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On November 10 the 30th Conference of the Parties (COP30) gathered in Belém, a Brazilian city situated within the Amazon rainforest, for discussions running until at least November 21. The COP is the annual climate change conference organized by the UN, bringing together nearly all world nations to discuss, negotiate, and assess the response to climate change as well as the current environmental situation.
Despite the absence of US Federal Governmental presence at COP30, with the Trump administration having sent no representative, over 100 subnational US officials are attending the Conference; including representatives from climate coalitions, state governors, and city mayors. The European Union delegation was able to attend, bringing a last minute deal involving lower climate ambitions after opposition to stronger climate efforts led by Italy, Poland and Hungary. On the other hand, the presence and dedication of important world leaders such as Luiz Inácio Lula Da Silva, President of Brazil, and of Xi Jinping, President of China — a country responsible for about a third of the world’s entropic C02 emissions — shows their consideration for COP30’s organization and decisions. Their presence also gives hope regarding the ambitions of the conference. Many diplomats hope that this COP summit will be historic in developing solutions to the climate crisis. André Aranha Corrêa do Lago, Brazil’s Vice-Minister for Climate, Energy, and Environment at the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and COP30 President declared that he wants this year’s COP to be “genuinely transformative” rather than “business as usual.”
The United Nations University Institute for Environment and Human Security (UNU-EHS), a think tank that researches and provides policy advice on human security related to natural hazards and climate change, wishes for a genuinely transformative conference. The UNU-EHS is hoping that COP30 can reach milestone decisions by the end of the conference. As the Paris Agreement entails, the UNU-EHS expects that countries will scale up their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs): the plans for each country to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by the 2025 deadline. If countries manage to obtain this at COP30, it will spark a positive pattern, inciting countries to aim for higher ambitions in the future, and enact a “ratchet-up mechanism” as the UNU-EHS describes it.
The UNU-EHS also expects COP30 to implement further Adaptation Plans. These are processes established during COP16 that specifically help Least Developed Countries (LDCs) achieve their climate goals, and reform climate finance to increase participating nations’ capabilities to commit to their climate efforts. COP30 is also expected to increase the efficiency and capacity of the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD) which addresses climate change related damages. Finally, COP30 marks the ten-year anniversary of the Paris Agreement, allowing for a symbolic occasion to renew pledges and commitments to climate efforts.
Despite high expectations, many still doubt COP30’s ability to succeed. Protesters in Belém denounced world leaders’ ignorance of COP decisions and displayed their disdain toward the climate by posing as caricatures of Lula and Trump. Last year’s COP29 in Baku was deemed a disappointment by many for not producing the breakthroughs in climate action it had promised beforehand, like a new commitment to cutting greenhouse gas emissions.
Finally, though COP’s setting in Belém this year symbolizes climate protection, the conference’s location poses an additional number of challenges. Despite the COP organization claiming to further include indigenous populations in climate negotiations, an issue of particular importance to Belém as a city located on indigenous Amazonian land, attention to indigenous representatives’ demands have seldom been listened to. Furthermore, as Belém is a relatively small city, expensive accommodations for the conference risked excluding poorer delegations and NGO representatives. The city’s limited space has additionally caused the deforestation of a section of the Amazon for the event, as the state government cleared the forest to allow for the construction of a four-lane highway in expectation of the COP for example; sparking criticism towards the organization meant to protect the environment.
Overall, COP30 is an event that holds ambitious promises for now. Still, early problems within its organization already question the dedication of the COP to combat the climate crisis, and put into question the efficacy of the summit. Indeed, how can we expect nations to follow COP guidelines and deals when the organization itself clears the Amazon for the sake of its event