Protesters defend actions as COP30 talks roll on
Indigenous protesters have defended storming the gates of the COP30 climate summit in Brazil and clashing with security, saying the action was aimed at showing the desperation of their fight to protect forests.
Protesters from countries around the world, where negotiators discuss the world’s changing future as temperatures rise, mostly said at a news conference Wednesday that they want their voices to be heard.
“This was an attempt to attract the attention of the government and the UN in this area,” said Auricelia, a member of the Arapiun community in the Brazilian Amazon state of Para, where the city of Belem, which hosted the summit, is located.
Indigenous leaders said they were appalled by the ongoing industry and development in the Amazon.
Talks on various issues at the COP campus, located in a former airport, continued for a third day on Wednesday. These include climate finance to finance the clean energy transition and preparations for worsening climate impacts in developing countries.
The issue has become increasingly tense in COP negotiations as funds are not flowing in the quantities needed to meet demand due to increasing damages and costs from extreme weather events.
Achieving the target set at last year’s COP29 to increase annual funding for climate action to US$1.3 trillion ($A2 trillion) by 2035 is still “entirely possible” with the right combination of national policies, regulatory standards and development bank reforms, a report by independent academics and prepared by the COP said on Wednesday.
“Failure to achieve these goals will put the world in a dangerous place,” the report said.
Former US vice president Al Gore gave his annual climate presentation at the summit; The United States rejected this year even though it has been the world’s largest historical polluter since the Industrial Revolution.
Listing a long list of recent disasters made worse by climate change, Gore asked the summit: “How long are we going to wait and keep turning up the thermostat for these kinds of events to get worse?”
Gore was a co-winner of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for his environmental advocacy.
Many delegates from the 195 governments participating in the talks are concerned about the fragmentation of the world consensus on climate action, specifically targeting the US’s backtracking on this issue.
Several countries, including Brazil, Canada, France and Germany, have joined an initiative vowing to fight special interests that spread climate misinformation, including by promoting evidence-based climate assessments.
Many countries wanted to emulate how U.S. federal climate assessments were produced and peer-reviewed before the United States fired its entire assessment team and shut down the agency’s website in April.
Early Wednesday, two Brazilian navy ships escorted Belem’s protest flotilla carrying indigenous leaders and environmental activists around the Gulf of Guajara.
Participants held signs saying “Save the Amazon” or demanding land rights. Hundreds of people, including indigenous leaders, residents and COP delegates, lined the beach to watch.
