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Brazil is counting on its much-hyped climate summit in the Amazon next month to deliver something increasingly rare in a fragmented world: proof that nations can still unite to confront the global crisis.
It faces tough headwinds, with a hostile United States likely to fizzle out, a waning political appetite for climate action, and eye-watering prices for housing putting the vote at risk.
About 50,000 participants are expected to attend the two-week COP30 conference starting on November 10 in Belém, an impoverished northern city known as the gateway to the Amazon rainforest.
On Monday, climate ministers and representatives from 67 countries began meeting in Brasilia ahead of marathon United Nations talks that bring together almost every country for the most important climate talks of the year.
Brazil’s Environment Minister Marina Silva highlighted the need to “prevent the point of no return not only for the planet’s climate, but also for climate multilateralism – amid growing doubts over poor adherence to previous agreements.”
UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Still urged countries to “move a little further” ahead of the main talks.
Belém is a symbolic but frightening setting and the personal choice of Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who wants to highlight the role of the rainforest in absorbing carbon dioxide.
But pressure is growing for COP30 to provide more than just a beautiful backdrop as the world inches closer to the 1.5C warming target agreed under the Paris climate accord a decade ago.
The past two years were the hottest years ever recorded, and major polluters are not cutting emissions fast enough to avoid devastating and potentially irreversible changes to the planet.
Lula has come under criticism due to his contradictory stances on the environment.
He has slowed Amazon deforestation and urged countries to step up and reduce emissions, while also enthusiastically supporting new projects at home to drill for oil – which he says the world is not ready to live without.
He has invited dozens of leaders to Belem, but attendance remains uncertain amid complaints of steep housing costs. Schools, cruise ships, and even motels that rent by the hour have been listed to provide cheaper options.
Prince William will represent Britain’s King Charles and the leaders of South Africa and Colombia are expected to attend, but Austria’s president has already declined, citing high hotel prices.
Officials from Gambia, Cape Verde and Japan also told AFP they expected to reduce the size of their delegations.
“I know the problems of Belém,” said Lula, who has rejected calls to postpone the meeting and vowed he would sleep “on a boat, in a hammock.”
“We accepted the challenge of organizing the COP here because we have to show the world what Amazon is.”
Lula, who visited the Vatican on Monday, said he had invited Pope Leo XIV to Belem, but the pope could not come because he had “some other commitments.”
US President Donald Trump, who last month declared climate change a “hoax”, is not expected to attend, nor is anyone else from his administration.
The United States intends to withdraw from the Paris Agreement for the second time as it promotes fossil fuels at home and abroad.
Brazil is adamant that COP30 shows that global climate solidarity is alive, even if wars, tariffs and populist politics are shaking the international order.
COP30 CEO Anna Toni told AFP in an interview in September that it was an “extremely difficult” time to unite around climate change.
“The COPs are not isolated. They reflect the tensions of geopolitics,” he said.
Marta Torres-Gunfoss of sustainable development think tank IDDRI told AFP that forests would be the focus in Belém, but “we should not expect headlines or agreement on big, attractive issues” at COP30.
A clash over faltering climate action seems inevitable, with dozens of countries and blocs, including India and the European Union, delaying by months the submission of their latest 2035 emissions reduction targets.
Many commitments, including those from top polluter China, have not met expectations.
Some of the world’s poorest countries also want to restart a tortured debate over the level of finance they should receive from the rich countries that are most responsible for the climate crisis.
Asked in Brasilia about the availability of financing from rich countries to poor countries, COP30 President Andrés Correa do Lago responded that “there are a lot of requests, but very few promises.”
“There is deep mistrust between rich and poor countries,” said Victor Menotti, spokesman for the NGO Demand Climate Justice.
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