supposed to be participating, equitable and accountable. But progressively delivery disintegrated:

• Rio has only achieved 34 per cent biodiversity commitments (CBD GBO-5).
• CO₂ emissions rose over 60% since 1992.
• The globe is headed to 2.7 o C with the existing policies (UNEP 2024).
• The funding obligations are in a chronic state of arrears, adaptation requirements are three times higher than the real flows.

Rio gave the world a vision. COP30 demonstrates the fact that that vision is yet to be developed.

The Rights Gap: The Key Failure between Rio and Belém

Although Rio pledged to involve Indigenous people, Indigenous people today are only getting less than 1 percent of climate finance. In addition, it caused a rising trend of carbon market-related land grabs and resource exploitation, because of the lack of binding power in the decisions regarding climate. This is not a delivery gap but a right gap. COP30 has been improved technically but has failed to redress the inherent imbalance at Rio that remained unaddressed: decision-making in the absence of custodianship.

The Sleepiness Menace Came to Rio and Detonated by COP30

Rio established three overlapping conventions that lacked a single governance structure. Climate to oceans, food, forests, finance, security, and technology; CBD to traditional knowledge, access and benefit-sharing, and UNCCD to migration, peace and livelihoods all increased over the decades.

The outcome is an institution that is too broad to govern effectively, making watered-down decisions and poor accountability. COP30 is being developed, however, within a system that was never intended to deal with planetary collapse on this level.

The Amazon: The Ultimate Test of Rio on Prognosis

Rio glorified forests as the breathing organs of the world. However, three decades later:

• Amazon was deforested by 17 per cent and was close to the 20-25 per cent dieback mark.
• Native land protectors become increasingly violent.
• Carbon markets run the risk of stimulating extraction in the name of green growth.

Another pledge is not required by Amazon. It requires energy from its protectors. That was missing in Rio. It is still missing in COP30. Indigenous people depicted in CoP30 in all their frustration and agitation are the consequences of the system failure to provide them with a say in the decision-making process and the unceasing denial of their natural rights.

Young: The Post-Rio Generation that was Duped by Incrementalism

The post-Rio generation (those that were born after the year 30) is more than 50 percent of the world population. They left behind a) tripled fossil subsidy regime; b) soaring climate debt; c) ever-turbid biodiversity collapse; d) rising climate disasters; and e) inability to send up $100B/year finance on time.

They are only impatient not because of emotions. They observe that a system that was developed in 1992 to address a slow-paced crisis can no longer be applied to the fast emergency of 2025.

Natural Rights Led Governance (NRLG): Making Good What Rio Left, but Left Incomplete

Natural Rights-Led Governance (NRLG) provides the structural correction that Rio has evaded: a) Nature as a law-rights holder, not a resource; b) Indigenous peoples as co-governors, not consultants; c) Compulsory ecological and rights-based control, not voluntary reporting; d) Direct financing to custodians, not bureaucratic leakage; e) Accountability enforceable in law, not conditional on political comfort. NRLG is not the alternative to the vision of Rio, it is the long-deserved update that will turn the arguments of Rio into reality.

The Verdict: COP30 Moves forward, yet Rio Business Unfinished Haunts it

The advancement of COP30 with its stronger fossil language, more comprehensible measurements of adaptation, new pressure on financing is a reality that is inadequate. It advances the paperwork. It is yet to develop the power shift that would safeguard nature or humanity. As long as rights are not yet non-negotiable, the Rio-to-COP30 trip will be a tale of great promises, half-fulfilled and increasingly dangerous.

What the World Must Do Now

Include nature and Indigenous rights in the COP document; construct governance based on custodianship and co-decision; a system of NCQG to deliver finance to communities; no longer voluntary but obligatory commitments reflecting the final Advisory of ICJ assuming integration of natural rights as a prelude to human rights; and use NRLG as the backbone to all future multilateral climate action.

Rio taught us what to do. COP30 is an education about the consequences of procrastinating. The 30-year period is not going to forgive the errors made in the previous 30. The world should stop being a promise and change to power, negotiate to justice, Rio dream of NRLG deliveries. The deadline is not 2050. It is now.

Rio had sworn justice and rights, but COP30 taught a crueler lesson: the world made promises and not protection. Emission increased, ecosystems failed, money is not spent on fulfilling the finances and Indigenous guardians, to the last remaining forests, continue to get less than 1% of climate money and nearly no say. It is not a policy gap but a failure of rights and governance. If the leaders of the world do not recalibrate climate architecture based on natural rights, since co-decision of the Indigenous and on binding commitments rather than a voluntary one, COP30 will be remembered as the moment when the system was exposed as limiting, not as the moment when the system was fixed. This is no longer a promising problem it is a power problem. And the deadline is not 2050. It is now.

M Zakir Hossain Khan is the Chief Executive at Change Initiative, a Dhaka based think-tank, Observer of Climate Investment Fund (CIF); Architect and Proponent of Natural Rights Led Governance (NRLG).

IPS UN Bureau

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By Ananthu Anilkumar and Simone Galimberti
KATHMANDU, Nepal, Nov 25 2025 – Less than five years from 2030 it is time for the international community to confront the future of the Agenda 2030 and its Sustainable Development Goals.

The SDGs turned what was a generic declaration into a tangible and actionable blueprint.

As ample evidence shows, so far, the implementation of the SDGs have been a tremendous disappointment with all the goals being off the track.

Recent UN assessments show how far the world is from meeting the SDGs. Only 16 to 17 % of targets are on track. Out of 137 targets with available data, about 35% show on track or moderate progress, 47% show marginal or no progress, and 18% have moved backwards since 2015.

Some of the most urgent areas are among the furthest off track, including Zero Hunger (SDG 2), Sustainable Cities (SDG 11), Life Below Water (SDG 14), Life on Land (SDG 15), and Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions (SDG 16).

Weak institutional commitments, poor coordination, the failure to integrate SDGs into budgets and policies, and the voluntary nature of reporting have all held back progress. At the same time, breaches of planetary boundaries tied to climate and biosphere integrity threaten the conditions needed for sustainable development.

Even where gains exist, such as in education and disease reduction, they remain slow and fragile. The data is clear. The world is not on course for 2030.

As the world edges toward 2030, these conversations can no longer be postponed. The SDGs did more than outline global aspirations. They created a shared language for justice, dignity, and sustainability. They shaped policy debates and mobilized public attention in ways the development field had not seen before, even if governments often ignored the direction they set.

Yet the SDGs have served an important, we would say, indispensable purpose to the international community even if states wasted it.

First, the SDGs functioned not only as a springboard for action but also as an accountability tool
to keep a check on states’ commitments towards achieving a world without poverty, inequalities and deprivations while guaranteeing a greener, more sustainable and just economic framework.’
Unfortunately, leadership never matched the ambition of the goals.

Many governments failed to translate the SDGs into national and regional strategies capable of real impact.

Least developed countries lacked financial resources and effective institutions, with weak governance, corruption, and mismanagement limiting their ability to plan and implement reforms.

At the same time, wealthier nations refused to scale up development cooperation to levels required for transformative progress.

In short, both governments in the Global South and Global North are complicit in avoiding fulfilling their duties towards the present next generations.

As much as this absence of stewardship towards the people and the planet has been a moral disaster, the international community has enough time to frame a different formula to ensure that whatever will come after the expiration of the Agenda 2030 will be a success.

This loss of momentum reflects more than technical shortcomings.

It shows how fragile political will has been, especially in a model built around voluntary participation. The SDGs lost traction because governments were free to treat them as optional. The gap between aspiration and action became a moral failure as well as a governance one.

Let’s remind ourselves that the launch of the SDGs had started with a “boom”. There was a visible, contagious enthusiasm and everyone was interested to know more about the Agenda 2030.

Notwithstanding the complex negotiations at the UN Secretariat first with the Open Working Group and then with the Intergovernamental Negotiations that followed, there was a vibrant participation of non state actors.

Civil society organizations and global advocacy networks were deeply involved in shaping the SDGs. Their expertise, campaigning, and coordination helped bring local realities, social justice concerns, and thematic priorities into the negotiation rooms.

Then, there was a period, in the aftermath of 2015 when the document was endorsed after three years of negotiations, in which talking about the SDGs was very trendy and on the top of the agenda not only for governments but also for non-state actors, from civil society organizations to universities to corporate players.

That passion soon vanished and there are many reasons for this, including the rise of climate change as a threat to our planet, a phenomenon of paramount importance but somehow overshadowed other important policy agenda.

What will be next?

In 2027 the UN will formally start a conversation about the future of the Agenda 2030.
How to shape the conversation that will lead to a revised framework?

In the months and years ahead, assuring the same level of involvement and participation will be important but not enough. Civil society inputs and contributions must evolve into a broader, more democratic process that moves beyond representation by established organizations.

Communities who live the consequences of global policies every day must be able to shape the next framework directly. Should we start imagining a revamped roadmap that will enable Planet Earth to decarbonize where inequalities are wiped out and where every child will have a chance to have quality health and meaningful educational pathways?

The negotiations that led to the SDGs were contentious and complex in such a way that some of the goals were more the results of internal bargains and trade-offs among governments at the UN rather than genuine attempts to solve policy issues.

Certainly, while brainstorming for the next agenda, the global oversight system of the SDGs will be put into discussion.

Rather than the current model centered on the High-Level Political Forum where, on rotation some goals are discussed and where nations at their complete will voluntarily share their reports, what in jargon is called National Voluntary Reviews, it would be much more effective to have a model resembling the Universal Periodic Reviews applied at the Human Rights Council.

States should mandatorily present updates of their work in implementing the next generation of the SDGs and if we are serious about creating a better world, such reviews should happen annually.

Localization must also become central rather than optional. The localization of the SDGs should also be formally adopted and mainstreamed in the official playbook, prompting local governments to play their parts.

Some have already been doing that but it is a tiny minority and often such a process of localization happens without engagement and involvement of local communities.

This must change in such a way to truly empower local communities to have an ownership over local planning and decision making in matters of sustainable and equitable development.

True localization requires building formal pathways for community participation and ensuring that subnational institutions shape priorities. People closest to the issues should help define the solutions.

Without local ownership, global frameworks remain abstract and ineffective.

While some local governments have aligned their work with SDG priorities, most of these efforts remain isolated and disconnected from the communities they are meant to serve.

Localizing the next Agenda offers an opportunity to democratize the future of the goals.
Development cannot be sustainable when local voices are excluded from planning and decision making.

These and other propositions should be up for debate and review in the months and years ahead.

We do hope that experts and policy makers will discuss in detail ways to strengthen the future development agenda, building on the lessons that led first to the establishment of the SDGs and also leaning on the experiences that are still being made on their implementation.

At the start of the discussions on “what’s next”, we do believe that young people should have a big and real say.

Involving young people and enabling them to have agency in contributing to the future of the Agenda 2030 is one of the best guarantees that the new governance related to the future goals will be stronger and more inclusive.

Imagine youths lab around the world starting the conversation about the post Agenda 2030 scenarios.

How can the goals be strengthened?

Capacity building of students could also become an opportunity to open up the decision making on one of the most important agendas of our time.

Imagine youths’ assemblies and forums to discuss and ideate the future global development goals. Such exercise should not become the traditional top down approach designed and backed by donor agencies like in the past.

Rather it can embed more radical and ambitious principles of grassroots level deliberative democracy and shared decision making.

One thing is certain: without a profound acceleration, the current trends in implementing the SDGs will not shift.

Realistically speaking, it is highly probable that we will reach the 2030 with an abysmal record of accomplishment in terms of realizing the Agenda 2030.

The international community can avoid such shameful outcomes while designing a post 2030 framework.

There is still time to design an agenda that is accountable, inclusive, and grounded in lived experience. But this requires listening to those who will inherit the consequences of today’s decisions.

The next framework can be drastically different if young people, rather than diplomats and government officials, will meaningfully own the process.

The young generations should not only lead in the designing of a new “Global Sustainable Development Deal” but also have a say and voice into its implementation.

Only then, governments at all levels will take the job of ensuring a future for humanity seriously.

Ananthu Anilkumar writes on human rights, development cooperation, and global governance. Simone Galimberti writes about the SDGs, youth-centered policy-making and a stronger and better United Nations.

IPS UN Bureau

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By James Alix Michel
VICTORIA, Seychelles, Nov 25 2025 – When the world gathered in Glasgow for COP26, the mantra was “building back better.” Two years later, in Sharm El Sheikh, COP27 promised “implementation.”

This year, in Belém, Brazil, COP30 arrived with a heavier burden: to finally bridge the chasm between lofty rhetoric and the urgent, measurable steps needed to keep 1.5 °C alive.

James Alix Michel

What Was Expected of COP30 were modest yet critical. After the disappointments of Copenhagen (2009) and the optimism sparked by Paris (2015), developing nations, small island states, Indigenous groups and a swelling youth movement demanded three things:

1. Binding phase out timelines for coal, oil and gas.
2. A fully funded Loss and Damage Facility to compensate vulnerable countries already suffering climate impacts.
3. Scaled up adaptation finance—tripling the $120 billion a year pledge and ensuring it reaches the frontline communities that need it most.

However the negotiations evolved into a tug of war between ambition and inertia. Wealthier nations, still reeling from economic shocks, offered incremental increases in adaptation funding and a new Tropical Forests Forever Facility (TFFF) worth $125 billion, with 20 percent earmarked for Indigenous stewardship. The Global Implementation Accelerator—a two year bridge to align Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) with 1.5 °C—was launched, alongside a Just Transition Mechanism to share technology and financing.

However, the text on fossil fuel phase out remained voluntary; the Loss and Damage Fund was referenced but not capitalised; and the $120 billion adaptation pledge fell short of the $310 billion annual need.

But there were Voices That Could Not Be Ignored.

Developing Nations (the G77+China) reminded the plenary that climate justice is not a charity—it is a legal obligation under the UNFCCC. They demanded that historic emitters honor their “common but differentiated responsibilities.”

Island States(AOSIS) warned that sea level rise is no longer a future scenario; it is eroding coastlines and displacing entire cultures. Their plea: “1.5 °C is our survival, not a bargaining chip.”

Indigenous Peoples highlighted the destruction of Amazon and Boreal forests, urging that 30 percent of all climate finance flow directly to communities that protect 80 percent of biodiversity.

Youth — The Gen Z generation, marched outside the venue, chanting “We will not be diluted” demanding binding commitments and accountability mechanisms.

The Legacy of Copenhagen, Paris, and the Empty COPs –

I attended COP15 in Copenhagen (2009), where the “Danish draft” was rejected, and the summit collapsed amid accusations of exclusion. The disappointment lingered until Paris (2015), where the 1.5 °C aspiration was enshrined, sparking hope that multilateralism could still work. Since then, COPs have been a carousel of promises: the Green Climate Fund fell $20 billion short; the 2022 Glasgow Climate Pact promised “phasing out coal” but left loopholes. Each iteration has chipped away at trust.

COP30 was billed as the moment to reverse that trend.

And the result? Partial progress, but far from the transformational shift required.

Did We Achieve What We Hoped For?

In blunt terms: No. The pledges secured are insufficient to limit warming to 1.5 °C, and critical gaps—binding fossil fuel timelines, robust loss and damage funding, and true equity in finance—remain unfilled.

Yet, there are glimmers. The tripling of adaptation finance, the first concrete allocation for Indigenous led forest protection, and the creation of an Implementation Accelerator signal that the architecture for change exists. The challenge now is to fill it with real money and accountability.

Let us look at ‘What Must Happen Next’

1. Full Capitalisation of Loss and Damage Fund
– G20 nations must commit 0.1 % of GDP and disburse within 12 months.
2. Binding Fossil Fuel Phase out – Coal, oil and gas with just transition financing for workers.
3. Scale Adaptation Finance to $310 billion/yr
– Re channel subsidies from fossil fuels to resilience projects.
4. Direct Funding for Indigenous and Youth Initiatives
– Allocate 30 % of climate finance to community led stewardship.
5. Strengthen Accountability
– Mandate annual NDC updates with independent verification and penalties for non compliance.

But for all this to become reality there must be a determined effort to achieve Future Actions.
We have watched promises fade after every COP, yet the physics of climate change remains unforgiving. The urgency is not new; the window to act is shrinking. But hope endures – in the solar panels lighting remote villages, in mangroves being restored to buffer storms, in the relentless energy of young activists demanding a livable planet.

Humanity has the knowledge, technology, and resources. What we need now is the collective political will to use them. Let COP30 be remembered not as another empty summit, but as the turning point where the world chose survival over complacency.

The future is not written; we write it with every decision we make today.

James Alix Michel, Former President Republic of Seychelles, Member Club de Madrid.

IPS UN Bureau

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