From the 10th to the 21st of November, the 30th United Nations Climate Change Conference will take place in Belem, Brasil. A team from the Debt Observatory in Globalisation will travel to Brasil to monitor it. 10 years after the Paris Agreement, which are the pitfalls and opportunities of COP30?
In an increasingly warming world, the 30th edition of the Conference of the Parties (COP30) returns to Brasil since the Earth Summit that took place in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, when the United Nations Framework Convention was adopted. Ten years after
the Paris Agreement, countries will meet in Brazil to, according to the presidency, put forward its the implementation.
Governed by Lula Da Silva, the country wants to stand out from the presidencies of previous COPs and demonstrate its climate ambition, while not giving up on promoting new oil extraction projects in Brazilian territory. The government is going for a capitalist green transition, following the dynamics promoted by the Global North but also China, which see decarbonization as a business opportunity.
This time the city designated to host the summit has been Belem, located in the state of Pará in the Amazon. The decision has spurred much criticism, due to the lack of infrastructure to host an event of this size and the high prices of accommodation. The controversies are multiple. Celebrating COP30 in the middle of the Amazon gives visibility to the importance of forests as carbon sinks and to the populations that defend them. At the same time, the COP has been used to justify the construction of infrastructure such as roads and buildings, which have generated environmental destruction and forced the relocation of people who lived near the affected areas. Furthermore, in a city where 60% of the population lives in favelas, hotels have been built at inaccessible prices to accommodate the delegations participating in the summit.
This COP is also marked by increased geopolitical tensions, war escalation, trade disputes between countries and the erosion of multilateralism. The absence of the United States will also be noticeable: on the one hand, it can facilitate reaching agreements between countries and, on the other, it places more responsibility on other historical emitters such as the EU and China.