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The Belém 4x Pledge on Sustainable Fuels is a promise to increase biofuel and hydrogen use by at least four times 2024 levels by 2035. The Pledge is co-sponsored by Brazil, Italy, and Japan, and is supported by India.
Bioenergy is usually portrayed as “carbon neutral” or low emissions, however, many biofuels can lead to higher GHG emissions than fossil fuels. Hydrogen fuel that is produced by burning fossil fuels with carbon capture and storage or from nuclear power, and blended or combusted with fossil fuels cannot be considered sustainable.
While the Belém pledge emphasises “sustainable fuels”, the reality of biofuels is far from sustainable. Already, an area of at least 40 million hectares of cropland is used globally for biofuels.
Using four times as much bioenergy would require vast amounts of wood from forests and fast-growing industrial tree plantations, as well as energy crops. The enormous areas of monocultures needed to produce biofuel have resulted in land grabs from Indigenous Peoples and local communities across the Global South.
The Open Coalition on Compliance Carbon Markets was launched by Brazil, China and the EU. It aims to standardise and integrate different national carbon markets. During the Belém Climate Summit, eight countries endorsed the coalition: Armenia, the UK, Canada, Chile, France, Germany, Mexico, and Zambia.
The coalition is based on the myth that carbon markets “have proven effective in driving decarbonization and supporting countries in advancing their climate goals”. The reality is that climate markets are a dangerous distraction from the urgent need to leave fossil fuels in the ground.
REDD-Monitor agrees with CLARA’s members criticisms of the biofuels and carbon market initiatives. However, I’m concerned about CLARA’s members “cautiously welcoming” the Tropical Forests Forever Facility. I remain significantly less optimistic.
Land and forest campaigners had high hopes that this “Amazon COP” would finally serve to center land, food systems and forests in UNFCCC discussions. These issues, central to the climate crisis, have not received sufficient attention from the UNFCCC or in many climate policy discussions.
The announcements during the pre-COP summits, however, give CLARA members serious pause. Rather than centering real and needed solutions, essential for climate action and to protect communities, these initiatives put forward dangerous distractions that increase the risk of land grabs and other abuses.
To meet this moment for forests, land and rights, COP30 must now focus on real commitments to stop deforestation, promote agroecology, and deliver real climate finance.
CLARA Members have this to say
Kelly Stone, CLARA Coordinator and Senior Policy Analyst for ActionAid USA: “Last week was not a good start to the COP, and we need COP 30 to do better. Pledges on dangerous distractions such as biofuels and carbon markets do not raise climate ambition. They set the land sector up to be abused and put communities at risk, often in order to justify ongoing fossil fuel emissions. COP 30’s outcomes must not center these dangerous and failed policies. The real, just climate solutions, including forest protection, ecosystem restoration, agroecology, land rights, and rights of indigenous peoples, must be sufficiently funded with grant-based climate finance if countries are going to meet their climate, biodiversity and food security goals. There is no more time to waste on policies that have failed for decades.”
On the Belem 4x Pledge
Catalina Gonda, climate activist from Argentina: “The Belem 4x pledge dresses up highly polluting and risky fuels in green language. Quadrupling so-called ‘sustainable’ fuels like bioenergy made from crops or forest biomass will endanger ecosystems, compromise food sovereignty, and put communities’ health at risk, especially in the Global South. Countries should steer away from these costly and dangerous distractions and focus on investing in just transitions away from fossil fuels that build fairer, low emissions and decentralized energy systems.”
Davi Martins, Biomass Action Network: “Logging for bioenergy does the opposite of what science demands. It degrades our best natural defense against climate change. At a time when rights-based protection and ecological restoration are proven to enhance forest health and resilience, we are heading in the wrong direction.”
Peg Putt, Biomass Action Network: “Promoting liquid and gaseous fuels derived from wood in the Belem 4X Pledge, together with continued expansion of solid woody biomass use as renewable energy is a dangerous distraction. The combustion of wood for bioenergy releases massive amounts of stored greenhouse gases immediately, and the myth of its carbon neutrality is based on flawed accounting that ignores the decades forests need to regrow, if they ever do. The true carbon cost rarely appears on any national balance sheet.”
On the Tropical Forest Finance Facility
Jannes Stoppel, Greenpeace Germany: “The need to reduce deforestation was given a strong and important spotlight for COP30 with the launch of the Tropical Forest Forever Facility. It recognises the importance of Indigenous Peoples and local communities and offers an alternative to flawed carbon-market-based valuation of forests and other ecosystems. But unresolved problems remain in the current design that must be addressed before it is operationalised. For example, a credible mechanism to incentivise the protection of primary tropical forests must apply science-based and state of the art monitoring and a tiered approach for the assessment of forest area eligibility. Beyond the TFFF, COP30 negotiations need to deliver an ambitious forest action plan to end forest destruction by 2030.”
On the Open Coalition on Compliance Markets
Erika Lennon, Senior Attorney at the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL): “Rebranding offsets as a solution won’t deliver climate justice, it would only open another escape hatch. Carbon markets don’t drive ambition; they license delay — letting the biggest emitters keep burning fossil fuels by buying a paper promise. This Open Coalition promises interoperability, ‘high-integrity’ credits, and cost- effectiveness — but offers no guarantees that emissions actually fall or polluters stop expanding. If leaders want ambition, they should start with phasing out fossil fuels and provide real public finance — not a marketplace for outsourcing responsibility. Climate action must cut at the source and stop passing the burden to the Global South.”
Jannes Stoppel, Greenpeace Germany: “Contrary to the belief of the carbon market coalition that carbon markets will be the most effective measure to reduce emissions, it is a national responsibility to make actual and ambitious emissions cuts – especially by high emissions parties and parts of society. The use of positive dynamics in biogenic carbon cycles must not be used to justify and ‘compensate’ for ongoing fossil fuel emissions. We must move forward to achieve emission cuts in agriculture, forest and land use and the urgent restoration of ecosystems, alongside a massive reduction of fossil fuel use. To do so we must expand non-carbon-market, rights-based, and community-led solutions and develop just ways to make polluters pay to fund them.”
