It officially begins this Monday in the city of Belém, in the Brazilian Amazon, with a long list of pending tasks and the mission of putting a stop to the growing wave of denialism.
Representatives from some 170 countries will participate in an event marked by a world in crisis, profound geopolitical changes, a crisis, trade disputes and important world leaders who sow doubts about global warming.
“This is the time to honor our ancestry in international law. At COP30, our ambition must be to fill the gaps by implementing unity and cooperation,” said COP30 President André Corrêa do Lago in a letter released this Sunday.
It is the first time that the climate conference is held in the largest tropical forest on the planet, a vital ecosystem for regulating global temperature, but also one of the most threatened by deforestation and illegal mining.
Climate disaster in Brazil in the middle of COP30
And the planet continues to give alarming signals. On Friday, as world leaders discussed the energy transition in Belém, an unprecedented tornado caused at least six deaths and 784 injuries in the southern Brazilian state of Paraná.
The phenomenon, with winds of up to 250 kilometers per hour, devastated the town of Río Bonito do Iguaçu, where it destroyed almost the entire housing stock.
This Sunday, in the Philippines, almost a million people were evacuated before the arrival of a new super typhoon, just two days after suffering another one that left 220 dead.
In this context, the UN Secretary General, António Guterres, expressed on Thursday, at the opening of the COP30 leaders’ summit, his pessimism about the possibility of achieving the goal of . “It’s a moral failure,” he said.
Brazil, as the organizing country, aims to straighten the course and keep alive one of the pillars of the .
“COP30 can mark the moment when humanity begins again, restoring our alliance with the planet and between generations,” Corrêa do Lago said in the letter.
Five axes to advance in Belém
Scientist Paulo Artaxo, member of the IPCC, expects progress in five axes: promoting a just transition away from fossil fuels, guaranteeing mechanisms to end deforestation in tropical forests until 2030, consolidating instruments for climate financing, implementing adaptation policies and strengthening multilateralism.
The issue of financing has continued since COP29 in Baku. Developing countries insist on negotiating in Belém how to reach 1.3 trillion dollars annually until 2035 in order to meet their climate objectives.
However, for Artaxo, Europe, pressured by increased defense spending, will try to avoid that issue.
On the eve of the thirtieth conference, Brazil and Azerbaijan, host of COP29, published a roadmap to go from the $300 billion committed to $1.3 trillion.
Proposals include taxing luxury fashion, technology and military products.
On the other hand, the oil countries will also seek to block any progress regarding the possibility of abandoning oil as a source of energy.
Another objective of the negotiators will be to establish by consensus a series of adaptation indicators. Until now, a list of one hundred items is managed. In this way, it will be possible to measure which countries are most vulnerable to the climate emergency and act accordingly.
Giving more weight to adaptation means implicitly recognizing that mitigation goals have not been met. In fact, this year the 195 signatories of the Paris Agreement were obliged to present new emissions reduction targets, the so-called NDCs.
However, only 79 countries have done their homework before this climate summit. “We are going to go through the conference with the possibility of not knowing what most countries will do,” said Marcio Astrini, executive secretary of the Climate Observatory network.
Furthermore, the United States, one of the most polluting countries and whose president, , denies the climate crisis, did not participate in the leaders’ summit, which was held between last Thursday and Friday, and it is not yet known how it will be represented at the conference in Belém.
The negotiations will last until the 21st, with the possibility of extending a few more days, in Belém, whose preparation for this COP30 was marred by serious logistical problems and the exorbitant prices of its hotels.
