The Grand Duchy’s environment minister has expressed disappointment at the outcome of the COP30 climate talks, telling the Luxembourg Times on Monday that the agreement reached was a “small step but not a giant leap”.

The eight-page declaration was forged after two weeks of tense negotiations in the city of Belém in north Brazil, following disagreements between countries on the incorporation of fossil fuels into the deal.

The final document – agreed on by some 200 states – encouraged countries to transition away from fossil fuels but failed to mention them explicitly.

“I would say it’s a small step we made, but not a giant leap,” Luxembourg’s Environment Minister Serge Wilmes said.

“It’s not that outcome that we wanted […] and that’s why it’s just a very small step,” he added.

Under the new deal, the COP presidency will run a new voluntary initiative meant to “accelerate implementation” of action needed to limit global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels – a key threshold identified in the 2015 Paris Agreement.

Luxembourg was part of a group of more than 80 countries which joined an initiative pledging to phase out fossil fuels.

The group had pressed others to accept a more explicit road map to aid states in transitioning away from oil, gas and coal and had pushed back against the original proposal released early on Friday, branding it as too weak, but met heavy resistance from large oil and gas producing states.

Talks almost collapsed as the EU and the countries fought for a stronger climate agreement, locked in a tussle with oil-rich states, including Russia and Saudi Arabia.

The text, adopted on the periphery of the world’s largest tropical rainforest, also failed to set out rules on ending deforestation.

Although many countries had wanted stronger action on fossil fuels and deforestation, they adopted the text rather than leave the talks with no outcome.

“We wanted to accept the agreement, because we wanted climate action to go on,” said Wilmes.

COP31 is set to take place in 2026 in Antalya in southern Turkey and Wilmes hopes that the EU can prepare its stance on what it will bring to the climate talks earlier.  

“We can not wait to agree on our mandate two weeks or one week before COP is starting, we need it several months before,” he said.

But he added that he was “really proud about the way Luxembourg handled this COP”.