COP30 in the Amazon: A recap

A decade after the Paris Agreement set almost 200 countries on a path to limit global heating to 1.5°C, COP30 opened on November 10 in Belém, Brazil, with a packed schedule, offering another opportunity for a coherent multilateral response to climate change. But this year, the climate summit that was once guaranteed front-page status passed largely unnoticed. And it wasn’t public fatigue that left COP30 under the radar, it was the world’s four largest emitters and financiers – the United States, China, India and Russia – not attending.

Brazil, newly styled as a global steward of the rainforest and having achieved a reduction in forest loss, continues to also issue new fossil fuel licences and even bulldozed part of the Amazon to make way for the COP’s infrastructure. The irony speaks for itself – and it does so at a time when the world can least afford it. The UN now says it is ‘virtually impossible’ to keep warming below the 1.5°C target, with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) projecting the threshold could be crossed before 2029. After 30 COPs, no tangible solution, and the main culprits missing, what does yet another conference solve?

By sending no federal delegation, Washington was left in the same bracket as Myanmar, San Marino and Afghanistan. Trump’s insistence that climate science is a ‘hoax’ is part of a running trend in which politicians worldwide sell climate denial to voters

The US federal government sent no representatives, though dozens of state officials attended independently, signalling that subnational interest may outpace Washington. California Governor Gavin Newsom used his appearance to denounce Donald Trump’s dismissal of the event as a “con job”, highlighting that by retreating from climate leadership, the US was effectively “handing the 21st century to China”, which is now leading in the production of solar panels, wind turbines and the electric vehicle market. And while China is privileging industrial expansion above all else, it is scaling up on green manufacturing, unmatched by its Western counterparts. André Corrêa do Lago, the Brazilian diplomat presiding over COP30, argued that instead of envying China’s advantage, countries should emulate its investment.

But by sending no federal delegation, Washington was left in the same bracket as Myanmar, San Marino and Afghanistan. Trump’s insistence that climate science is a “hoax” is part of a running trend in which politicians worldwide sell climate denial to voters to launch their own national programmes.

Over in the UK, despite pressure from Conservative and Reform rivals to abandon “too expensive” net zero policies, and against the advice of some of his own aides, Kier Starmer arrived in Belém. His message, though fitting, was notably bleak: “Consensus is gone,” he told the conference, after affirming that the UK was still “all in”. The UK is hardly where it needs to be on climate policy, but it isn’t completely unresponsive. It announced three new national forests to help meet the legal target of 16.5% woodland cover by 2050, and was among the first countries to submit its updated Nationally Determined Contributions back in February.

But it did so while at the same time withdrawing funding for the $125bn Tropical Forests Forever Facility (TFFF) following cuts to international aid. Prince William departed from the shiny jet alongside Starmer, having previously described the TFFF as “the most ambitious forest-protection fund in history”, and is due to present this year’s Earthshot Prize, for which that very fund is shortlisted. The inconsistency of policy is damning.

Climate governance is becoming inundated with actors whose profits depend on delaying climate action. The last two COPs were held in petro-states – the UAE and Azerbaijan – rewarding the fossil fuel industry front-row seats at the world’s most major climate negotiations

Last year at COP29, at least 1,773 fossil fuel lobbyists attended – more than all delegates from the world’s 10 most climate-vulnerable nations combined. For every 10 fossil fuel lobbyists, there was just one indigenous representative, even though indigenous populations disproportionately absorb the harshest effects of climate change and receive less than 1% of climate finance. It is just another example of corporate influence taking precedence over the rest.

The fundamental task of lobbying is to protect corporations, not hurt them. That’s why the $1.3 trillion in climate finance recommended by experts last year was eventually diluted to just $300 billion. This year, however, disclosure requirements were announced, asking lobbyists to publicly disclose their funders and confirm alignment with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Paris Agreement, and the Kyoto Protocol. But once again, frustratingly, compliance was optional and did not apply to national delegations, which routinely include fossil fuel executives.

Climate governance is becoming inundated with actors whose profits depend on delaying climate action. The last two COPs were held in petro-states – the UAE and Azerbaijan – rewarding the fossil fuel industry front-row seats at the world’s most major climate negotiations. As Kick Big Polluters Out campaigner Jax Bongon put it bluntly: “You cannot solve a problem by giving power to those who caused it”.

But something else extraordinary happened in Belém. Despite the absence of political leadership, climate justice advocates, grassroots organisers and indigenous communities arrived in force, not to attend the official summit, but to hold their own. They travelled by foot, by road, and by boat down the Amazon River to gather at the Peoples’ Summit, a grassroots alternative to COP30, with a message: anti-racist, anti-capitalist, anti-colonial and protecting rights over markets.

One of the most circulated images of the week didn’t come from the main conference hall, but from the water: more than 5,000 Indigenous activists and forest defenders travelled in a flotilla of around 200 boats across the Amazon. The response from civil society offered a stark contrast to the summit’s spectacle.

The People’s Summit this year demonstrated that funding should be allocated directly to Indigenous peoples and local communities that are preserving our forests and biodiversity

Christiana Figueres, former UN Climate Chief, said last year that the COP is “not fit for purpose” – and again, COP30 did little to disprove that sentiment. The COP risks becoming just another annual reunion with decreasing relevance. Nothing but a polished, elitist press event in which implementation and accountability remain optional, and which is saturated with participants pretending to care about the planet while actively profiting from its destruction.

But this doesn’t mean that multilateralism is dead. The legitimacy of the COPs is threatened by the dynamic in which governments, particularly in the global north, prioritise short-term, visible influence over long-term climate resolutions. If the COP is to be effective, participation should be conditional upon performance. Governments ramping up fossil fuel production or engaging in large-scale military aggression should not be welcomed to sit at the same table as countries meeting their climate targets. Doing so harms the credibility of the forum itself.

A reformed COP would be one where participation is earned and where false solutions are called out and clearly distinguished from genuine climate action that actually makes a difference. Universalising climate finance while enforcing mandatory disclosure rules, without exemptions for national delegations, would be a strong first step. The People’s Summit this year demonstrated that funding should be allocated directly to Indigenous peoples and local communities that are preserving our forests and biodiversity, instead of being filtered through duplicitous intermediaries.