In brief
The COP roadmaps nobody has to follow
The COP30 Presidency has published two roadmaps, one for phasing out fossil fuels, one for halting deforestation by 2030. They are voluntary, carry no deadlines, and were not subject to negotiation.
Neither document tells a country what to do.
That is a shift worth noticing. The roadmaps' central tool, the Belém Readiness Approach, asks countries to diagnose their own exposure and capacity, then choose from a menu of levers. It is a bet on self-interest rather than obligation. The bet is not unreasonable: a country that works out where it is vulnerable may act sooner than one being scolded from a podium.
But a diagnosis is not a plan. The roadmaps include no timeline and no benchmarks, a gap scientists have already flagged. The world's forest loss fell 15% last year and remains 70% off track; fossil CO2 hit a record 37.8 billion tonnes. Implementation without a yardstick is a difficult thing to measure.
Roadmap for Transitioning away from fossil fuels in Energy systems
