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World Leaders attending the annual UN climate summit in Brazil this week won’t need to look out their airplane window to realize the immeasurable risks.
The coastal city of Belém is a carpet of emerald green surrounded by winding rivers. But the scene also shows barren plains: about 17% AmazonForest cover has disappeared over the past 50 years, swallowed up by agricultural land, logging and mining.
Often called the “lungs of the world” for their ability to absorb massive amounts of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that warms the planet, the biodiverse Amazon rainforest is increasingly being burned by wildfires and cleared by cattle ranching.
It is here, on the edge of the world’s largest tropical rainforest, that Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva hopes to convince world powers to raise enough money to halt the ongoing destruction of imperiled climate-stabilizing tropical rainforests around the world and make progress on other important climate goals.
Organizers hope this year’s Conference of the Parties – less formally known as COP30 – will deliver commitments of funding and action to support the goals set at previous such meetings, billed as an “implementation COP”. But they will have to overcome low participation from the world’s biggest emitters as the heads of the world’s three biggest polluters – China, the United States and India – will be notably absent.
The tensions are on display as a preliminary leaders’ gathering gets underway on Thursday before formal UN climate talks begin next week.
Shadow of American absence looms over leaders’ meeting
chairman donald trumpWho withdrew the US from the Paris Climate Agreement on the day he entered office, will not send any senior officials. China will send its Deputy Prime Minister Ding Xuexiang.
This will leave the rest of the summit leaders – including British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and French President Emmanuel Macron – facing not only the consequences of the intensifying global climate crisis, but also political challenges.
Advocates and diplomats have worried that the absence of the US – which has at times played a key role in helping China rein in carbon emissions and securing finance for poor countries – could signal a greater global retreat from climate politics.
“Trump’s stance affects the entire global balance. It pushes governments toward denial and regulation,” said Nadino Kalapucha, a spokesman for the Amazonian Kichwa indigenous group. Ecuador“It takes us to Ecuador, Peru, Argentina, where environmental protection is already under pressure.”
Argentine President Javier Milli, a close ideological ally of Trump, called human-caused climate change a “socialist hoax,” threatened to leave the Paris Agreement and pulled Argentine negotiators out of a summit in Azerbaijan last year over what he described as a reassessment of climate policy.
Brazil reflects climate dilemma
Lula, who has presented himself as a champion of climate diplomacy and has been widely praised for reducing deforestation in the Amazon, is hoping to use the summit to push action on key climate goals, unlike the summits of the past two years, which attracted large numbers of oil, gas and coal executives from major oil-producing countries Azerbaijan and the United Arab Emirates.
He is expected to launch an initiative on Thursday called the Tropical Forest Forever Fund, which aims to support more than 70 developing countries that are committed to rainforest conservation. The official COP website describes the initiative as a “permanent trust fund” that will generate approximately $4 from the private sector for every $1 contributed.
“We will move from negotiation of rules to implementation,” Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira told reporters late Wednesday. “This will be the moment when global leaders face the challenge of climate change honestly.”
But Brazil is also a major oil producer, and contradictions abound. Despite his climate credentials, Lula has drawn outrage over his decision to grant state oil company Petrobras a license to explore for oil near the mouth of the Amazon River.
“I don’t want to be an environmental leader,” Lula said Tuesday. “I never claimed to be.”
Logistical headache for Brazil
Belém, a city of 1.3 million inhabitants, had just 18,000 hotel beds ahead of preparations to host the conference, which normally attracts thousands of delegates, environmentalists, company executives, journalists and other members of civil society.
As prices skyrocketed, foreign officials and journalists scrambled to reserve rooms. Some people booked a spot on one of the few docked cruise ships brought into a nearby port for the occasion.
Public schools, military facilities and even the local Internal Revenue building have been equipped with air conditioning and bunk beds to create temporary dormitories. More adventurous or frugal participants can pay $55 per night to sit in a hammock at a facility that typically offers cats.
“Some two-legged creatures also deserve our generosity,” says Eugenia Lima, the 59-year-old owner of a local cat hotel, which stopped accepting feline guests to meet rising demand during COP30. “I’m very proud that the world will be looking at us this month.”
Belém’s periodic “love motels” have also made money by luring civil servants and climate scientists into rooms that would otherwise host prostitutes or couples in need of privacy. Typically $10 per hour, most love motels are charging COP30 guests $200 per night.
Workers get a platform to protest
Mass marches, sit-ins and rallies are essential aspects of the U.N.’s annual climate talks, but the last three summits have taken place in autocratic countries that outlaw most forms of protest. Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Azerbaijan complied with UN rules that facilitate pre-approved protests within a walled-off portion of the venue that are not subject to local laws.
Brazil is a different story. Even before the start of the leaders’ summit, protesters were enjoying their long-awaited freedom on Wednesday. Youth activists, indigenous leaders and climate campaigners set sail into Belém on ships decorated with huge protest banners.
A sign stuck between the sails of a boat from the environmental group Greenpeace read “Action, Justice, Hope”. “Respect Amazon,” read another. Dozens of people disembarked after several days of river travel to rally on the shore.
“Being able to protest and negotiate is a great thing about this COP,” said Laurent Durieux, a researcher with the U.S.-based Organization for International Relief and Development, who arrived by boat from Santarém, a city 1,200 kilometers (1,000 miles) west of Belém.
“Brazil has a long history of social conflict and this is part of this phenomenon.”
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