Photo by Chris Boland
The 30th UN Climate Change Conference opened in Belém, Brazil, on Monday with urgent calls to accelerate implementation of climate commitments, as the world’s largest gathering of Indigenous leaders demanded recognition as essential actors in the global response to the climate crisis.
The two-week summit, taking place in the gateway to the Amazon rainforest, brings together approximately 50,000 delegates from more than 190 countries. However, the absence of high-level United States representatives has raised questions about the summit’s ability to deliver meaningful outcomes amid fractious global politics.
Implementation over negotiation
UN Secretary-General António Guterres set the tone for COP30 with a blunt message to delegates. “It’s no longer time for negotiations. It’s time for implementation, implementation and implementation,” he said at the leaders’ summit.
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, whose country holds the COP30 presidency, emphasised that “the climate emergency is an increase of inequality.” He deliberately chose Belém rather than “a finished city” to highlight climate impacts on the Amazon and poverty. “The increase of the global temperature is spreading pain and devastation especially amongst the most vulnerable populations,” he told delegates.
COP30 President André Corrêa do Lago stressed that negotiators must engage in “mutirão” – derived from an Indigenous word meaning a group uniting for a shared task – reflecting Brazil’s push to spotlight Indigenous leadership at the conference.
The summit has been billed as “the COP of implementation and adaptation,” with organisers urging countries to focus on turning promises into action rather than celebrating lofty commitments that remain unfulfilled.
Unprecedented indigenous participation
COP30 is set to see the largest participation of Indigenous leaders in the conference’s history, with more than 3,000 Indigenous people registered. Many arrived in Belém by boat down the Amazon River to demand climate justice and greater recognition of their role in protecting forests and ecosystems.
“Upholding Indigenous peoples’ rights is only possible by placing them at the center of discussions, negotiations, and decision-making,” Dinaman Tuxá, executive coordinator of the Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil, said. “We aim to demand Indigenous land demarcation and direct financing as climate mitigation tools for combating global warming.”
Djalma Ramalho Goncalves from Brazil’s Jequitinhonha Valley described urgent pressures facing his community. “My people have been fighting for 20 years trying to demarcate our territory. Now we are facing the threat of lithium mining. My region has 85 per cent of all the lithium in Brazil,” he said. “They come to our land, take the lithium and leave us with the trash. And that’s the reason why demarcating Indigenous territory is so important.”
Solange Bandiaky-Badji, president of the Rights and Resources Initiative, noted that many are calling COP30 “the Indigenous People’s COP.” She emphasised that Indigenous peoples, Afro-descendant peoples and local communities collectively manage more than half of the world’s land but have ownership or legal rights to only 11 per cent of it.
However, Indigenous delegates expressed widespread concern about high accommodation costs in Belém, which effectively shut out many Indigenous representatives from attending. The accommodation crisis prompted some countries to lobby Brazil to switch cities.
US absence reshapes dynamics
The Trump administration’s decision not to send high-level negotiators marks a significant departure from decades of US participation in climate talks. The administration has withdrawn the US from the Paris Agreement for the second time and called climate efforts the “Green New Scam.”
White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers stated that President Trump “is directly engaging with leaders around the world on energy issues, which you can see from the historic trade deals and peace deals that all have a significant focus on energy partnerships.”
Ilana Seid, Palau Ambassador and chair of the Alliance of Small Island States, said the US withdrawal “has really shifted the gravity” of the negotiating system.
The absence has opened space for other actors. Do Lago noted that “emerging countries are appearing in this COP with a different role. China is coming with solutions for everyone.” California Governor Gavin Newsom is attending in an unofficial capacity, alongside a delegation of more than 100 US state and local leaders.
Key agenda items
At the heart of negotiations is the Baku-to-Belém Roadmap for $1.3 trillion in annual climate finance by 2035, a massive increase from the $300 billion agreed at COP29. The roadmap sets out priorities including boosting multilateral climate funds, strengthening cooperation on taxing polluting activities, and converting sovereign debt into climate investment.
Delegates are also focused on finalising new Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) – national climate plans spelling out emissions reduction commitments. Brazil has made implementation of past pledges a key priority, including outcomes from COP28’s Global Stocktake such as tripling renewable energy capacity globally by 2030 and transitioning away from fossil fuels.
Brazil intends to launch the Tropical Forest Forever Facility, a $125 billion blended-finance investment fund aiming to reward forest conservation in tropical countries starting in 2026.
Another critical focus is finalising indicators to measure progress toward the global goal on adaptation, nearly ten years after the Paris Agreement was adopted. This would represent one of the most significant negotiated outcomes of COP30.
Challenging context
The summit opens against a stark backdrop. The year 2025 is on track to become either the second or third warmest year on record globally, following 2024 as the planet’s warmest on record.
Do Lago acknowledged uncertainty about outcomes. “My preference is not to need a COP decision,” he said, suggesting countries focus on smaller efforts that don’t require consensus after years of summits celebrating unfulfilled promises. “If countries have an overwhelming desire for a COP decision, we will certainly think about it and deal with it.”
The summit faces logistical challenges beyond accommodation shortages. A controversial highway project cutting through rainforest has drawn criticism, though organisers deny direct links to COP30. The location of the summit in the Amazon has also raised questions about Brazil’s own contradictions, including plans to explore oil in the Equatorial Margin near the Amazon River mouth.
Despite these challenges, organisers maintain that holding COP30 in the Amazon carries symbolic weight. A parallel Peoples’ Summit is expected to bring together around 15,000 people from 12 to 16 November to present alternative visions for confronting the climate crisis.
The conference runs until 21 November, though as previous summits have shown, final negotiations may extend beyond the official schedule.