By Brenda Mariana Huerta, Fairtrade International, Senior Advisor Climate and Environment

On paper, Belem delivered a “political package,” some new initiatives, and the promise of tripling adaptation finance. But once you actually pay attention to what was agreed upon, what emerges is a story of avoidance, delay, and an international system struggling to confront the very causes (and by the way, well established by science for years), of the climate crisis.

Let’s start with the obvious: the final decision does not mention fossil fuels. Not once. Not even in a watered-down, “phase-down-ish” way. There is also no pathway to end deforestation. And the language on the drivers of forest loss, which everyone in this space knows is mostly industrial agriculture, was softened to a vague reference to “challenges.” Anyone following COPs closely understands what it means when science, clarity, and specificity disappear from the text: political courage evaporated somewhere between the first and final drafts.

This is not an abstract shortcoming. It reveals a multilateral system hitting its limits. Countries can agree to talk about climate impacts, but the moment the conversation shifts to changing the economic model (including undeniable exploitation to the global south) behind those impacts, everything stalls. So yes – the climate change ambition gap remains wide, and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is clearly not going to close it on its own.

And yet, there were two different COPs happening in Belem: the one inside the negotiation rooms, and the one happening just outside them. The negotiated text barely touches agriculture, but the action tracks delivered some of the only real substance of the entire conference: billions committed to sustainable agriculture and restoration of farmland, a fertiliser initiative that promises to reduce emissions instead of greenwashing them, and digital tools for decision-making in the Amazon.

This matters because it shows where the real momentum is. While the political text looks away from food systems, the practical initiatives – often led by local governments, civil society, and research institutions – are leaning into the transformation that everyone knows is inevitable: food systems must move away from fossil-fuel dependent models toward diversified, agroecological, deforestation-free production systems capable of withstanding extreme climate change effects.

Meanwhile, farmers – especially smallholders – are carrying the weight of every delayed decision. They don’t get to negotiate around a table. They deal with the consequences directly: unpredictable rains, water shortages, higher heat, new pests, and vague regulations from markets that demand sustainability but don’t always pay for it. In that sense, “tripling adaptation finance by 2035” is a nice line, but producers need support now – not in a decade. Every year of diplomatic hesitation means more risk, volatility, and lost income for them.

And this is the environment in which Fairtrade and other voluntary sustainability standards are operating in. COP30 made it painfully clear that global climate action ambition is now being driven more by regulation and market frameworks and less by multilateral consensus. For us, this means doubling down on agroecology, soil health, deforestation-free supply chains, and adaptation practices – whether or not the UNFCCC is ready to name the problems we’re invested in solving.

Belem revealed a world divided: political negotiation rooms trying to avoid discomfort, and everyone else leaning into the reality that is already here. Farmers don’t have the luxury of slow diplomacy. Neither do we.

If there is hope – it lies in implementation, not negotiation. In the landscapes being restored. In the soil being brought to health. In the producer organisations ready to lead. In the practical work that continues regardless of what makes it into the final COP text.

And while governments edit out the hard truths, farmers and communities are living them. To understand what really happened (and more importantly, what didn’t happen) at COP, we need to move  past the headlines – because the devil is in the details.