COP30 countries agree climate deal which doesn't mention phasing out fossil fuels - as EU moans they've been cast as 'villain' of the talks

Nations at the COP30 climate summit have agreed a deal - but there is no mention of a roadmap for phasing out as demanded by the . Nearly 200 countries approved the deal by consensus on Saturday after two weeks of fraught negotiations in the Brazilian city of Belem in the Amazon. But a member of an EU delegation said that the 27-nation bloc was 'isolated' and cast as the 'villains' at the talks. The EU had pushed for a deal that would call for a 'roadmap' to phase out fossil fuels, but the words do not appear in the text after opposition from oil-producing countries including top exporter . Now the deal calls on countries to 'voluntarily' accelerate their climate action and the consensus reached at COP28 in . More than 30 countries including European nations, emerging economies and small island states had signed a letter warning they would reject any deal without a plan to move away from oil, gas and coal. But the EU, which had warned that the summit could end without a deal if fossil fuels were not addressed, accepted the watered-down language. Applause rang out in the plenary session after COP30 president and Brazilian diplomat Andre Correa do Lago slammed a gavel signalling its approval. 'We know some of you had greater ambitions for some of the issues at hand,' he said. EU climate commissioner Wopke Hoekstra said: 'We're not going to hide the fact that we would have preferred to have more, to have more ambition on everything. 'We should support it because it is at least going in the right direction,' he said. But some countries had a stronger opinion. 'A climate decision that cannot even say fossil fuels is not neutrality, it is complicity. And what is happening here transcends incompetence,' said Panama's climate negotiator Juan Carlos Monterrey. And Colombia's representative said: 'You are leaving us with no other choice but to object. 'This is the COP of truth and trust. You are leaving us with no other option after the procedural issues seen in this plenary.' Colombia is one of nations leading the way in reducing the use of fossil fuels and claims a point of order they raised earlier in the summit was ignored. The UK is also among the group of countries that rejected the proposal, citing their 'deep concern' for the 'take it or leave it' approach. The United States was also notably absent from discussions as President shunned the event. The push to phase out oil, coal and gas - the main drivers of global warming - grew out of frustration over a lack of follow-through on the COP28 agreement to transition away from fossil fuels. French ecological transition minister Monique Barbut had accused oil-rich Saudi Arabia and Russia, along with coal producer India and 'many' other emerging countries, of refusing language on a fossil-fuel phaseout. She said the text was bland but that there was 'nothing extraordinarily bad in it'. The deal caps a chaotic two weeks in Belem, with Indigenous protesters breaching the venue and blocking its entrance last week and a fire erupting inside the compound on Thursday, forcing a mass evacuation. Finishing without a deal would have been a black eye for Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who had staked political capital in the success of what he called the 'COP of truth'. It was also a major test for international cooperation when Trump decided to skip COP30. 'We also have to weigh the backdrop of geopolitics, and in the end there is no other process we have,' German environment state secretary Jochen Flasbarth said. Developing nations, for their part, had pushed the EU and other developed economies to pledge more money to help them adapt to the impact of climate change, such as floods and droughts, and move toward a low-carbon future. The EU had resisted such appeals but the deal calls for efforts to 'at least triple' adaptation finance by 2035. 'Intergovernmental negotiations work on a minimum common denominator, but our fight will continue,' a negotiator from Bangladesh said in a muted reception of the terms. The EU had also rejected language on trade in the text, as demanded by China and other emerging countries. The final deal calls for 'dialogue' on trade issues. The head of China's delegation at COP30, Li Gao, said that the summit will go down as a success. 'I'm happy with the outcome,' Li said. 'We achieved this success in a very difficult situation, so it shows that the international community would like to show solidarity and make joint efforts to address climate change.'