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How Kristi Noem turned ICE into the Proud Boys

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and Homeland Security Kristi Neom are members of Proud Boys, the White Supremacists terror grroup

By Amanda Marcotte

Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem at a roundtable discussion on Jan. 7, 2026 in Brownsville, Texas.

Last week, the Department of Homeland Security used a song beloved by white supremacists in a recruitment ad for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The self-pitying “We’ll Have Our Home Again,” which equates living in a diverse community with being oppressed, has long been an anthem for racist terrorists, neo-Nazi groups and, crucially, the Proud Boys — one of the paramilitary organizations that led the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021. As a local journalist in California reported at the time, the Proud Boys covered their faces and sang the song at a November 2020 Sacramento event, vowing to “put ourselves on the line” to help Donald Trump steal the 2020 election.

I’m far from the first observer to notice how much ICE, under the leadership of Homeland Security Secretary — and proud dog-killer — Kristi Noem, has come to resemble the Proud Boys, a neo-fascist group founded by Gavin McInnes in 2016. As Wired’s David Gilbert wrote in response to ICE’s recent invasion of Minneapolis, the reason we haven’t seen a resurgence of the Proud Boys in Trump’s second term is that the president’s “militarization” of ICE and “embrace of white nationalist rhetoric” leaves the group “without a role to play.”

But Kristi Noem hasn’t just changed the way ICE presents itself. The tactics the agency now uses and the ideas fueling its mission are eerily identical to the vision of the Proud Boys that McInnes laid out from the group’s very beginnings.

ICE’s current aesthetics owe much to the Proud Boys, from the masks they use to hide their identity and their corny but racist language about “heritage” to their attachment to the phrase “FAFO,” which is short for “eff around and find out.” But Kristi Noem hasn’t just changed the way ICE presents itself. The tactics the agency now uses and the ideas fueling its mission are eerily identical to the vision of the Proud Boys that McInnes laid out from the group’s very beginnings.

He communicated these views to his fledgling community of wannabe brownshirts through “The Gavin McInnes Show,” which streamed on Compound Media from June 2015 through August 2017. That year, Juliet Jeske — an anonymous activist who has since outed herself and become a journalist — contacted Salon with dozens of clips she’d gathered from watching the entirety of the show. McInnes appealed to a young male audience with shock jock tactics, which included using a butt plug live on camera “to own the libs.” But going through the clips over eight years later, what’s striking is that it was all there from the beginning: the gross beliefs the fueled the Proud Boys, and now ICE and its supporters; the reliance on deadbeats and losers as foot soldiers; and the advocacy of violent tactics we’re now seeing play out in the invasion of Minneapolis.

From the beginning, McInnes understood that he could access a large, untapped resource that is America’s loser population. Before Johnny-come-latelies like Elon Musk started assembling mediocre white men who are low on intelligence and high on resentment, McInnes was reeling them in with a steady patter of assurances that he had the secret to restore them to level of social status and respect the modern era had supposedly stolen from them. On his show, he portrayed both women and people of color as imbeciles who cannot handle equality or freedom. He claimed to hold the key to restoring masculinity to his viewers, mostly through bigotry, beer and violence. In retrospect, as ICE agents in Minneapolis have taken to kidnapping, beating and even shooting people on the streets, what really stands out is how much effort McInnes put into creating elaborate justifications for right-wing violence.

“A fascist march on the country for 5 years”: How the Proud Boys got away with it for so long

“Fighting solves everything,” he said in April 2016. “We need more violence from the Trump people. Trump supporters! Choke a m*****f****r. Choke a b***h. Choke a tr***y. Get your fingers around the windpipe, if they spit on you. That’s assault.”

It’s an idea McInnes repeated again and again: that “self-defense,” at least for a right-winger, is so expansively defined that his audience was entitled to meet even the smallest perceived insult from “the left” with maximum violence. If someone spits on you, attempted murder by choking is justified. In one episode from June 2017, McInnes and his guests complained about a “leftist play” — a production of “Julius Caesar” with the dictator dressed as Trump — and how they wanted to “rush the stage.” He said, “I’m sick of this culture where they tell us that we have to be nonviolent and just sit and accept abuse.”

McInnes also preached an elaborate theory that liberalism is basically a mental disorder — caused, of course, by allowing women too much access to the public square — and that the cure for it was beating it out of people. “I used to hate [the left],” he said in October 2016. “Now I just see them as spoiled brats. Or a bratty girlfriend who’s PMS-ing and they want to be slapped.”

In another episode that same month, he said, “Liberals, they’re just dumb. Their hearts are in the right place. They’re just stupid and they need a slap in the face. Well, we’re here to tell you that we’re right, we are proud, and we’re going to give you the slap you deserve.”

In October 2016, McInnes and his guest delighted in a video of a truck running over leftist protesters, who they portrayed as deserving of injury or death, for saying mean things to the truck driver. “The guy’s so used to talking like that on the internet, he thinks he can do it in public,” he said. After the truck rammed the protester, a laughing McInnes said, “You stood in front of a truck and got hit by a truck, and now you can’t stop crying.” He lamented that the driver might pay a legal penalty for attempted murder.

McInnes’ views were swiftly turned into action by his followers during Trump’s first term. In 2017, the Proud Boys started targeting liberal cities full of people they believed needed to be “slapped,” such as Portland, Oregon. They roamed around waving flags and shouting insults at the locals, hoping to draw a reaction that they could claim justified lashing out at people with violence under their ridiculous views of “self-defense.”

McInnes’ image of “dumb” progressives is rooted in his hostility to racial diversity. He regularly argued that white liberals are too poisoned by political correctness to understand that people of color are a threat to white safety and social order. As Salon documented in 2018, he characterized Black people as “violent” or “toddlers” while arguing, “Dead white guys built this country.” McInnes griped that the largely Dominican-American neighbourhood of New York’s Washington Heights — which he kept insisting was Puerto Rican — is “a giant welfare resort, where there’s no cops, no laws and people just do whatever the fuck they want on our dime.”

Tellingly, when I reached out to him for comment on the story at the time, McInnes replied by implying that I was a ninny white lady who had never been to Washington Heights. (I have. I’m also a native of El Paso, Texas, a bilingual, majority-Hispanic city.)

But from all of his rhetoric and stunts, a clear narrative emerged: People of color constitute a threat that white liberals (mostly women) are too dumb to see. Therefore they need to be bullied and physically abused until they surrender to the right-wing truth.

As we’re seeing in Minneapolis, that view isn’t just wrong, it’s also self-contradictory. It wasn’t Latino or Black immigrants who killed Renee Nicole Good. It was a white male ICE officer named Jonathan Ross who was working for an agency claiming it’s here to “protect” white people from these imaginary threats.

Since Good’s killing, there has been an endless stream of videos proving that the real danger comes not from immigrants but from ICE agents beating up teenage Target employees, terrorizing Door Dash drivers and threatening to hurt and kill people who film them. Turns out “protecting” Americans is indistinguishable from raining chaos and violence on their heads to punish them for free speech and dissent.

While he still leads and attends right-wing events, McInnes pulled back from the spotlight after 2018. Ironically, one of the likely reasons is that, as a Canadian citizen, he risks deportation if he’s too closely associated with groups accused of organized violence like the Proud Boys. But it’s hard to deny that he succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. Trump’s invasion of Minneapolis and the violence inflicted on the residents is being justified by the administration and their allies with the exact same concepts McInnes used to build up the Proud Boys in its early days: that racial diversity is a poison, that white male violence is purifying and heroic, and that it’s “self-defense” to beat or even kill anyone who stands up to the right.

McInnes is no longer needed to push the GOP toward fascism. Under leaders like Trump and Noem, the party is already fully there

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A Greek court has acquitted 24 rescue volunteers, including Syrian competitive swimmer and activist Sarah Mardini, of human trafficking charges designed to discourage those seeking to save migrants and refugees from drowning.

Mardini, whose rescue of her sister inspired the 2022 Netflix film The Swimmers, and the other volunteers, had been facing the charges since their arrest in 2018.

A court on the Greek island of Lesbos ruled on Thursday that volunteers with Emergency Response Centre International (ERCI), a Greek nonprofit, were not guilty of charges of facilitating illegal entry and forming a criminal organisation.

“All defendants are acquitted of the charges” because their aim was “not to commit criminal acts but to provide humanitarian aid”, presiding Judge Vassilis Papathanassiou told the court.

Mardini, a 30-year-old Syrian who sought refuge in Germany in 2015, was present at the court, along with her Irish-German co-defendant Sean Binder.

“Saving human lives is not a crime,” an emotional Mardini said after the verdict.

“We never did anything illegal because if helping people is a crime, then we are all criminals.”

Mardini was part of a group of volunteer activists with the ERCI organisation trying to help migrants and refugees reach the island of Lesbos from Turkiye in 2018. She was arrested at the time and spent three months in prison in Greece.

Her lawyer, Zaharias Kesses, said it was “unacceptable” for such high-profile cases to drag on for so long.

The aim of such legal action, Kesses argued, “was to criminalise humanitarian aid and eliminate humanitarian organisations. Before this case, thousands of volunteers were on Lesbos, whereas afterwards they were reduced to a few dozen.”

‘Criminalisation of humanitarian assistance’

The Netflix film The Swimmers is inspired by the story of Mardini and her sister Yusra, who was one of 10 athletes who competed in the Rio Olympics for a Refugee Team.

Their family made the perilous journey across the Aegean Sea in 2015, and the sisters saved other people from drowning along the way.

“These charges should never have been brought to trial in the first place,” Amnesty International said after the acquittal.

“The EU must also take note of today’s decision and introduce stronger safeguards against the criminalisation of humanitarian assistance under EU law, no one should be punished for trying to help,” Amnesty said.

New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) echoed Amnesty’s statement.

“Two dozen people were subjected to a seven-year legal ordeal on baseless charges for saving lives. These abusive prosecutions have virtually shut down lifesaving work even as people continue to drown in the Aegean,” HRW said.

This is the second time Greece has brought criminal charges against the volunteers.

In 2023, they were acquitted in another case involving offences related to their humanitarian work, including “espionage”.

Several European countries, including Italy, have moved to punish people who provide life-saving assistance to migrants and refugees.

UN human rights experts, including Mary Lawlor, the UN special rapporteur on human rights defenders, expressed alarm in December that proposed European legislation risked the “criminalisation of life-saving action and assistance to victims of human trafficking, migrants, refugees, asylum seekers and other persons in need of international protection, including children”.

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The richest 10 percent of the world’s population now owns three-quarters of all personal wealth, according to the newly released World Inequality Report 2026.

Income is not much different, where the top 50 percent of earners take home more than 90 percent, while the poorest half of the world receives less than 10 percent of total income.

The report, which has been published annually since 2018, notes that the 2026 edition arrives at a critical time. Worldwide, living standards are stagnating for many, while wealth and power are increasingly concentrated at the top.

The differences between wealth and income inequality

Wealth and income levels do not always go hand in hand. The wealthiest are not necessarily the highest earners, highlighting the persistent divide between what people earn and what they own.

Wealth includes the total value of a person’s assets-such as savings, investments or property, after subtracting their debts.

In 2025, the wealthiest 10 percent of the world’s population owned 75 percent of global wealth, the middle 40 percent held 23 percent, and the bottom half controlled only 2 percent.

Since the 1990s, the wealth of billionaires and centi-millionaires has grown by about 8 percent each year, almost twice the rate of the bottom half of the world’s population.

The wealthiest 0.001 percent – fewer than 60,000 multimillionaires – now control three times more wealth than half of humanity. Their share has climbed from almost 4 percent in 1995 to more than 6 percent today.

The poorest have made small gains, but these are overshadowed by the rapid accumulation at the very top, resulting in a world where a tiny minority holds extraordinary financial power, while billions still struggle for basic economic security.

Income is measured using pre-tax earnings, after accounting for pension and unemployment insurance contributions.

In 2025, the richest 10 percent of the world received 53 percent of global income, the middle 40 percent received 38 percent, and the bottom 50 percent earned just 8 percent.

For example, if the world comprised 10 people and total global income was $100, then the richest person would receive $53, the next four people would collectively earn $38, and the remaining five people would divide $8 among them.

How is wealth and income divided regionally?

Inequality looks very different around the world. A person’s birthplace remains one of the strongest factors in determining how much they earn and the wealth they can build. However, the regions also include poor and wealthy countries, and figures in the report are averages.

In 2025, the average wealth of people in North America and Oceania, which the report has grouped together, stood at 338 percent of the world’s average, making it the wealthiest region globally. Income share stood at 290 percent of the world’s average, also the highest in the world.

Europe and East Asia followed, remaining above the world average, while vast parts of sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, Latin America and the Middle East remained far below the global average.

Global inequality paints a stark picture, but the scale of wealth and income gaps can vary widely from one country to another. While some nations show slightly more balanced distributions, others reveal extreme concentration of wealth in the hands of a few.

Which countries have the highest income inequality?

South Africa has the highest levels of income inequality in the world. The top 10 percent earn 66 percent of total income, while the bottom half receives only 6 percent.

Latin American countries such as Brazil, Mexico, Chile and Colombia show a similar trend, where the richest 10 percent receive nearly 60 percent of earnings.

European countries offer a more balanced picture. In Sweden and Norway, the bottom 50 percent earn about 25 percent of total income, while the top 10 percent receive less than 30 percent.

Many developed economies, including Australia, Canada, Germany, Japan and the United Kingdom, fall in the middle. The top 10 percent earn roughly 33-47 percent of total income, while the bottom half takes 16-21 percent.

In Asia, income distribution is mixed. Countries like Bangladesh and China have a more balanced structure, whereas India, Thailand, and Turkiye remain top-heavy, with the richest 10 percent earning more than half of all income.

The table below shows where income is divided most unequally.

Which countries have the highest wealth inequality?

When it comes to wealth inequality, once again, South Africa tops the list. The top 10 percent control 85 percent of personal wealth, leaving the bottom 50 percent with negative shares – meaning their debt exceeds assets.

Russia, Mexico, Brazil and Colombia show a similar pattern, with the richest grabbing 70 percent or more, while the poorest receive barely 2–3 percent.

European countries such as Italy, Denmark, Norway and the Netherlands are relatively more balanced. Here, the middle 40 percent capture about 45 percent, and the bottom half takes a slightly larger share, though the top 10 percent still dominate. However, Sweden and Poland’s bottom 50 percent have negative shares in wealth.

Even wealthy nations like the United States, UK, Australia, and Japan are far from equal. The top 10 percent earn more than half of the total income, while the bottom half is left with just 1–5 percent.

Emerging economies in Asia – including China, India and Thailand – also show stark inequalities. The richest 10 percent control roughly 65 – 68 percent of wealth, highlighting a persistent concentration at the top.

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The visit on Tuesday came less than a day after Zelenskyy reiterated that Ukraine would not cede territory to Russia. He later held talks with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, following meetings in London with the leaders of France, Germany and the United Kingdom.

“Ukraine deeply appreciates all the support of His Holiness Pope Leo XIV and the Holy See – the ongoing humanitarian assistance and the readiness to expand humanitarian missions,” Zelenskyy wrote on X after the audience at the Vatican.

He said he thanked the pontiff “for his constant prayers for Ukraine” and for calls “for a just peace”, adding that he briefed him on mediation efforts “to return our children abducted by Russia”.

“I invited the Pope to visit Ukraine. This would be a powerful signal of support for our people,” he said.

The meeting took place at St Peter’s Basilica, the same setting where Zelenskyy and US President Donald Trump were pictured sitting face-to-face at the funeral of Pope Francis in April, after a period of public criticism between the two leaders in Washington.

Kyiv is seeking to shore up international backing at a crucial moment, with attempts to broker a settlement advancing and the war, soon entering its fourth year.

Ukraine has resisted pressure from Washington to quickly accept a ceasefire proposal that officials in Kyiv view as favouring Moscow. Zelenskyy said a revised peace plan now contained 20 points, though there was still no agreement on Russia’s demand that Ukraine surrender occupied territory, which has become the major sticking point in negotiations.

He said Ukraine would share the updated proposals with the US this week, and remained in constant contact with officials in Washington.

But Trump earlier on Tuesday warned that Kyiv must make concessions, saying Ukraine is “losing” the war.

“He is going to have to get on the ball and start accepting things,” the US president told Politico. Speaking separately to German tabloid Bild, Trump added, “He needs to get his act together and start accepting things.”

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The global average temperature from January to November was 1.48 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels, making it “virtually certain” that 2025 will end up the second or third warmest year on record, the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service said on Tuesday.

Last year was the warmest year on record, while 2023 was the second warmest.

While 2025 may not see temperatures reach 1.5C (2.7F) above pre-industrial levels, the average global temperature for 2023-2025 is likely to exceed the threshold identified by scientists as the trigger for the worst effects of climate change, the monitor said.

“These milestones are not abstract – they reflect the accelerating pace of climate change, and the only way to mitigate future rising temperatures is to rapidly reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” Samantha Burgess, strategic lead for climate at the Copernicus Climate Change Service, said in a statement.

The latest climate data follows a series of extreme weather events this year, including recent tropical storms in South and Southeast Asia that have left more than 1,800 people dead.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned in October that the world would inevitably overshoot the 1.5C (2.7F) threshold, highlighting the importance of early warning systems to protect communities.

In a sign of the fraying global consensus on tackling climate change, the COP30 summit wrapped up in Brazil last month without an agreement on phasing out fossil fuels.

Bjorn H Samset, a scientist at the Center for International Climate Research in Norway, said the world would continue to experience the consequences of climate change as there was no prospect of temperatures coming down within a “meaningful time scale”.

“It’s therefore crucial that we also speed up our efforts to adapt, not just to the climate we’ve gotten now, but for the even warmer climate that we will see in coming decades,” Samset told Al Jazeera.

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The mission, led by ECOWAS chairman and Sierra Leone’s President Julius Maada Bio, came to Guinea-Bissau on Monday to urge the military authorities for a “complete restoration of constitutional order.”

The military has tightened restrictions in the country, banning all demonstrations and strikes.

“We’ve had today very fruitful discussions,” said Sierra Leone’s Foreign Minister Timothy Musa Kabba. “Both sides have expressed their different concerns.”

Joao Bernardo Vieira, the newly appointed foreign minister of Guinea-Bissau, said it was “very clearly established” that ECOWAS would not leave the country “during this difficult period.”

“The transitional authorities and the military will continue their discussions,” he said.

The coup unfolded three days after the country’s closely contested presidential election, with both main contenders – incumbent President Umaro Sissoco Embalo and opposition candidate Fernando Dias da Costa – claiming victory before provisional results were due to be announced. No results have been released since.

During the takeover, Embalo told French media by phone that he had been deposed and arrested. He has since fled to Brazzaville, the capital of the Republic of Congo.

Guinea-Bissau military officials appointed former army chief of staff General Horta Inta-A to lead a one-year transition government. On Saturday, Inta-a named a new 28-member cabinet, made up largely of figures allied with the deposed president.

Nigeria, meanwhile, said its President Bola Tinubu had authorised protection for opposition leader Dias da Costa, citing an “imminent threat to his life”.

According to a letter sent to ECOWAS by Nigeria’s minister of foreign affairs, Dias da Costa is currently at the Nigerian embassy in Bissau. The letter requested an ECOWAS troop deployment to provide security for the opposition candidate.

Separately, the main opposition African Independence Party for Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC) said in a statement that its headquarters had been “illegally invaded by heavily armed militia groups” in the capital.

The party had been barred from presenting a presidential candidate in the November 23 election, a move criticised by civil rights groups as part of a wider clampdown on dissent.

ECOWAS, widely seen as West Africa’s leading political and regional authority with 15 member states, responded to the coup by suspending Guinea-Bissau from all its decision-making bodies “until the restoration of full and effective constitutional order in the country”.

International condemnation has continued to grow, with United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres saying that he is gravely concerned and condemning the military takeover, warning that ignoring “the will of the people who peacefully cast their vote during the November 23 general elections constitutes an unacceptable violation of democratic principles”.

Guterres called for the “immediate and unconditional restoration of constitutional order” and the release of all detained officials, including electoral authorities and opposition figures.

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Pope Leo has embarked on his first foreign trip as Catholic leader with a visit to two Muslim-majority countries of Turkiye and Lebanon, where he is expected to make appeals for peace in the Middle East, ravaged by conflicts, and urge unity among long-divided Christian churches.

The pontiff, who has a crowded three-day itinerary in Turkiye starting on Thursday, before heading on to Lebanon, will be closely watched as he makes his first speeches overseas and visits sensitive cultural sites.

Foreign travel has become a major part of the modern papacy, with popes attracting international attention as they lead events with crowds sometimes in the millions, give foreign policy speeches and conduct international diplomacy.

Leo, 70, was scheduled to depart with his entourage from Rome’s Fiumicino airport at about 06:40 GMT on Thursday, and will first visit the Turkish capital, Ankara, where he will meet President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and address political leaders.

The first pontiff from the United States has chosen Turkiye as his first overseas destination to mark the 1,700th anniversary of a landmark early church council there that produced the Nicene Creed, still used by most of the world’s Christians today.

Leo was elected in May by the world’s cardinals in a conclave to succeed the late Pope Francis. A relative unknown on the world stage before his election, Leo spent decades as a missionary in Peru and only became a Vatican official in 2023.

Francis had been planning to visit Turkiye and Lebanon, but was unable to go because of his worsening health.

After a brief visit in Ankara, Leo is also scheduled to fly on Thursday evening to Istanbul, which was also previously known as Constantinople, the capital of the Roman Empire.

[Translation: Pope Leo to depart for Turkiye for his first apostolic trip. He is seen arriving at Rome’s Fiumicino airport, from where he will take an Italian Airways flight to Ankara.]

In Istanbul, the city’s largest Catholic church at St Anthony Padua Parish, preparations are under way to welcome Leo, who is only the fifth pope to visit Turkiye, after Paul VI in 1967, John Paul II in 1979, Benedict XVI in 2006 and Francis in 2014.

Istanbul is the home of Patriarch Bartholomew, spiritual leader of the world’s 260 million Orthodox Christians.

Orthodox and Catholic Christians split in the East-West Schism of 1054, but have generally sought in recent decades to build closer ties.

On Friday, Leo and Bartholomew will travel to Iznik, 140km (90 miles) southeast of Istanbul and once called Nicaea, where early churchmen formulated the Nicene Creed, which lays out what remain the core beliefs of most Christians today.

In a departure from normal practice – popes usually speak Italian on foreign trips – Leo is expected to speak English in his speeches in Turkiye.

On Sunday, Leo will head to religiously diverse Lebanon, a nation that has been crushed by a devastating economic and political crisis since 2019 and which has been the target of repeated bombings by Israel in near-daily violations of a ceasefire with Hezbollah that was agreed one year ago to end the war.

Israel has killed more than 330 Lebanese in the last year since the truce was brokered.

On Sunday, Israel killed the Hezbollah chief of staff, Haytham Ali Tabatabai, in an air strike on the southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital, Beirut.

Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said on Monday that necessary security precautions were being taken to ensure the pope’s safety in Lebanon, but he would not comment on specifics.

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The attack was staged on Wednesday night at about 11:30pm local time (20:30 GMT), the Reuters news agency reported. It hit several gas storage tanks, resulting in an explosion and large fire that injured several workers, the agency said.

No casualties have been reported.

The focus of the attack appeared to be a disruption to the region’s “security and economic stability”, according to the Joint Operations Command, Iraq’s central military command.

According to local officials, 8 percent of the regional power grid has been affected, resulting in power cuts across the semi-autonomous region.

The Khor Mor gasfield is operated by the United Arab Emirates company Dana Gas and lies between the cities of Kirkuk and Sulaimaniyah in northern Iraq.

Field engineers say the gas tanks will take two to three days to repair, according to the AFP news agency, while the government and Dana Gas have dispatched teams to investigate the accident.

No group has claimed the attack yet, although the region’s gasfields have come under mysterious drone attacks in the past.

Earlier this week, a drone tried to attack the Khor Mor gasfield, but it was prevented from doing so by security forces, Reuters said.

Four workers were killed at the facility in a 2024 drone attack.

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After two weeks of heated debates, meetings and negotiations at the COP30 summit in the Brazilian city of Belem, world leaders on Saturday agreed to a deal that calls for countries to “significantly accelerate and scale up climate action worldwide”.

The text lays out a series of promises and measures – including a call for developed countries to triple their funding to help poorer nations respond to the crisis – but makes no mention of a fossil fuel phase-out.

Dozens of states had been calling forthe COP30 deal to lay out a framework to ease away from their reliance on oil, gas and coal – the major drivers of the climate crisis – but several countries that rely on fossil fuels had pushed back.

While observers say the deal marks a step forward in the world’s effort to address climate breakdown, several have argued that COP30 fell short of expectations.

Here’s a look at how some world leaders and climate advocates have reacted to the agreement.

COP30 President Andre Aranha Correa do Lago

“We know some of you had greater ambitions for some of the issues at hand. I know that you, civil society, will demand us to do more to fight climate change. I want to reaffirm that I will try not to disappoint you during my presidency,” he said during Saturday’s closing session.

“As [Brazilian] President [Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva] said at the opening of this COP, we need roadmaps so that humanity – in a just and planned manner – can overcome its dependence on fossil fuels, halt and reverse deforestation and mobilise resources for these purposes,” he said.

“I, as president of COP30, will therefore create two roadmaps: One on halting and reverting [reversing] deforestation and another to transitioning away from fossil fuels in a just, orderly and equitable manner.”

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres

“COP30 has delivered progress,” Guterres said in a statement, including the call to triple climate adaptation financing and recognition that the world is going to surpass the 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) target for global warming set under the Paris Agreement.

“But COPs are consensus-based – and in a period of geopolitical divides, consensus is ever harder to reach. I cannot pretend that COP30 has delivered everything that is needed. The gap between where we are and what science demands remains dangerously wide,” the UN chief said.

“I understand many may feel dissapointed [sic] – especially young people, Indigenous Peoples and those living through climate chaos. The reality of overshoot is a stark warning: We are approaching dangerous and irreversible tipping points,” he added.

Wopke Hoekstra, European Union climate commissioner

“We’re not going to hide the fact that we would have preferred to have more, to have more ambition on everything,” Hoekstra told reporters.

“It is not perfect, but it is a hugely important step in the right direction.”

Colombian President Gustavo Petro

“I do not accept that the COP30 declaration does not clearly state, as science does, that the cause of the climate crisis is the fossil fuels used by capital. If that is not stated, everything else is hypocrisy,” Petro wrote on social media.

“Life on the planet, including our own, is only possible if we separate ourselves from oil, coal, and natural gas as energy sources; science has determined this, and I am not blind to science.

“Colombia opposes a COP30 declaration that does not tell the world the scientific truth.”

Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla

“While the results fell short of expectations, the Belem COP strengthens and demonstrates the importance of multilateralism in addressing major global challenges such as combating #climatechange,” he wrote on X.

“Among its key outcomes are the call for developed countries to provide climate finance for adaptation in developing countries, at least tripling current levels by 2035; the establishment of a mechanism to support our countries in just transitions; and the commitment from developed countries to fulfill their obligations under the Paris Agreement.”

China

“I’m happy with the outcome,” Li Gao, head of China’s delegation at COP30, told the AFP news agency.

“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.”

Alliance of Small Island States

A group representing the interests of 39 small island and low-lying coastal states described the deal as “imperfect” but said it nevertheless was a step towards “progress”.

“Ultimately, this is the push and pull of multilateralism. The opportunity for all countries to be heard and to listen to each other’s perspectives, to collaborate, build bridges, and reach common ground,” the Alliance of Small Island States said in a statement.

Amnesty International

Ann Harrison, climate justice adviser at Amnesty International, noted that COP30 host Brazil had promised to make sure “every voice is heard and made strenuous efforts to broaden participation, which should be replicated”.

“Yet the lack of participatory, inclusive, and transparent negotiations left both civil society and Indigenous Peoples, who answered the global mutirao [working together] call in large numbers, out of the real decision making,” Harrison said in a statement.

Still, she said “people power” had helped achieve “a commitment to develop a Just Transition mechanism that will streamline and coordinate ongoing and future efforts to protect the rights of workers, other individuals and communities affected by fossil fuel phase out”.

Oxfam

Viviana Santiago, executive director of Oxfam Brasil, said COP30 “offered a spark of hope but far more heartbreak, as the ambition of global leaders continues to fall short of what is needed for a liveable planet”.

“A truly just transition requires those who built their fortunes on fossil fuels to move first and fastest – and provide finance in the form of grants, not loans, so front-line communities can do the same. Instead, the poorest countries already in debt are being told to transition faster, with fewer funds,” Santiago said.

“The spark of hope lies in the proposed Belem Action Mechanism, which puts workers’ rights and justice at the centre of the shift away from fossil fuels. But without financing from rich countries, the just energy transition risks becoming stalled in many countries.”

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