Brazil’s COP30 Climate Summit Opens With A Plea For Countries To Get Along

BELEM, Brazil, Nov 10 (Reuters) – The COP30 climate summit kicked off on Monday with the U.N. climate chief urging countries to cooperate rather than fight over priorities; because efforts to limit global warming are threatened by the breakdown of international consensus.

Host country Brazil has brokered a deal on the agenda for a two-week summit in the Amazonian city of Belem, deflecting attempts by developing country negotiating blocs to include contentious issues such as climate finance and carbon taxes in talks.

It was unclear whether the countries would aim to negotiate a final agreement at the end of the event, a tough sell in a year of turbulent global politics and U.S. efforts to prevent a shift away from fossil fuels.

Some, including Brazil, have suggested that countries focus on smaller efforts that don’t need consensus, such as deforestation, after years of COP summits made mostly unfulfilled promises.

“In this arena of COP30, your task here is not to fight each other; your task here is to fight this climate crisis together,” UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell told delegates from more than 190 countries attending.

He said three decades of U.N. climate talks have helped bend the projected warming curve downward, “as what is agreed in halls like this is because governments legislate and markets react. But I’m not sugar-coating this. We have more work to do.”

A new UN analysis of countries’ emissions reduction plans predicts global greenhouse gases will fall by 12% from 2019 levels by 2035, an improvement on the previous estimate of 10% published last month.

The new figure takes into account the latest commitments, including those from China and the EU, but still hasn’t achieved the 60% emissions reduction needed by 2035 to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial temperatures; This is the threshold beyond which scientists say climate change will lead to much more severe impacts.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva warned against interests trying to hide the dangers of climate change.

“They are attacking institutions, science, universities,” he said. “It is time to impose another defeat on the unbelievers.”

The United States, the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter, chose to skip the summit; US President Donald Trump falsely claims that climate change is a hoax.

California Governor Gavin Newsom and New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham were expected to be in Belem on Tuesday.

“What’s going on here?” Newsom said in his speech at the global investors summit in Sao Paulo on Monday that the US government was not involved in the talks.

“We’re in Brazil, one of our major trading partners, one of the largest democracies in the world. I mean, it’s the hell that’s home to all the rare earth metals we need. This is the country we should be taking care of instead of giving the middle finger with 50 percent tariffs,” Newsom said, referring to the tariffs imposed by the Trump administration.

COP30 President Andre Correa do Lago said at a press conference: “I think the absence of the United States… has opened up a space for the world to see what developing countries are doing.”

Germany said it would press for European countries’ commitments to rein in fossil fuel use; this was a goal encouraged by Lula.

“We will defend something strong,” German Deputy Minister Jochen Flasbarth told Reuters. “We don’t want to go down the same path as President Trump and accuse others of being wrong. We want to listen.”

The countries were joined by Indigenous leaders who arrived by boat on Sunday after traveling nearly 3,000 km (1,864 miles) across the Andes. As climate change increases and industries such as mining, logging and oil drilling move deeper into the forests, they are demanding a greater say in how their territories are managed.

“We want to make sure that they don’t keep making promises that they’re going to start protecting, because we as Indigenous peoples are the ones who are suffering from these impacts of climate change,” said Pablo Inuma Flores, an Indigenous leader from Peru.

Scientists at dozens of universities and international scientific institutions have raised alarms about melting glaciers, ice sheets and other frozen areas around the world.

“The cryosphere is destabilizing at an alarming rate,” the groups said in a letter to COP30 on Monday. “Geopolitical tensions or short-term national interests should not overshadow COP30. Climate change is the defining security and stability issue of our age.”