Two weeks of frenzied negotiations over the planet’s faltering fight against climate change had come down to this: a pre-dawn battle over shifting away from fossil fuels.

The European Union, the U.K. and other nations had drawn a red line on the second-to-last day of COP30 in Brazil, insisting they would walk away rather than accept a deal that failed to advance a prior commitment to transition away from oil, gas and coal. That agreement had been won at COP28 in Dubai, marking the first time the term “fossil fuels” — responsible for the vast bulk of global warming — had ever appeared in a final text over three decades of United Nations climate summits.

Now a large faction of countries, egged on by Brazil President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in his role as host, had made a renewed push against fossil fuels, turning it into the proving ground for both climate cooperation and the very idea of multilateralism in a rapidly fracturing world. But Brazilian diplomats leading the summit, under pressure from Arab states and Russia, didn’t embrace the proposal.

Just as the threat to scupper a final marquee agreement arose, a fire tore through the venue in the rainforest city of Belém, forcing an hourslong evacuation.

In the end, the holdouts found enough reason to back a deal — if largely to send a signal that countries can still unite behind the climate cause. “There was a will to make sure this agreement didn’t fall,” said Ed Miliband, the U.K.’s energy secretary. “Nobody in that room really wanted to be the people who brought the thing down.” Instead, he added, “there was actually a will to keep the show on the road.”

The E.U., U.K. and their allies won a small victory coded in the minutiae of diplomatic language: a concession that nations should implement carbon-cutting plans “taking into account the decisions” made over years of climate talks, including the fossil fuel transition commitment made in Dubai.

And so it continues. The sluggish business of climate diplomacy that is the annual U.N. Conference of Parties avoided collapse into a no-deal outcome. After a two-week summit near the mouth of the Amazon marked by sweltering heat and daily rainstorms, gone is the grand ambition of the decade after 2015 Paris Agreement when nearly 200 countries joined in a pledge to limit global temperature rise to 1.5C.

Left in its place is a push to actually implement the world’s climate commitments as the 1.5C target slips out of reach. And that well-meaning effort can easily morph into a mandate to reinforce multilateralism — even at the expense of ambition.

“We knew this COP would take place in stormy political waters,” Simon Stiell, the U.N. climate change executive secretary, said at the summit’s close. “COP30 showed that climate cooperation is alive and kicking.”

From the outset, this year’s talks were expected to be more routine, following a series of milestone summit agreements: a decision to create a fund addressing losses and damages from global warming in 2022, the commitment on fossil fuels in 2023, and a deal last year to triple the amount of money available to help developing countries. The rigid cycles of work prescribed by the Paris Agreement hadn’t set up any blockbusters on the summit agenda.

Perhaps that’s why the chief imperative appeared at times to be simply affirming multilateralism. The final agreement of COP30 was even dubbed the “Global Mutirão,” after a Brazilian term for collective action. COP30 President André Corrêa do Lago laid out the stakes before delegates traveled to Belém, telling a Bloomberg Green event: “We have to convince people it's worthwhile to continue to negotiate.”

But then came Lula’s bold declaration that countries should prepare to map their paths away from oil, gas and coal. Speaking to world leaders just before COP30 talks got underway, the Brazilian president delivered a warning that “the climate regime is not immune to the rationale of the zero-sum game that has prevailed in the international order.” He called for “road maps to justly and strategically reverse deforestation, overcome dependence on fossil fuels and mobilize the necessary resources to achieve these goals.”

Lula’s road maps became a rallying cry — and a defining fight — over the next two weeks. “Maybe now we’ll actually have something to negotiate about,” quipped one delegate. Another veteran negotiator said he’d never given such “bad advice” as telling his boss there wouldn’t be any drama in Belém.

Some delegates took up the concept as an imperative to give countries guidance on what ditching fossil fuels meant in practice. The climate summit could help answer difficult questions about how to proceed: Should edging coal out of the energy mix be the priority? Where does natural gas fit in? And how long should the transition take?

The idea gained momentum, especially among ambitious countries frustrated with the pace of action to mitigate climate change as well as those wanting more financial support to deal with its consequences.

It also became a call to arms for the tens of thousands of Indigenous peoples, clergy and activists who flooded the streets of Belém on Nov. 15, the first time in three years in which a host country had allowed protests alongside the talks.

As diplomats inside the COP30 venue deliberated the wording of detailed proposals for measuring the world’s progress, activists outside insisted on “more solutions” and “less diplomacy” — the very message proclaimed on a banner hoisted at the march by Franciscan friar Vicente Imhof.

“We keep hearing proposals, but what matters are concrete actions,” he said. “Being overly diplomatic just to avoid confronting those in power hasn’t worked since the time of Jesus Christ.”

Marina Silva, Brazil’s environment minister, amplified Lula’s call with an impassioned plea of her own. Yet she seemed at times like the only other voice in the Brazilian government arguing for the plan.

“We must chart pathways and secure the financial resources and technical support needed to reduce the high dependence on these fuels,” she told delegates, emphasizing the particular reliance of developing countries.

Lula’s call had “caught people’s imagination,” and Silva’s entreaty “inspired even more,” said Rachel Kyte, the U.K.’s special representative for climate. “This is one of those things that gathers energy.”

The clamor for a concrete path to exit fossil fuels reached its pinnacle at a packed news conference Nov. 18. With security officials holding back hordes of attendees and senior officials from almost 20 nations in attendance, an envoy from the extremely vulnerable Marshall Islands laid out the stakes.

“The transition away from fossil fuels is key to keeping the door open to 1.5C,” Tina Stege said. “So let’s get behind the idea of a fossil fuels road map, work together and make a plan.”

Roughly 80 nations had united behind the push — a significant number, but short of the supermajority that forced the landmark pledge to transition away from fossil fuels in Dubai two years ago.

They met determined opposition from the likes of Saudi Arabia and Russia. Corrêa do Lago, the COP30 president who’d laid out four different areas for high-level consultations, described significant resistance to the plan and then left it out of draft texts circulated in the final days of the summit. The fire that engulfed the tented ceiling above country pavilions forced negotiations into hotels dotted around the city, evoking destructive wildfires fueled by rising temperatures.

In past climate summits, the U.S. might have stepped in to broker a compromise. American diplomats teaming up with Chinese and European counterparts had shaped final deals before, including the breakthrough in Paris. But U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to snub the conference after declaring climate change a “scam” had left a power vacuum in Belém.

Officials from China didn’t take a prominent role in the negotiations. Attendees flocked to the country’s splashy pavilion to collect cuddly panda souvenirs. But Chinese officials emphasized their opposition to tariffs and trade policy as a threat to exports of green technologies — and steered clear of thorny debates about fossil fuels.

Talks spilled into Saturday’s early hours after the E.U., U.K. and others put forward their make-or-break demand. The compromise that emerged around dawn included a written acknowledgment of the Dubai fossil fuels commitment. Corrêa do Lago also shaped a separate initiative to focus on the issue. The side deal means the COP30 presidency will spend the next year considering road maps for shifting away from fossil fuels and combatting deforestation. But the initiative isn’t tucked into formal workflows under the Paris Agreement, meaning it lacks the backing of international law.

“I know some of you had higher ambitions,” Corrêa do Lago told delegates. “I will try not to disappoint you.”

The lackluster final deal — which also included a new call for countries to triple finance for climate adaptation by 2035 — reflects a process that keeps countries locked into decades-old demarcations of who’s rich and who’s poor while requiring consensus to seal any deal. The weighty mandate to defend multilateralism added even more pressure to water down language to secure approval.

Supporters insist that for all its flaws, the annual U.N. climate summit remains an essential venue for poor and vulnerable nations to hold their richer counterparts to account. And, they say, some countries’ demand for stronger language on cutting planet-warming emissions shows those less-powerful nations can still hold the line. A key test will come next year when two countries with little in common — Turkey and Australia — share responsibility for COP31.

“There is no way to achieve global climate goals without collective action,” said Rachel Cleetus, a senior policy director with the Union of Concerned Scientists. “How can a small island state force the E.U. to do anything? Multilateralism is the only way to give voice to those with less geopolitical power.”

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(With assistance from Daniel Carvalho, Akshat Rathi, Dayanne Sousa and Alfred Cang.)

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