Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva issued a stark warning on Thursday at the start of the COP30 leaders summit in Belém: "The window of opportunity to act against global warming is closing rapidly." In an even more somber tone, UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned that it would be "a moral failure and a deadly negligence" to exceed the global temperature increase of 1.5 degrees set ten years ago by the Paris Agreement.
In contrast to the historic French summit, which was attended by over 150 world leaders, COP30 (United Nations Climate Change Conference) has only convened around thirty leaders, mostly from South America and Europe (including Pedro Sánchez, President Macron, and "Premier" Keir Starmer). The notable absence of Donald Trump, who recently referred to climate change as "the greatest hoax in history" in his speech at the General Assembly, sparked a flurry of allusions and references.
Lula himself criticized "extremist forces that fabricate lies for electoral gains and condemn future generations to an outdated model that perpetuates social and economic disparities, as well as environmental degradation" in his address (Lula has been criticized by environmental organizations in Brazil for recently authorizing oil exploration at the mouth of the Amazon).
"Premier" Starmer acknowledged that "the consensus has been broken" in the UK and other countries around the world regarding the speed at which the ecological transition should take place, directly referencing pressures from the far right to abandon the "net-zero emissions" target by 2050. Prince William, who led the British delegation, also warned that the planet is "approaching the tipping point of climate change."
President Emmanuel Macron also urged leaders to "choose science over ideology" and to "continue supporting scientists" against attacks from certain political sectors. Macron expressed hope that COP30 would serve to "revive a new spirit in line with the agreement reached in Paris."
As a backdrop to the leaders' summit, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) confirmed on Monday that the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere will reach a new record by 2025, making it "the second or third hottest year" since the pre-industrial era. The hottest years on record have been in the last decade.
COP30, officially starting on November 10, has this year been preceded by the leaders' meeting. The Belém summit, chosen for its symbolic power at the mouth of the Amazon, has been marked for months by organizational issues, a lack of hotel rooms, and exorbitant room prices that even led the UN to reduce the number of delegates.
The so-called "COP of truth" faces the challenge of implementing the last-minute agreement reached at COP29 in Baku on climate financing, initially set at 290 billion euros annually, with the goal of reaching 1.3 trillion by 2035. The Brazilian summit will place special emphasis on measures to curb deforestation, with the Amazon as a backdrop.
COP30 President André Corrêa do Lago also aims to accelerate the ecological transition within the "Global Mutirao" ("Collective Action") agenda of mobilization and solutions to the climate crisis. Emission reductions and the "gradual elimination" of fossil fuels are expected to remain key challenges.