The United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP30) — which took place over November 10–21 in Belém, Brazil — was officially presented as the “implementation COP” and “COP of the truth”. However, as with previous COPs, it was defined by a lack of any real commitments to climate action, the denial of indigenous voices and significant fossil fuel industry influence.
More than 1600 fossil fuel lobbyists were officially granted access to COP30, according to the Kick Big Polluters Out coalition. These lobbyists significantly outnumbered every country delegation apart from host country Brazil and represented one in every 25 participants.
It should not come as a surprise, then, that the final agreement text does not mention fossil fuels, the main driver of climate change. Instead, the text is filled with weasel words about “recognising”, “emphasising” and “underlining” the urgency of responding to climate change — with no actual commitment to action.
Even a proposal to develop “roadmaps” for a fossil fuel phaseout, proposed by Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva at the opening of the COP30 and circulated during negotiations, was abandoned by the end of the conference. The Lula government itself is facing criticism for approving offshore oil drilling near the mouth of the Amazon River, just a few weeks before COP30 was due to start.
The adopted “Belém Package” is a series of business-friendly plans and ambiguous commitments, such as “a comprehensive set of 59 voluntary, non-prescriptive indicators to track progress”.
During negotiations, poorer countries most affected by climate change led demands for more finance for mitigation and adaptation. However, the final text only agreed upon non-binding “calls for efforts to triple adaptation finance compared to 2025 levels by 2030”. It should be noted that a significant portion of current public climate finance does not represent fair or just financing — about half of public climate finance to poor countries comes in the form of loans that have to be repaid, often with soaring interest.
The Belém Package included the adoption of the Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF) as a mechanism to purportedly fund tropical forest conservation and efforts to halt deforestation, a key driver of climate change. However, the TFFF has been denounced as a false solution that would deepen neocolonialism and do little to protect forests.
Any commitments by governments to address fossil fuel consumption were limited to outside the official negotiations, which shows the entire failure of COPs as a driver for climate action.
As COP30 drew to an end, Colombian environment minister Irene Vélez Torres and Dutch Deputy Prime Minister Sophie Hermans announced that the two countries would co-host the First International Conference on the Phase-Out of Fossil Fuels, scheduled for April 28–29 next year in the Colombian city of Santa Marta. The Colombian government is a strong supporter of the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty, and it announced during COP30 a ban on all new oil, gas and mining projects in its Amazon region, which covers 42% of the country.
Amazon flotilla
The Yaku Mama Amazon Flotilla — representing indigenous peoples from across Latin America — travelled thousands of kilometres along the Amazon River from Ecuador to Brazil, arriving in Belém on November 9. Some of the flotilla’s central demands are: the meaningful participation of indigenous peoples in climate negotiations and solutions; an end to fossil fuel extraction in the Amazon; the recognition and protection of indigenous land; and a just transition.
More than 5000 indigenous people, representing communities in Brazil and elsewhere, were in Belém. However, only 360 were granted passes to the “blue zone”, where the official negotiations take place. Many indigenous people stormed the blue zone on November 11 in protest at being ignored.
In addition, at least 50,000 people marched through Belém on November 15, midway through COP30, as part of the indigenous-led “People’s March” demanding urgent action on climate change.
The grassroots Peoples’ Summit brought together more than 70,000 people over November 12–16 as an alternative to the fossil-fuel-soaked COP30. The summit’s final declaration denounced the capitalist mode of production, “under the logic and domination of financial capital and large capitalist corporations”, as the main cause of the worsening climate crisis.
“The advance of the extreme right, fascism and wars around the world exacerbates the climate crisis and the exploitation of nature and of peoples,” the declaration said. “The countries of the global North, transnational corporations, and the ruling classes bear the main responsibility for these crises.”
The document declared solidarity with the Palestinian people experiencing a genocide perpetrated by Israel, along with peoples in Latin America and Africa subjected to “imperialist or resource-grabbing attacks”.
“Transnational corporations, in collusion with governments in the global North, are at the centre of power in the capitalist, racist and patriarchal system, being the actors that most cause and benefit from the multiple crises we face,” the declaration said. “The mining, energy, arms, agribusiness and Big Tech industries are primarily responsible for the climate catastrophe we are experiencing.”
False solutions
The declaration said false solutions to the climate crisis, such as the TFFF, “perpetuate harmful practices, create unpredictable risks, and divert attention from transformative solutions based on climate justice and the justice of peoples”.
The declaration called for the “participation and leadership of peoples in the construction of climate solutions” and for recognition of “ancestral knowledge”. This includes the “demarcation and protection of the lands and territories of indigenous peoples and other local peoples and communities, as they are the ones who guarantee the survival of the forest”.
“We demand the implementation of popular agrarian reform and the promotion of agroecology to guarantee food sovereignty and combat land concentration … There is no climate justice without land back in the hands of peoples.”
The declaration called for an end to environmental racism and for the building of fair cities and areas that provide for housing, sanitation, water access and afforestation that is integrated with nature.
Demilitarisation
The declaration called for demilitarisation, and for “all financial resources allocated to wars and the war industry [to] be redirected to the transformation of this world”. Redirecting just 20% of global military spending would raise nearly half a trillion dollars each year in climate finance, according to Oil Change International.
“We want a world with feminist justice, autonomy and participation of women,” the declaration said. “We demand a just, sovereign and popular transition that guarantees the rights of all workers, as well as the right to decent working conditions, freedom of association, collective bargaining and social protection.”
The declaration called for governments to “develop mechanisms to ensure the non-proliferation of fossil fuels, aiming for a just, popular and inclusive energy transition”.
The declaration called for international climate financing to be structured in a “fair, transparent and democratic manner”, not through institutions that deepen North-South inequality, such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.