Nine months before the COP30 in Belém, Brazil, the serious struggle for the outcome of this conference on financing and national climate plans has begun. While only just over a dozen of the almost 200 countries had submitted their plans by the UN deadline for submitting new national climate plans (NDCs) on Feb. 10, the responsible authority, the UN Climate Change (UNFCCC), has informally extended this deadline until September – and is relying on aggressive optimism. Experts expect that important decisions on the NDCs will not be made until summer 2025.