COP30: What is at stake for people in fragile countries
by Jaspreet Kindra
It is not surprising for a negotiator from the global South at the annual UN climate change talks to have a breakdown. The burden of negotiating on behalf of their people, who are in the frontlines of the climate crisis lies heavy on their shoulders.
During the 2009 talks in Copenhagen, which did not end up with a widely accepted outcome, Sudan’s Lumumba Di-Aping, the then lead negotiator of the G77 and China, broke down, and said, Africa had been asked to sign a suicide pact.
There is no single outcome expected from the 30th Conference of Parties (COP) which signed the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
But there is a lot at stake at the COP in Belém, Brazil for people living in fragile countries, who continue to be pounded by extreme weather events. They need far more financial and technical support to adapt. And they need the world to act now to cut their greenhouse gas emissions. Every further increment of temperature rise means more climate crisis-related disasters affecting those who are least responsible for the crisis.
Here is what 2025 looked like for people in vulnerable countries:
Consecutive cyclones in Madagascar and Mozambique
In February, south-west Madagascar was hit by two cyclones, Honde and Garance, following two years of drought. Both came within days of each other. Read an account from Maremasy, the chief of Tanalavebe village, which was severely affected. “Our livestock [poultry, zebu] were wiped out. Cassava, Madagascar’s main crop, and maize were torn up by the wind,” said Maremasy.
More than a million people in Mozambique were affected by two cyclones (Dikeledi, Jude) in the first three months of the year. Substantial damage to crops was reported.
Recurring floods in Kinshasa
In April, for the third successive year, people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) grappled with floods. This year, the capital, Kinshasa, was the worst affected with flash floods and landslides. At least 165 people were killed.
“Future increase in heavy rainfall due to climate change is a strong possibility,” in the DRC said a study led by World Weather Attribution (WWA), an initiative formed by leading global climate researchers.
Fuelled by the floods and ongoing conflict, DRC is also experiencing one of its worst cholera outbreaks in recent times. The outbreak has affected most of its 26 provinces.
This year, CERF provided $2.25 million in anticipatory financing to help aid workers control the outbreak in various provinces.
Monsoon flooding in Pakistan
More than 6.9 million people were affected by a devastating monsoon season in Pakistan. The heavy prolonged rains that led to landslides and flash floods claimed more than 1,000 lives. Heavy rains raised the water levels of Pakistan’s major rivers, making them breach their banks. This led to Pakistan’s breadbasket and most populous province, Punjab, experiencing its worst flooding in four decades.
Human-caused climate change intensified the heavy monsoon rain in Pakistan, said a study led by WWA.
Syria battles wildfires
Wildfires fuelled by a combination of extreme heat, prolonged drought and strong winds, overwhelmed Syria’s Lattakia Governorate in July this year. The fires spread to parts of Hama and Idleb Governorates.
But the wildfires were symptomatic of a far deeper crisis. This year, Syria experienced it worst drought in more than 40 years. The situation had been made worse by 14 years of conflict that had taken its toll on the agricultural infrastructure.
In September, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization estimated that more than 16 million people would struggle to access food this year.
Hurricane Melissa – the strongest storm this year, so far
Hurricane Melissa, which made landfall in Jamaica in October as a Category 5 storm left a trail of devastation affecting 1.5 million people ─ more than half the country’s population. It also hit Cuba and the Bahamas, with severe effects also felt in Haiti, the Dominican Republic and parts of Central America.
Nearly 5 million people in Cuba, Haiti and Jamaica have been affected. According to authorities in all three countries, the hurricane claimed at least 75 lives, displaced more than 770,000 people, and damaged or destroyed tens of thousands of homes, schools and healthcare facilities.
Within four minutes of the forecast for Cuba, the CERF provided $4 million to help people prepare ahead of the storm. Another $4 million was released for Haiti. The fund also made $4 million available for Jamaica to help UN agencies scale up response.
Climate change is adding to the intensity of severe storms in the Caribbean. As oceans warm, storms carry more energy with higher risks of rapid intensification, heavier rain & stronger peak winds.
Super Typhoon Fung-Wong slams the Philippines
One of the strongest storms of the year -─ Cyclone Fung-Wong ─ slammed the Philippines on 9 November. It was the 21st tropical cyclone to hit the Philippines during a very intense cyclone season this year.
Days ahead of the projected landfall, the CERF released nearly $6 million to UN agencies and their partners, including the Government, to deliver life-saving assistance to more than 400,000 vulnerable people at high risk of being severely affected by the tropical cyclone.
More than 1.3 million people were evacuated across 13 of the country’s 18 regions before the storm made landfall, in one of the Philippines’ largest ever pre-emptive operations.
