Belém Mission to 1.5 (BM1.5), launched at the 30th Conference of Parties (COP30), originated with the “Road map to Mission 1.5.” Road map to Mission 1.5 came from a proposal for a COP28 agenda item that recognized that business-as-usual was incompatible with both the goal of limiting global heating to 1.5°C and the urgency of the enhanced international cooperation required to achieve it. The emphasis on enhanced international cooperation recognizes the second mandate of the global stocktake (GST), which also concluded at COP28. Mission 1.5 was ultimately adopted as a two-year, multi-Presidency initiative. However, both the original Road map to Mission 1.5 and the mandate for BM1.5 appear to have drifted from the original mission. The Global Implementation Accelerator (GIA), launched simultaneously, has received greater attention and elaboration to date. The delayed 2026 vision for BM1.5 makes it more difficult to understand how these two initiatives will relate to one another in an already crowded landscape of roadmaps and initiatives. The ambition and implementation gaps could be most effectively filled by following up on the targets and signals set out by GST1 and focusing on enhanced international cooperation can help Parties move to transformative levels of climate action. BM1.5 can contribute to these efforts by sending key political signals to Parties that can be taken up in their nationally determined contributions (NDCs) and national adaptation plans (NAPs), identifying the handful of high-impact Global Climate Action Agenda (GCAA) sectoral or cross-sectoral targets for the GIA to champion. BM1.5 can further identify low-hanging fruit and/or highimpact solutions that can drive NDC and NAP implementation. However, creating this “cooperation ecosystem” should avoid commandeering similar efforts in existing workstreams. If COP Presidencies and Parties are serious about an effective BM1.5, it must provide value above and beyond what currently exists and respond to an unmet need. Moreover, it is important to realize that there are only four months left in this 2026 initiative—what can be done in this short timeframe?

• What could be the value-add of BM1.5?
• What are the related but distinct responsibilities of BM1.5 and the GIA and how will they work together?
• What can BM1.5 reasonably accomplish in the next four months?

1. Governments are navigating simultaneous pressures to accelerate the clean energy transition, ensure reliable and affordable energy access, protect domestic industries, and respond to increasingly severe and frequent climate impacts—all in the context of economic uncertainty and volatility. Against this backdrop, the ability of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to support coordinated, credible, and relevant international action has become increasingly important.

2. At the same time, the UNFCCC itself is navigating a new phase. Following the conclusion of GST1 and the first full Paris ambition cycle, the era of foundational negotiations is over: the Paris Agreement is fully operational and working. But, progress towards achieving its goals is not yet at the pace and scale needed. Continued focus on negotiations and target-setting can result in only incremental progress. While NDC ambition remains crucial, the approach of simply putting pressure on countries to raise NDC ambition increasingly lacks credibility and risks undermining confidence in the regime, perhaps to the point where countries may hold off on submitting ambitious NDCs.

3. To move to transformative levels of climate action, Parties and non-Party stakeholders (NPS) must:

• follow up on the targets and signals set out by GST1. Key to this will be pushing for implementation of the outcomes of the first GST
• focus as much on enhanced international cooperation to deliver as on setting headline NDC targets
• prepare for a more effective GST2.

4. It is also important to note that work in the UNFCCC needs to be complemented by regional, plurilateral and minilateral action, given the context of incremental progress toward the Paris Agreement’s goals to date, combined with growing geopolitical tensions, financial constraints, and other dynamics challenging the UN climate process.

5. The recent launches of the BM1.5 and the GIA at COP30, therefore, have potential to help drive ambition and implementation for mitigation and adaptation. Parties and stakeholders should examine whether and how these initiatives add value in an increasingly crowded space with limited resources.

6. One consideration is the synergy between GST1, the BM1.5, and the GIA. In particular, the linkage to GCAA, which was aligned with the GST ahead of COP30, provides a strong through line to achieving the targets and signals from GST1. There is transformative potential to enhance international cooperation through these coordinated initiatives.

7. Delivery of BM1.5 for Parties and NPS needs to remain true to the spirit of the original mandate for Mission 1.5: responding to the urgency and gravity of the science by enhancing international cooperation and action in order to quickly limit global heating to 1.5°C. (For more background, see Annex: Recalling the Origins of the Missions to 1.5 and Global Implementation Accelerator.)

8. Another consideration is the crowded landscape in which the BM1.5 and GIA must define themselves– including in relation to one another. In addition to their obligations under the Paris Agreement, Parties are faced with the calls to contribute to global efforts from the GST; invited to engage with the GCAA; requested to contribute or respond to roadmaps for transitioning away from fossil fuels and halting and reversing deforestation; and encouraged to attend Regional Climate Weeks. The GIA concept has become clearer while there is still not a defined 2026 vision for BM1.5 more than halfway through 2026, making it difficult to understand how these two initiatives will relate to one another in an already crowded landscape of roadmaps and initiatives.

9. If COP Presidencies and Parties are serious about an effective BM1.5, it must provide value above and beyond what currently exists.

10. The relationship between the BM1.5 and the GIA is complementary, and if defined well, they can serve two different but related aims with a focus on enhancing international cooperation:

• BM1.5 should send key political signals to Parties that can be taken up in NDCs and NAPs • BM1.5 can identify the handful of high-impact GCAA sectoral or cross-sectoral targets for the GIA to champion.
• BM1.5 can give political encouragement on how to make use of efforts under the GIA to implement on the ground and set higher-level targets in future NDCs and NAPs. This approach keeps the focus on engaging Parties on the global efforts GST1 called upon Parties to achieve.

11. To avoid further crowding the landscape of roadmaps and initiatives, BM1.5 and the GIA could create a “cooperation ecosystem.” Together, BM1.5 and the GIA could leverage and send signals to existing UNFCCC, GCAA, and NDC and NAP capacity-building initiatives (such as the UN Development Programme’s Climate Promise¹“Helping countries reach their climate goals,” Climate Promise, accessed July 12, 2026, https://climatepromise.undp.org/. and the NDC Partnership²“Accelerating Climate Action through Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs),” NDC Partnership, accessed July 12, 2026, https://ndcpartnership.org/. ). They can coordinate their capacity-building efforts in ways that increase the accessibility of investors to Parties. This includes using the proposed “Climate Implementation Bridge” to connect Parties’ implementation efforts under the GIA to finance. BM1.5 can further identify low-hanging fruit and/or high-impact solutions that can drive NDC and NAP implementation. Much of the work to identify these solutions has already been done, including by the GCAA and the High-Level Climate Champions.³“Action Agenda,” Climate Champions, accessed July 12, 2026, climatechampions.net/action-agenda. See, e.g., solutions noted in: Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, Delivering on the Targets and Signals from the First Global Stocktake (May 2026), https://www.c2es.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/May2026Update_Deliveringthe-Targets-and-Signals-from-the-First-Global-Stocktake.pdf.

12. Such a “cooperation ecosystem” could, in many respects, be duplicative of other work under the UNFCCC. For instance, while uncertainty remains as to the future of the Sharm el-Sheikh Mitigation Ambition and Implementation Work Programme (MWP), a number of Parties seem to hope that the MWP could be a forum for normative signals on mitigation action, in addition to a space to exchange ideas and views on how to accelerate mitigation action. As noted earlier, a dedicated work programme can offer more in terms of continuity, resources, and consensus than a one- or two-year Presidency-led initiative.

13. There are only four months left to fully define and operationalize BM1.5. In that time, BM1.5 could:

• organize key capacity-building organizations and initiatives—such as the UN’s Climate Promise, the NDC Partnership, and the NAP Implementation Alliance—to engage with Parties and investors at the next Regional Climate Week and its Implementation Forum and Labs in Baku, Azerbaijan, from 7 to 11 September 2026
• include a “financial implementability and investment for NDCs and NAPs”-type of event in coordination with the mandated GIA high-level event.⁴UN Framework Convention on Climate Change [hereinafter UNFCCC], Matters relating to the global stocktake, Decision 3/CMA.7, ¶ 41 (March 30, 2026), https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/resource/cma2025_19a01E.pdf.

14. What is missing is a longer-term, well-supported, strategic effort to enhance international cooperation and connect investment to efforts to implement the broader efforts to limit global heating to 1.5°C, particularly those called for by GST1, in NDCs and NAPs. Parties, if periodically invited to engage with BM1.5, the GIA, NDC and NAP capacity-building and support initiatives, and potential investors, could be well-informed as they develop their “investment and implementation plans” for their NDCs and NAPs. Those NAPs and NDCs could then be better contextualized.

15. The revamped Climate Weeks already have Implementation Fora, “a first-of-its-kind platform to bring together all stakeholders to unlock progress across three critical pillars: finance, technology, and carbon markets.”⁵’Springboard for Solutions’: Highlights from the First Climate Week of 2025,” UN Climate Change News, May 26, 2025, https://unfccc.int/news/springboard-for-solutions-highlights-from-the-first-climate-week-of-2025. These Implementation Fora host “Implementation Labs” focusing on accelerating cooperative climate action through practical, problem-solving exchanges. BM1.5. could, through the Finance Labs, ask relevant actors and Parties to engage on NDCs and NAPs, to share examples, and to find ways that NDCs and NAPs can be made to attract more investment – with the GIA’s shortlisted solutions and initiatives as key themes. Having analyzed a number of earlier submissions to this call, some submissions have suggested dedicated “private sector dialogues,”⁶See, e.g., Call for Inputs, Bankable Zero, “Call for Inputs, Submission to the Belém Mission to 1.5 – UNFCCC,” June 1, 2026, https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/resource/Submission_Bankable_Zero.pdf. which means that these opportunities to engage at Finance Labs may not be clear, or that the BM1.5 could investigate how to amplify calls to investors to attend these events. These events could also take a similar approach to the January 2026 “Final Validation Workshop on Strengthening the Financial Implementability and Investment Framework of NDC 3.0” in Seychelles, convened by the UNFCCC and the UNFCCC Regional Collaboration Centre for East and Southern Africa (RCC EASA).⁷“Strengthening the financial implementability and investment framework of NDC 3.0,” UNFCCC, January 28, 2026, https://unfccc.int/event/strengthening-the-financial-implementability-and-investment-framework-of-ndc-30.

16. The above suggests that BM1.5 could support a regional approach to better contextualize how Parties understand how to implement and attract finance for their NDCs and NAPs. Such efforts could include inviting relevant development banks, particularly regional ones, to Climate Weeks’ Implementation Labs or other similar workshops. For example, 13 Asian Development Bank (ADB) Developing Member Countries are currently undertaking the Climate Adaptation Investment Planning (CAIP) Program to scale up NAP implementation and scale up finance for investments that enable adaptation.⁸Asian Development Bank, “Moving from Planning to Implementation” (presentation, 9th Asia-Pacific Climate Change Adaptation Forum, Scaling up NAP Implementation to ensure transformational adaptation, Bangkok, Thailand, October 3, 2025), https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/resource/ADB_Moving%20from%20planning%20to%20implementation.pdf. Similar engagements can be taken in other regions, but Parties must also be aware of them.

17. By using BM1.5 and the GIA’s shortlist of sectoral efforts, Parties can learn how to plan for implementation and attract finance in different contexts and sectors yearly. But that’s not possible if initiatives like BM1.5 and the GIA are ad hoc. If there is a leadership gap in enhancing international cooperation, these two initiatives cannot do much to fill it in the few months remaining.

18. In conclusion, the wide—and cluttered—UNFCCC and Paris landscape needs to be acknowledged: overloaded agendas, countless mandated events, Regional Climate Weeks, which were restored after a lack of funding—not to mention the increasing strain on the UNFCCC budget. While there is much that a single Presidency or a group of Presidencies can accomplish, resisting the allure of launching new initiatives and instead strategically using or leveraging what already exists could be the most impactful. New initiatives should be launched when they address an urgent need or fill persistent gaps, with the caution that there is only so much that an initiative can accomplish in a year, possibly two, under the leadership of one Party or three.

19. Following up on the targets and signals set out by GST1 and focusing on enhanced international cooperation can help Parties move to transformative levels of climate action. BM1.5 and the GIA should emphasize their focus on enhanced international cooperation, with BM1.5 taking on an important signaling role. If the focus is simply capacity-building for NDCs and NAPs, there are other avenues by which these efforts can be coordinated. At a time when geopolitical tensions are high and the window to limit global heating to 1.5°C is vanishing, the imperative for enhanced international cooperation on climate has never been greater.

• Reflections on Key Mitigation Ambition Outcomes from COP30, https://www.c2es.org/document/reflections-on-key-mitigation-ambition-outcomes-from-cop30/
• A Vision for the 2025-2030 Action Agenda, https://www.c2es.org/wpcontent/uploads/2025/09/C2ESVision-for-the-Action-Agenda.pdf
• Delivering on the Targets and Signals from the First Global Stocktake, https://www.c2es.org/wpcontent/uploads/2026/05/May2026Update_Delivering-the-Targets-and-Signals-from-the-FirstGlobal-Stocktake.pdf.
• Achieving a More Effective UNFCCC Process, https://www.c2es.org/wpcontent/uploads/2025/07/20250729-C2ES-Achieving-a-MoreEffective-UNFCCC-Process_FINAL.pdf
• Key Negotiations & Related Outcomes of the UN Climate Conference in Belém, https://www.c2es.org/wpcontent/uploads/2026/02/COP30-Summary-FINAL5.pdf

20. The original context for the Road map to Mission 1.5 was that business-as-usual was incompatible with both the goal of limiting global heating to 1.5°C and the urgency of the enhanced international cooperation needed to achieve it. An initiative like Mission 1.5 could fill the leadership gap on enhanced international cooperation to quickly accelerate implementation and improve the enabling environment for action.

21. In October 2023, Brazil thought the gap so significant it submitted a request to include an agenda item in the provisional agendas of the Subsidiary Body for Implementation/the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (the SBs), COP28, and the 5th Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement (CMA5): “Mission 1.5: positive incentives for accelerating early-actions and policies that are nationally determined.”⁹Brazil, “Proposal by Brazil for the SBI/SBSTA 59, COP 28 and CMA 5 agendas,” COP28, October 23, 2023, https://unfccc.int/documents/633024. The proposal invited Parties to “join hands around a mission to keep the 1.5°C alive,” and, in the context of the GST’s call to enhance international cooperation and inform the next round of NDCs, Mission 1.5 could “pave the way from COP28 to COP30 for immediately responding to the sense of urgency and gravity alerted by AR6” to “bring countries to work together on the ground with a view to immediate implementation that can trigger unity, ambition and action, whilst acknowledging national circumstances of developed and developing countries alike.”

22. In short, Brazil suggested that this effort become a formal endeavor supported by Parties and the UNFCCC secretariat.

23. While the agenda item was not adopted, the COP28 decision adopted the outcome of GST1 and launched the “Road map to Mission 1.5,” which reflects this emphasis on urgent, enhanced international cooperation. Mission 1.5 was “to significantly enhance international cooperation and the international enabling environment to stimulate ambition in the next round of nationally determined contributions with a view to enhancing action and implementation over this critical decade and keeping 1.5°C within reach.”¹⁰UNFCCC, Outcome of the first global stocktake, Decision 1/CMA.5, ¶ 191 (March 15, 2024), https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/resource/cma2023_16a01E.pdf (emphasis added).

24. C2ES has long recognized the importance of the GST’s emphasis on enhancing international cooperation¹¹“Global Stocktake: An Opportunity for Ambition,” c2es.org., accessed July 12, 2026, https://www.c2es.org/supporting-the-paris-agreement/global-stocktake-an-opportunity-for-ambition/. and engaged on the potential for the Mission 1.5 in 2024.¹²Xolisa Ngwadla, Marta Torres Gunfaus, and Alexandra Deprez, Mission 1.5: Enhancing international cooperation, making the Paris Climate Agreement’s goals possible (IDDRI, 2024), https://www.iddri.org/sites/default/files/PDF/Publications/Catalogue Iddri/Propositions/202410-PB0424-Mission 1.5_2.pdf; “2025 NDCs and Enhanced International Cooperation: Reflecting on GST1 Signals and Mission 1.5” (COP29 side event, November 15, 2024), https://www.c2es.org/event/2025-ndcs-and-enhanced-cooperation-on-gst1-and-mission-1-5/; ““Advancing Action: The Global Stocktake, Mission 1.5, and the Importance of Early Warning Systems” (COP29 side event, November 16, 2024), https://www.c2es.org/event/the-global-stocktake-mission-1-5-and-early-warning-systems/.

25. Guided by the UAE, Azerbaijan, and Brazil Presidencies (the COP Presidencies Troika), from 20242025, Mission 1.5 consisted of a series of high-level political convenings and collaborated with key thematic and political platforms, including the G20 and UNDP, “to channel existing knowledge and resources towards ambitious NDC development.”¹³“Troika: Mission 1.5,” UNFCCC, accessed July 12, 2026, https://unfccc.int/process-and-meetings/conferences/un-climate-change-conference-belem-november-2025/troika-mission-15#__-26-June-2025-June-UN-Climate-Meetings-SB-62-Germany-. This approach was a departure from the original mandate for the Mission to 1.5.

26. The COP30 Global Mutirão decision launched the BM1.5 and the GIA. The BM1.5 is aimed at enabling ambition and implementation of NDCs and NAPs, to reflect on accelerating implementation, international cooperation and investment across mitigation and adaptation.¹⁴UNFCCC, Matters relating to the global stocktake, Decision 3/CMA.7, ¶ 42. It is guided by the Azerbaijan, Brazil, and Türkiye-Australia Presidencies, which will produce a summary report of the work at CMA8.

27. While this framing does not seem to mirror the original intent for the Road map to Mission 1.5, it does reflect the shift to a focus on capacity building for and investment in NDCs, with an expanded focus on NAPs.

28. The GIA was launched in the context of “responding to urgency, gaps and challenges, accelerating implementation, solidarity and international cooperation,” language that more closely reflects the original context for Mission 1.5.¹⁵UNFCCC, Matters relating to the global stocktake, Decision 3/CMA.7, ¶ 41. Guided by the Azerbaijan, Brazil, and Türkiye-Australia Presidencies, the GIA will be a “cooperative, facilitative and voluntary initiative” “to accelerate implementation across all actors to keep 1.5°C within reach and supporting countries in implementing their nationally determined contributions and national adaptation plans.”¹⁶UNFCCC, Matters relating to the global stocktake, Decision 3/CMA.7, ¶ 41. The Presidencies will exchange experiences and views on related matters at a high-level event in 2026 and present a summary report on the GIA’s work at CMA8.¹⁷UNFCCC, Matters relating to the global stocktake, Decision 3/CMA.7, ¶ 41.

29. The COP Presidencies are also mandated to conduct information sessions at SB64 and SB65. At the Copenhagen Ministerial¹⁸COP30 and COP31 Presidencies, “Global Implementation Accelerator” (presentation, Copenhagen Climate Ministerial, Copenhagen, Denmark, 20-21 May 2026), https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/resource/CCM_2026_COP30_Presidency_GIA.pdf. and at SB64,¹⁹COP30 and COP31 Presidencies, “Global Implementation Accelerator” (presentation, Information session on the Global Implementation Accelerator during SB64, 64th Session of the Subsidiary Bodies, Bonn, Germany, June 12, 2026), https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/resource/GIA_Bonn_12June.pdf. the Presidencies held information sessions on the emerging vision for the GIA. A concept note circulated 11 June indicates that the GIA, under the joint guidance of the COP30 and COP31 Presidencies, will identify and accelerate a handful of GCAA initiatives.²⁰COP30 and COP31 Presidencies, “Global Implementation Accelerator Concept note” (presentation, 64th Session of the Subsidiary Bodies, Bonn, Germany, June 11, 2026), https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/resource/Global_Implementation_Accelerator_Concept_note.pdf.An independent Group of Experts and Scientists will identify a short list of high-impact solutions to be narrowed and championed by a Board.²¹COP30 and COP31 Presidencies, “Global Implementation Accelerator Concept note.” A “Climate Implementation Bridge,” connected to the Accelerator, is also being developed under the COP31 Action Agenda to bring on-ground actions and finance together.²²COP30 and COP31 Presidencies, “Global Implementation Accelerator Concept note.”