What’s at Stake at COP30: How the Failure to Address Climate Change Affects Wildlife

Parties to the United Nations Framework on Climate Change (UNFCCC) are meeting in Belém, Brazil from November 10-21, 2025, for the thirtieth meeting of the Conference of the Parties, or COP30. Although wildlife is not explicitly on the agenda, the fight to mitigate the worst climate impacts is also a fight for wildlife.

Each Party to the Paris Agreement must submit Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), comprising the plans and commitments to achieve the Paris Agreement’s goals. Parties must submit updated NDCs every five years, with the most recent, third iteration due in 2025. In addition to mitigation measures, NDCs identify “adaptation measures” for addressing climate change’s impacts on priority sectors. A UNFCCC review of updated NDCs submitted through September 2025 shows that, of the 73% of Parties including adaptation measures, only 15% included wildlife adaptation—the lowest percentage of any identified sector (even adaptation for industry/mining were included in 19% of NDCs).

The scarce consideration of wildlife in current NDCs is concerning. Scientists warn that without meaningful action, climate change could trigger the “sixth mass extinction.” Some worry we may already be in the midst of it. In fact, a recent fifty-year study of over 5,000 vertebrate species showed population declines of 73%, driven largely by habitat loss and climate change. Climate change’s impacts on wild animals are wide-ranging—climate is the number one indicator of butterfly species distribution, with many species migrating toward the earth’s poles and higher altitude areas. Warmer, shorter winters are driving a decline in North American moose populations due to a longer, active disease-carrying tick season. And in 2022, a drought in Kenya caused the deaths of over 200 elephants. Unfortunately, these are but a few of many such examples.

Considering wild animals at COP30 isn’t just important when considering climate change’s impacts on their survival, but also for the role that they can play in carbon capture and sequestration. Wild animals perform important ecosystem services, including seed dispersal, nutrient cycling, and deep sea carbon transport. Seed-dispersing wild animals enable tropical forests to accumulate carbon up to four times faster than in forests where such animals are missing or where their habitats have become fragmented. Studies even estimate that restoring populations of nine key species and species groups (African forest elephants, American bison, fish, gray wolves, musk oxen, sea otters, sharks, whales, and wildebeest) could support CO2 capture equivalent to over 95% of the amount needed to keep global warming within the Paris Agreement’s goals.

As the so-called “implementation COP,” COP30 offers a promising opportunity to recognize the impacts of climate change on wildlife and the role wildlife can play as a climate solution. Earlier this year, the IUCN World Conservation Congress formally recognized wild animals’ role in climate solutions and called on leadership to advocate for their inclusion in international climate frameworks like the UNFCCC. While a number of NGOs have also encouraged a focus on wildlife at COP30 for the reasons discussed herein, initial reports from the COP’s first week do not show that this has happened. Whether explicitly included or not, wild animals’ survival depends on the global community’s swift action on climate change, as does ours.

About Courtney Courtney McCoy (JD, ’25) is the 2025-2026 Diehl Fellow for the Global Law Alliance for Animals and the Environment (GLA). She comes to GLA most excited about working on wildlife protection and looks forward to engaging with the international legal community to help stymie the current biodiversity crisis. She understands that issues affecting the environment and wildlife span the globe and that some of the most impactful solutions are those that engage cross-boundary stakeholders.

The Global Law Alliance for Animals and the Environment (GLA) was launched in the fall of 2020 as an innovative collaboration of the Center for Animal Law Studies and the top-ranked Environmental Law Program at Lewis & Clark Law School. GLA champions wild animals and wild spaces around the world.

The Center for Animal Law Studies (CALS) was founded in 2008 with a mission to educate the next generation of animal law advocates and advance animal protection through the law. With vision and bold risk-taking, CALS has since developed into a world-renowned animal law epicenter. CALS’ Alumni-in-Action from over 25 countries are making a difference for animals around the world. CALS is a nonprofit organization funded through donations and grants.