The first UN climate summit in the Amazon carries historic symbolism – but deep political divides, weak commitments, and Brazil’s own environmental contradictions could turn it into another missed opportunity.
In just four months, the United Nations’ 30th Climate Change Conference, COP30, will take place in Belém, Pará – the first time a climate summit has been held in the Amazon. For a region that plays a critical role in regulating the planet’s climate, the symbolism is undeniable: leaders, scientists, and businesses will gather in the world’s largest tropical rainforest to decide whether the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C target remains within reach.
But the clock is ticking, and expectations are already shadowed by the fear that COP30 will emerge as simply being a gathering that is heavy on speeches and light on substance. This year’s summit carries particular weight: countries must present their 2035 targets, and if those fall short, Brazil as host will be tasked with brokering stronger commitments.
“As host of the event, Brazil will have to stitch together agreements so that these targets are improved,” explained Claudio Angelo, international policy coordinator at the Climate Observatory, a network of Brazilian civil society environmental organizations.
Overcrowded agenda
Unresolved issues from COP29 in Azerbaijan will spill over into Belém, crowding an already busy agenda.
Held in 2024 in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, COP29 was branded as the “Finance COP,” with the primary goal of setting mechanisms for funding the green transition. The outcome, however, was bittersweet. On the one hand, the summit finally broke years of deadlock on establishing a global carbon credit market – a milestone long awaited in climate negotiations.
See also: Outcomes and takeaways of COP29 | Experts’ Opinions
On the other hand, it failed to deliver on a crucial expectation: securing strong commitments from wealthy nations to transfer resources to poorer countries so they can implement climate control measures. Delegates agreed that developed countries should transfer at least US$300 billion per year to developing nations between 2025 and 2035 which was three times the previous US$100 billion annual target set for 2020–2025.
However, the figure fell well short of the US$1.3 trillion developing nations had demanded, and even further from that which scientists deem to be essential to meet decarbonization goals: US$2.4 trillion annually by 2030, and US$3.5 trillion by 2035. This means that in 2025, Brazil will shoulder the task of steering talks toward the trillion-dollar mark.
This is not the only unresolved agenda item passing from Azerbaijan to Brazil. COP30 will also need to revive the stalled agreement on reducing global fossil fuel use – a commitment established at COP28 in Dubai but derailed last year amid disputes over the wording.
“The unresolved items will crowd COP30’s agenda even further,” commented Guarany Osório, coordinator of the Environmental Policy and Economics Program at Getulio Vargas Foundation, one of the main universities in Brazil.
Geopolitics and division threaten talks
And this time, complex negotiations face an additional obstacle: a shifting geopolitical landscape. The United States is expected to retreat from its commitments on energy transition and emissions reduction. On his first day back in the White House, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris Agreement, a move he had also made during his first term from 2017 to 2020.
The risk is clear: a summit with so much anticipation could end up as another climate conference that reaches no substantial conclusions. Deep divisions remain over the global stocktake, the Paris Agreement’s built-in mechanism to assess progress toward climate goals. The first stocktake, carried out in 2023 at COP28 in Dubai, revealed a stark truth – the world is no longer on track to limit warming to 1.5°C. Whether this can change depends largely on whether rich, high-polluting countries will provide the financial support poorer nations need to make a timely energy transition.
Bonn talks set a worrying tone
The UN’s mid-year negotiations in Bonn, Germany, intended to smooth the way for COP30, instead exposed the same entrenched divides that have slowed climate action for years Negotiators left with little more than draft texts, prompting UN climate chief Simon Stiell to admit:
“I won’t sugarcoat it — there is still a lot to do before we meet in Belém.”
The clashes were stark. The European Union, along with Japan, Canada, and Australia, pushed for “more ambition” but resisted reopening financing commitments. On the other side, the Like-Minded Developing Countries — including China, India, Saudi Arabia, and Bolivia — arrived with divergent but equally obstructive priorities. India sought to renegotiate the COP29 finance deal, Saudi Arabia and other oil producers aimed to dilute the fossil fuel phase-out, and China railed against the EU’s incoming carbon border tax, arguing it penalizes the very country that supplies much of the world’s solar and wind equipment.
See also: The role of the Bonn Climate Conference in bridging the climate finance gap
Without agreement on finance, nothing else advances and becomes a vicious cycle that frustrates both negotiators and scientists. “Geopolitical impasses and slow decisions show that climate diplomacy needs to go beyond goodwill,” warned Camila Jardim of Greenpeace Brazil.
“Brazil has every condition to be not just a good listener and facilitator, but a catalyst for ambition — pressing for tangible results and reminding the world that while some invest in wars, the real battle is against the climate crisis.”
Brazil’s leadership questioned
However, Brazil’s own record risks undermining its ability to lead by example. A recent editorial in the prestigious journal Science, co-authored by Philip Fearnside of the National Institute for Amazonian Research and Walter Leal Filho of Hamburg University of Applied Sciences, warned that “with the exception of the Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change, virtually all sectors of the government promote activities that increase greenhouse gas emissions.”
See also: Pros and Cons of paving the BR-319 Brazilian highway through the heart of Amazon | Experts’ Opinions
They cite the federal plan to rebuild the BR-319 highway, which runs 870 kilometers (540 miles) from Manaus, the capital of Amazonas state, to Porto Velho, in Rondônia which could open vast swaths of rainforest to deforestation and agricultural subsidies that encourage converting pasture into soybean fields, a change that drives ranchers deeper into the Amazon in search of cheaper land. They also point to plans to explore new oil and gas reserves, including at the mouth of the Amazon River, calling it “a formula for climate disaster.”
“The Brazilian plan to keep pursuing new oil wells until the country reaches the economic level of developed nations will lock in decades of extraction — far beyond when the world needs to abandon fossil fuels,” the authors argue.
Their warning is clear. Without a “radical change in government policy, both in the drivers of deforestation and in fossil fuel extraction,” Brazil’s hosting of COP30 will be overshadowed by contradictions at home.
Fernanda Carvalho of WWF Brazil, a global organization dedicated to protecting biodiversity, shares the concern, noting that Brazil’s “action agenda” is positive in theory but lacks the “political momentum” to drive real change.
“The Global Stocktake covers everything,” she explained, “but the real origins of climate change are fossil fuels and ecosystem destruction. That’s why we say we need a Plan B and a Plan C.”
