Belém – 12 November 2025, On Day 2 in Belém, COP30 shifted from global promises to local implementation. Ministers, mayors and regional leaders used the Amazon summit to show how climate action becomes real in streets, homes and utilities — through heat plans, housing policy, water infrastructure and waste systems that determine whether communities can actually withstand a warming world.
Cities and multilevel governance move to the front line
The core political message from COP30 Day 2 was that the future of the Paris Agreement will be decided in cities and regions, not just in plenary halls.
At the High-Level Ministerial Meeting on Urbanization and Climate Change, Brazil and UN-Habitat launched the Plan to Accelerate Solutions on Multilevel Governance, aiming to integrate multilevel structures into 100 Nationally Determined Contributions by 2028 and train 6,000 public officials in climate governance. The plan brings together national governments, subnational networks and finance partners to align national targets with local priorities and investment pipelines.
The Coalition for High Ambition Multilevel Partnerships moved into a new phase under a country-led framework, with Brazil and Germany announced as co-chairs through 2027. CHAMP is now backed by 77 countries and the EU and will sit at the political center of efforts to embed cities and regions in NDC implementation. As part of that, new Country Platforms for Localizing Finance were launched in Cameroon and Madagascar, with an ambition to reach six countries by 2028, mobilise 350 million dollars and engage 200 local and regional governments.
The day closed with the Global Mutirão Ministerial Plenary, bringing together ministers and mayors from more than 80 countries and underscoring a simple point: implementation is becoming a shared responsibility across levels of government, and those without subnational strategies risk falling behind.
Extreme heat becomes a core metric of resilience
COP30 Day 2 also confirmed that extreme heat is no longer a marginal topic — it is becoming one of the defining stress tests for climate resilience in cities.
The Beat the Heat Implementation Drive, co-led by the COP30 Presidency and UNEP’s Cool Coalition under the Global Cooling Pledge, moved decisively from design to delivery. The initiative now aims to support more than 185 cities across 36 countries, reduce heat risk for 3.5 billion people and embed cooling solutions into 50 national adaptation frameworks by 2030.
Beat the Heat focuses on nature-based and low-energy approaches — urban forests, parks, green roofs, lakes, storm drainage, passive cooling in buildings, reflective surfaces and the public procurement of efficient, low-GWP cooling technologies. Delivered at scale, this is climate adaptation, air-quality policy and public-health policy in one.
“Beat the Heat is an example of bringing everyone together with a specific goal of capacity-building through hope and actions, done in partnership with mayors and the private sector,” said Ana Toni, COP30 President.
For city treasurers, infrastructure funds and MDBs, the initiative is an early signal that heat resilience will become a mainstream investment theme, with clear expectations on planning standards and capital deployment in urban areas.
Housing, buildings and the affordability–climate nexus
Buildings policy moved up the agenda with the first Ministerial Meeting of the Intergovernmental Council for Buildings and Climate, a 60+ government platform co-chaired by Brazil, France and Kenya and coordinated by UNEP/GlobalABC.
Ministers endorsed the Belém Call for Action for Sustainable and Affordable Housing, which frames housing affordability and climate sustainability as inseparable. The Call urges governments to integrate climate criteria into housing policy, strengthen access to finance through a proposed Affordable and Sustainable Housing Finance Alliance and avoid new housing in high-risk areas without adequate protection.
By 2035, governments committed to align national housing policies with the Chaillot Declaration, prioritising low-carbon, climate-resilient homes and reporting annually on progress. For development banks and institutional investors, this points to a future in which housing portfolios are expected to deliver both social and climate outcomes, with clearer disclosure around physical risk, energy efficiency and affordability.
Water security and waste systems as adaptation infrastructure
Water and waste — often viewed as technical sectors — became central to the adaptation story on COP30 Day 2.
The Latin America and Caribbean Water Investment Programme, led by ECLAC, CAF and the Global Water Partnership, announced a pipeline targeting 20 billion dollars in climate-resilient water investments by 2030. Projects will focus on securing drinking water supplies, modernising irrigation and strengthening flood and drought resilience in a region already facing recurring water stress.
At the High-Level Ministerial on Water and Climate Action, “Waters of Change”, Brazil presented two Acceleration Plans: one on water management and participatory governance and another on access to freshwater for vulnerable communities. Developed with partners including the OECD Water Governance Initiative, the Freshwater Challenge, Wetlands International, SIWI, INBO and AGWA, the plans aim to expand safe water access, improve basin governance and accelerate finance for water adaptation.
The session concluded with adoption of the Joint Statement on Water and Climate Action, reaffirming water as a cornerstone of adaptation, resilience and sustainable development. That framing matters for finance ministries and MDBs, signalling that water infrastructure and governance will sit at the heart of climate strategies, not at their margins.
On the waste side, the No Organic Waste Plan to Accelerate Solutions was launched to cut 30 percent of methane emissions from organic waste by 2030. Backed by the Global Methane Hub, with an initial 30 million dollar commitment (including 10 million for Latin America), NOW aims to recover 20 million tonnes of surplus food annually, feed 50 million people and formally integrate one million waste workers into the circular economy. Twenty-five cities across 18 countries are already engaged.
For investors in waste, logistics, food systems and urban services, the combination of methane targets, food-security outcomes and worker formalisation is an early template for how circular-economy projects will be framed and evaluated.
Data, digital participation and global climate tracking
COP30 Day 2 also showcased how data and digital tools are being used to track climate progress and broaden participation.
COP30 opened its Action Agenda Thematic Spaces — six physical hubs that mirror the axes of the Global Stocktake and will host programming for more than 400 cooperative initiatives and over 100 Plans to Accelerate Solutions over the next two weeks. These spaces are designed not just as exhibition zones but as coordination nodes for initiatives that sit alongside formal negotiations.
The Yearbook of Global Climate Action 2025 was released, providing an annual snapshot of non-state climate progress and gaps, drawing on data from the NAZCA portal. For regulators, supervisors and large asset owners, the Yearbook is increasingly a reference point for understanding how city, corporate and civil-society action aligns (or fails to align) with national commitments.
Digital access was another theme. Maloca, an interactive virtual platform developed by UNDP and the COP30 Presidency, hosted sessions ranging from Indigenous environmental justice to digital infrastructure, education and agroecological farming. The goal is to democratise access to COP30 content and connect communities that cannot be physically present in Belém.
On the ground, the “Mutirão for Sustainable E-Waste Management and Digital Inclusion” event, led by Brazil’s Ministry of Communications and the COP30 Presidency, highlighted how circular economy and social policy intersect. The initiative has collected more than 1,000 tonnes of e-waste, trained 2,700 young people in sustainable e-waste management and donated 100 refurbished computers to community centres — linking digital inclusion with emissions reduction and resource recovery.
What to expect from Day 3
Day 3 will pivot toward people, work and justice, with a focus on how the transition is managed socially and politically.
The high-level launch of the Global Initiative on Jobs and Skills for the New Economy, alongside its first flagship report and action agenda, will set the tone for labour-market and skills strategies in a decarbonising economy. Sessions on information integrity will tackle climate misinformation and its impact on public trust and investment signals.
A ministerial event on Indigenous adaptation will bring frontline communities into the centre of the adaptation conversation, while a PAS launch and ministerial declaration on sustainable public procurement will link just-transition goals to how governments buy goods and services.
The afternoon’s Asset Owners Summit will offer the clearest window yet into how major pension funds and institutional investors are thinking about climate risk, transition plans and COP30 outcomes. A closing session on narratives and storytelling will underline a simple reality: public consent, political stability and capital flows are all shaped by how the transition is explained.
If Day 1 was about setting the implementation agenda, Day 2 showed where implementation lives: in cities, utilities, housing systems, water basins and waste streams. Day 3 will test whether jobs, justice and information integrity catch up with that emerging architecture of delivery.
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