By Carlos Taylhardat | Belém, Brazil | November 6, 2025

In the heart of Brazil’s Amazon, the world gathers once more to debate the planet’s future. The 30th United Nations Climate Conference, COP30, opens this week in Belém, a city that sits on the Amazon River and carries both symbolism and stakes. Only days before the summit, Brazilian police entered the favelas of Rio de Janeiro in a show of force that questioned Brazil’s integrity, more than a hundred people dead. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva issued an apology: “We will not let a moment of violence define this summit. The Amazon deserves peace, and the world deserves action.”

Read last week’s story: Amazon Summit: City at War — Belém, Rio, COP30.

Narrative 1: The Summit of Hope and Accountability

To those gathered on the banks of the Guajará Bay, COP30 is not another diplomatic ritual but a reckoning. They call it the COP of Truth. As the morning mist lifts over Belém, banners stretch across the convention centre reading Action Now. Delegates from nearly 190 nations stream in of scientists, activists, mayors, ministers, all repeating the same word: implementation.

President Lula, now in his third term, stood before the press and said:

“We don’t want the COP to continue as a forum of ideological climate products. We want it to be serious. We want decisions to be implemented.” (Reuters)

His apology for the Rio unrest merged humility with resolve, turning tragedy into a call for focus and peace. “The Amazon deserves calm so the world can find clarity,” he added.

This summit arrives ten years after the Paris Agreement of 2015, when 196 countries agreed to limit warming to well below 2 °C, aiming for 1.5 °C. Paris established nationally determined contributions (NDCs) and the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities, with a promise of 0 billion a year for climate finance to developing nations.

A decade later, many of those promises are only partly fulfilled. Global emissions remain higher than in 2015, sea levels continue to rise, and finance still falls short of the Paris pledge. Believers in the process argue that Belém must move from pledges to proof.

The symbolism is unmistakable: the world’s largest rainforest hosts a summit meant to protect the planet’s lungs. “If Paris was the promise, Belém is the payment,” said one Brazilian diplomat.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres echoed the urgency:

“Missing the 1.5 °C target is not statistics, it’s a moral failure.” (The Guardian)

The attendee list reflects both momentum and diversity. The United Kingdom’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer arrived with a pledge for re-green investment and restored forest cover. France’s Emmanuel Macron called for a permanent EU–Amazon Partnership that ties European markets to rainforest protection. Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz renewed support for Brazil’s climate fund. Major NGOs, including WWF and Greenpeace, Indigenous delegations from the Yanomami and Kayapó nations, and financial institutions such as the World Bank and the Green Climate Fund are present.

Beneath the speeches, Brazil introduced a new mechanism: the Tropical Forests Forever Fund, designed to compensate nations for keeping forests standing. Lula framed it as a matter of fairness:

“The countries least responsible for climate change suffer the most. Justice means financing adaptation.”

For believers, COP30 feels like renewal. Belém becomes a living classroom of climate reality, where rivers rise, forests burn, and communities resist. “We came here because the Amazon is hope itself,” said Marina Silva, Brazil’s environment minister. “If we fail here, we fail everywhere.”

Narrative 2: The Rebellion Against the Climate Faith

To others, COP30 reads as theatre: expensive, hypocritical, increasingly hollow. They cite U.S. President Donald Trump’s recent address at the United Nations:

“The climate agenda is the greatest con job in history.” (Axios)

Back in office, Trump has reshaped the tone. From the UN stage he derided multilateral climate efforts and urged countries to abandon what he calls a green “scam,” a message amplified across conservative media ecosystems.

Adding weight to this skepticism is a surprising voice: Bill Gates. Long a champion of climate innovation, he recently argued that climate change will not cause humanity’s demise and urged a move from emergency rhetoric to practical engineering. “We’ve exaggerated the apocalypse,” he wrote, calling for steady progress rather than political theatre. (The Times)

Within this worldview, the climate establishment has lost credibility. Global goals keep shifting; developing nations seek funds they say do not fully arrive; rich nations unveil ever-new targets abroad while missing them at home.

They point to contradictions: COP delegates preaching sustainability while diesel generators hum outside the venue; leaders who miss domestic emission targets but announce new ones overseas. “It’s climate as brand management,” said a European analyst who chose not to attend. “Belém will produce headlines, not reductions.”

For this camp, the true climate revolution will not come from summits but from markets, technology and private enterprise. They call themselves realists, not deniers. “Progress is built, not pledged,” said an energy investor from Texas. “The Earth will warm, and innovation will answer.”

Narrative 3: The Silent Story — Between Fire and Fog

Whether you believe every country should act together under a shared climate goal or you prefer to let markets and technology lead, we have crossed a threshold. This is no longer a debate about a distant century. It is here.

Where I live, summers now come with an asterisk. In recent years, thick wildfire smoke has settled over the city for weeks at a time. August used to feel like pure summer. Lately, it feels like a new season, the smoky season. I know this is only one place, one experience. Still, it speaks to something larger that people are feeling elsewhere.

In the Mediterranean, families in Greece and Italy have watched hillsides burn and skies turn orange. In Spain and Portugal, heat waves keep children indoors at noon. In Germany and Belgium, floods tore through towns that rarely worried about riverbanks. In Pakistan, whole districts were swallowed by monsoon water that rose higher than living memory. In East Africa, drought left wells empty, then rains arrived with a violence that turned dust to torrents. In Japan and China, weeks of punishing heat strained power grids and hospitals. In Australia, the Black Summer fires left scars still visible from the road. In North America, smoke drifted across borders and oceans, colouring afternoons in cities that had never seen it before.

The Caribbean has faced a different kind of fear. But a week ago, a storm that intensified quickly and arrived stronger, with at least one reaching Category 5 strength as it moved through the region. Jamaica, Grenada, Dominica, Barbados and others have fallen victim to a new problem never experienced before.

Scientists are careful. Not every fire, flood or storm can be blamed on climate change by itself. Yet the background is shifting in ways that make extremes more likely and more costly. Warmer oceans can feed stronger storms. Hotter, drier spells can set the stage for larger fires. Heavier downpours can turn ordinary rains into flash floods. It is the stack of factors that leaves a mark on daily life and on memory.

Here is the quieter truth between two loud narratives. If you trust global agreements, you want them to deliver on time and in full. If you trust innovation, you want grids, cement, steel and shipping to change faster than speeches. On the ground, the outcomes begin to look similar. People breathe smoke in British Columbia and California. Families in the Caribbean tape windows and check generators. Farmers on the Amazon floodplain watch the river climb steps it did not climb before. The language in communiqués matters, and so do better turbines and batteries, but the margin for error feels smaller each year.

As a journalist, and as a human being, I struggle with the pose of perfect neutrality and say, You decide. The decision is already here. If Paris was the promise and Belém is the payment, then the bill has arrived. We can argue about how to split it, or we can start paying it down. The world will always contain both hope and hubris. Between fire and fog, I am hoping for delivery.

Key Takeaways

• COP30 in Belém marks a decade since Paris and is billed as the “COP of Truth.”
• Lula’s apology for the Rio violence sets a sombre, reflective tone for the summit.
• Believers want pledges turned into delivery and climate justice into policy.
• Sceptics see a process that is bloated, performative and politically captured.
• The Silent Story reminds us that rhetoric means little without peace, funding and protection for those living the crisis daily.

Frequently Asked Questions

• What is COP30?
  The 30th UN Climate Conference, held in Belém, Brazil, focused on delivering real action ten years after Paris.
• Why was Lula’s apology significant?
  It acknowledged the human cost of unrest that shadowed the summit, reinforcing the link between justice and climate peace.
• Who are the major attendees?
  Leaders from the EU, UK, Brazil and UN, as well as environmental and Indigenous groups.
• Who is not attending?
  Some leaders remain sceptical of multilateral climate frameworks or sent reduced delegations.
• Why does this summit matter?
  It tests whether global unity on climate can survive political division and rising doubt.