10 November 2025

Biggest coordinated appeal to turn promises into real‑world change

More than 1,000 organisations from 106 countries – spanning trade unions, Indigenous leaders, feminist and youth movements, Afro‑descendant and peasant groups, environmental advocates, disability networks and community organisations – have united to urge governments to stop treating climate action as a numbers game. Their open letter calls for a #JustTransition that makes climate work for the people who live its consequences.

#COP30, billed as the first “implementation COP” since Paris, is seen as a test of whether multilateralism can still deliver after years of drift and broken trust. A decade after the Paris Agreement pledged to secure a Just transition, safeguarding rights and livelihoods, that promise remains unfulfilled, and it’s not without consequences: climate action has stalled, inequality has deepened and communities have been left behind.

Read the letter here. 

The full list of signatories can be found here

Luc Triangle, General Secretary ITUC, said: “Workers and their unions are calling governments at COP30 to act on climate change in a way that protects people and delivers prosperity. Promises to create good, green jobs must be kept. However, progress is falling short. Funding is lacking, and many of these new jobs do not meet decent work standards. That’s why we need a decision at COP30 on a “Belém Action Mechanism for Just Transition”. We need governments to take the increasing climate impact on workers and their families seriously.”

Tasneem Essop, Climate Action Network International, said: “Enough of broken promises. Ten years after Paris, only 3% of climate finance has gone to Just Transition policies. Climate injustice is built into the system – COP30 is where that ends. From workers to Indigenous Peoples, people everywhere are uniting because they’re done being left behind. Belém must prove that climate action serves people, not profit. The Belém Action Mechanism is how we shift power, remove global barriers, and deliver real support for climate action that centres workers and communities. Let Belém be remembered as the place where fairness and justice became non-negotiable.”

Leon Sealey-Huggins, Senior Campaigner Just Transition and Global Climate Justice, War on Want – Demand Climate Justice Campaign, said: “From debt and trade injustice to corporate capture, the same systems driving the climate crisis still hold back real change. At COP30, governments must agree a Belém Action Mechanism that confronts these inequalities and builds national spaces where people — not profit — shape the path of transition.”

Mwanahamisi Singano, Global Policy Director, Women’s Environment and Development Organization, said: “Ten years after the #ParisAgreement, extraction continues, but increasingly painted green. After thirty years of negotiations, we lack implementation that recognises and centres the care that sustains all life. Feminists call on governments to step forward and act in response to the urgency of our times at COP30. We call for the establishment of the Belém Action Mechanism, and a JTWP decision that prioritises consent over exploitation and that integrates care work as a key pillar for ambitious #ClimateAction .”

Carmen Wabnitz, Board Member Klimadelegation, Co-Contact Point YOUNGO Just Transition Working Group, said: “Delivering on a just transition is the real litmus test for climate policy. It shows whether governments are aligned with people or power. Our generation refuses to accept climate action that deepens injustice. If Belém is to be the implementation COP, then just transition cannot remain mere principles, but be turned into reality through a Belem Action Mechanism that delivers justice for those living the transition every day.”

Notes to Editors

The signatories propose a breakthrough package at COP30, including:

1. The Belém Action Mechanism (BAM) for Just Transition. A new multilateral mechanism to orient the entire international system behind people-centred transitions at local and national levels, where workers and communities are in charge of decisions that affect their lives and livelihoods. The #BAM must make funding and technical support accessible; coordinate just transition efforts within and beyond the #UNFCCC; address the global rules that act as barriers to a Just Transition; build a global network of focal points for shared learning and collaboration; and ensure formal representation of rights-holders and groups made vulnerable. Grounded in the principles of equity and Common but Differentiated Responsibilities and Respective Capabilities (CBDR-RC), the BAM would put rights, fairness, support, and inclusion at the heart of climate cooperation. 
2. Just Transition Guardrails in the UNFCCC process. A shared framework anchored in rights, participation, and equality across sectors – including human and labour rights, Free, Prior and Informed Consent,  genuine social dialogue with workers and inclusion of affected people. Guardrails must ensure that transitions create decent work, address inequalities, promote care and are supported by international cooperation and means of implementation. Parties must also avoid dangerous distractions such as “nature-based solutions”.
3. Finance for a Just Transition. COP30 must recognise that designing and delivering just transition policies requires dedicated resources. Finance must be new, additional, grant-based, public, adequate, predictable, and non-debt-creating – in line with countries’ fair shares and legal obligations.
4. Integration of Just Transition Plans into national climate plans (NDCs, NAPs, and LT-LEDS). Countries should embed just transition actions in their official climate planning documents, aligning long-term development and climate goals with social justice and equity. 
5. National Institutions for Workers and Peoples’ Participation. Governments must establish robust and inclusive consultation and participation institutions and processes in planning and decision making processes at the national, regional and local level – with on the one hand tripartite social dialogue involving government, employers and workers to shape labour policies, and on the other hand engagement with rights-holders and relevant stakeholders on all other aspects of Just Transition.

Contact: 

Attila Kulcsar, CAN International, akulcsar@climatenetwork.org, +44 7472 124872 WhatsApp