Amazon Climate Conference and the War Before Peace: Belém & Rio COP30

In the Amazon, leaders promise climate justice. In Rio, police call it war.

3 Narratives News | October 30, 2025

Intro

A mist-soft dawn settles over Belém, a city in the Amazon Rain Forest, capital of Pará, where the Amazon River opens into wide brown water and cargo boats move along the edge of the rainforest. In November 2025, this city will host COP30, the thirtieth United Nations climate summit, drawing presidents like Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, ministers such as Marina Silva, Indigenous delegations, investors led by climate champion Dan Ioschpe and activists including Ana Toni into the world’s largest tropical forest to debate how humanity survives the century. UNFCCC documentation confirms the dates as November 10–21, 2025.

But in Rio de Janeiro, before any of those speeches about global cooperation, the state called something else: war. On October 28, 2025, police and military units launched one of the largest security operations in the city’s history inside the favelas of Complexo do Alemão and Penha*. Armoured vehicles rolled in before sunrise. Drones dropped explosives. Buses burned as barricades. By nightfall, authorities said at least sixty people were dead, including four officers, in what local outlets and international media called Rio’s deadliest police raid to date. Reuters reported the toll as of October 28, 2025; the Guardian described the scene as “the city at war”.

To outsiders, these are two disconnected storylines: an environmental summit in the rainforest and a violent raid in a poor urban district. People living in Brazil feel like two sides of one truth: who gets protected, who gets showcased, and who is forced to absorb the cost of stability when the world is watching.

Context

COP30 will convene in Belém from November 10–21, 2025, the first time a UN climate conference of this scale takes place not in a European capital or Gulf finance hub but in the Amazon itself. The stated agenda includes accelerating action under the Paris Agreement, financing forest protection, securing climate adaptation funds for the global south, and elevating Indigenous leadership in land stewardship. UN climate officials describe a set of “thematic days” focused on forests, resilience and equity.

Brazil has framed Belém as a geopolitical statement. Instead of flying leaders to a hotel ballroom in a distant city, it is flying them to the forest’s edge and saying: this, physically, is what you are negotiating over. The administration has positioned itself as both guardian of a carbon sink and broker for development. That pitch matters to countries that argue that climate justice must include paying rainforest states to keep forests standing. Brazilian officials told Euronews COP30 “has to feel different” because it is happening in the Amazon.

At the same time, in Rio de Janeiro’s north zone, authorities carried out what they called an unprecedented strike on organized crime. Roughly 2,500 personnel from state police and supporting units moved into the Alemão and Penha complexes to execute hundreds of warrants against the Comando Vermelho (Red Command), a powerful trafficking faction accused of territorial control, extortion and gun running. Associated Press reported at least 81 arrests and seizures of rifles and drugs.

Governor Cláudio Castro called the targets “narcoterrorists” and said Rio “is at war.” The Guardian quoted state officials using explicit war language. Residents, rights groups and favela organizers called it something else: a massacre carried out in the name of order, timed to the moment Brazil is preparing to host the world. The Washington Post reported witnesses describing bodies in the street and schools forced to shut as gunfire continued for hours.

This is the stage on which Brazil will welcome presidents, ministers and philanthropists to Belém. A city of river docks, mango trees and equatorial heat, to discuss how humanity can behave better.

Narrative 1 — The State, Security and Diplomacy View

From inside Brazil’s state apparatus, these two events are not contradictory. They are coordinated expressions of sovereignty.

“This is no longer common crime — it is narcoterrorism.”
— Cláudio Castro, after the police operation in the Complexo do Alemão and Penha favelas.

In this view, moving COP 30 to Belém is proof that Brazil is finally forcing wealthy nations to confront the rainforest not as an abstraction but as a living system, and to confront Brazil not as a lecture recipient but as a central actor. Officials describe it as a reset in climate diplomacy. The Amazon is framed as leverage: Brazil can model protection, demand financing and position itself as a broker for the global south. Hosting in Belém is meant to say: this forest is not a fundraising backdrop, it is the negotiating table.

Security fits into that same frame. Authorities argue that Rio’s vast criminal networks are no longer “regular crime,” but paramilitary-scale organizations that erode state legitimacy. The October 28 operation was presented as the state retaking ground. Reuters cited officials saying police could not “cede territory” to heavily-armed groups. Financial Times+2Reuters+2 The governor’s language “war,” “narcoterrorism,” “we will not leave the streets”, is intentional. It signals to Brazil’s public and to foreign delegations that the state is present, mobile and willing to apply overwhelming force to reassert control.

From this perspective, high-visibility matters. Brazil is about to receive heads of state, cabinet-level climate ministers, multilateral bank directors, energy executives, Indigenous leaders and global media. Stability is part of the message. You cannot pitch yourself as a climate power if you cannot secure your cities. You cannot invite presidents to Belém and tell them to invest in forest protection if you cannot guarantee that planes can land, convoys can move, and dignitaries can appear on camera without an urban crisis unfolding in the background.

In other words, the raid is not a distraction from COP 30. It is, in this telling, preparation for COP 30. It proves to guests and investors that Brazil can protect its frontiers the forest frontier in Pará, and the urban frontier in Rio.

Supporters of this viewpoint speak in numbers, not sentiment. Authorities reported that four officers were killed in the line of duty and dozens of alleged gang members were neutralized. They cite the seizure of rifles, narcotics and cash as evidence of a meaningful tactical victory. AP noted that police displayed assault weapons and drug bricks in a televised briefing. AP Newsbriefing. Seen through this frame, the cost was tragic but necessary; the alternative was to let criminal groups dictate terms on Brazilian soil days before the country hosts one of the most high-profile diplomatic stages in the world.

Viewer Discretion is advised

This is a clip from the movie “City of GOD” that included real members of the Favela and an opportunity for non-Brazilians to educate themselves about the harsh realities of living in the lawless towns called favela, where about 16.39 million Brazilians live. This clip is aligned with Narrative 1.

Narrative 2 — The Community and Human Rights View

Inside the favelas, the story sounds nothing like that.

Residents of Complexo do Alemão and Penha describe the operation of October 28 not as policing, but as an invasion. Witnesses told Brazilian and international media that gunfire lasted for hours, helicopters circled low, buses were torched and used as barricades, and bodies were left in alleys. The Guardian quoted a community organizer, Raull Santiago, saying “the favela is bleeding again”.

“There are bodies strewn all over the streets … the favela is bleeding again.” — Raull Santiago, community organiser, quoted by the Guardian

Schools closed. Clinics struggled to reach patients. People hid under beds and behind refrigerators. Families tried, sometimes unsuccessfully, to confirm whether missing sons were dead or detained. The Washington Post reported hospitals receiving multiple unidentified bodies and residents saying they could not safely move through the neighbourhood.

The community view is that this was not about protecting visiting dignitaries, and not about long-term safety for locals. It was about optics. The state, they argue, wants to show the world a Brazil that is disciplined, modern, investable and in control. But the way it manufactures that image is by unleashing overwhelming force on neighbourhoods that already live with constant precarity. It is, in their telling, a performance staged on their bodies.

Human rights advocates in Brazil and abroad have raised questions about proportionality, targeting and accountability. As of October 28, local officials were publicly counting around sixty deaths, while some reporters and rights monitors suggested the toll could be higher than one hundred. Reuters and the Washington Post both noted that several of the dead were not immediately identified.

From inside this worldview, the vocabulary of “war” is itself the problem. When police say “Rio is at war,” favelas hear:

We do not recognize you as civilians.

We recognize you as a battlefield. That framing, favela leaders argue, strips residents of protections and normalizes lethal force in densely populated areas without the oversight that would apply if this were an acknowledged armed conflict.

And then there is the summit. People here listen to speeches about climate justice, about Indigenous rights, about protecting those on the front lines of extraction, and they ask: Where is that justice for us? Brazil wants to lead a conversation in Belém about saving the Amazon. But Rio’s poor, they say, are still treated as expendable in the name of security. The contradiction is not subtle. It is the point.

For these residents, COP30 is not arriving in a peaceful, united Brazil. It is arriving in Brazil, that just put on a live demonstration of how power is asserted when the cameras are about to arrive.

Narrative 3 — The Silent Story

Underneath both narratives is the quiet link that rarely makes the podium: Brazil is managing two different frontiers at once, and both are unstable.

Belém is a doorway to the Amazon, a biome that regulates global rainfall, locks in carbon and shapes climate patterns far beyond Brazil. Putting COP30 there is meant to elevate forest protection, climate finance and Indigenous stewardship as central pillars of global policy. Brazil has signalled that it intends to speak for rainforest nations and the global south, not just for itself. Officials told Euronews they want wealthy countries to confront “the cost of keeping forests alive”.

But Belém is also under strain. Housing capacity is limited. Basic infrastructure was already stretched before tens of thousands of diplomats, press and campaigners booked rooms. Brazilian and international coverage has warned of hotel prices spiking and fears that the sudden influx will overwhelm water, transit and medical systems in a historically underfunded region. Those pressures fall first on residents. They become hosts, then background.

Rio’s favelas, in a different way, are also frontiers. They are places where the formal state, informal economies and armed groups all coexist. In these areas, police are often present only in moments of force. The rest of the time, residents describe being governed by whoever can collect fees, control territory, and provide some version of order. Reuters noted that state officials openly compared the raid to counterterror operations. Long-time community workers, meanwhile, compared it to collective punishment.

The silent story, then, is not just about violence versus diplomacy. It is about which Brazils are being presented to the world, and which Brazils are being managed off-camera. It is about who gets to be called a steward of the future, an Indigenous leader from Pará speaking at COP30 about rights and rivers and who gets treated as a security problem to be handled before dignitaries land.

There is also a question for the visiting delegations. Climate justice movements talk about protection for those on the front lines. In the Amazon, that means Indigenous nations facing illegal logging, mining and land grabs. In Rio, that means families in favelas who live with raids, stray bullets and the permanent possibility of disappearance. If the language in Belém does not include both, Brazil’s twin realities will remain two stories instead of one system.

This is not only Brazil’s dilemma. It is the modern climate dilemma. Governments are now judged not just on emissions targets, but on the human cost of maintaining order while they promise a better future.

Key Takeaways

• COP30 will be held in Belém, Brazil, from November 10–21, 2025, marking the first major UN climate summit to take place in the Amazon region rather than in a distant capital. UNFCCC schedule, accessed October 30, 2025.
• Two weeks before the summit, Rio de Janeiro carried out its deadliest known police raid in the favelas of Complexo do Alemão and Penha, with roughly 2,500 officers deployed and at least sixty people reported dead as of October 28, 2025. Reuters, The Guardian.
• State officials describe the raid as a necessary strike against “narcoterrorism,” meant to reassert control and ensure Brazil appears secure before hosting global heads of state. The Guardian, October 28, 2025.
• Favela residents and rights advocates describe it as a massacre staged for optics, saying civilians were trapped in hours of gunfire and left to pick up the aftermath. The Washington Post, October 28, 2025.
• The tension between Belém’s climate diplomacy and Rio’s urban crackdown exposes a deeper question: who is protected, who performs stability, and who absorbs the cost when a nation steps onto the world stage?

A * favela is a densely-populated informal settlement in Brazil, often built without formal planning, land titles or basic infrastructure. Over decades, many have become permanent neighbourhoods despite originally emerging through spontaneous or irregular housing — the 2022 Brazilian census estimated more than 16 million people lived in favelas and similar urban communities, about 8.1% of the national population. Wikipedia+1

The favelas of Complexo do Alemão and Complexo da Penha* (both in Rio de Janeiro’s North Zone) have particular histories:**

• Complexo do Alemão began in the 1920s as land partly used for a tannery and workers’ housing, expanded in the 1950s when industrial decline left voids that informal settlements filled. Wikipedia+2Knowledge at Wharton+2
• By 2010, it housed around 69,000 people, living in an area of roughly 3 km². Wikipédia+1
• It has been one of the most visibly contested parts of Rio’s urban fabric: the state has launched multiple large-scale police and military interventions there, including a major operation in 2007 that attracted strong human-rights criticism. Wikipedia+1
• Complexo da Penha comprises a cluster of at least thirteen favelas inside the neighbourhood of Penha. The area evolved from 1930s labour-housing initiatives into one of the city’s largest and most challenging informal housing zones. Wikipédia
• Both areas are densely built, lack full formal infrastructure, and have long been arenas of territorial contention between state security forces, informal criminal networks and residents.

* “Favelas of Complexo do Alemão and Penha” refers collectively to these major informally-settled zones in Rio de Janeiro’s northern urban periphery, for this article’s security narrative.

Questions This Article Answers

1. Why is COP30 being held in Belém, and why is that historically important?
2. What happened in Rio de Janeiro’s Complexo do Alemão and Penha on October 28, 2025?
3. Is the Rio raid connected to Brazil’s desire to project security ahead of COP30?
4. How do favela residents and human rights groups describe the costs of that raid?
5. What is the link between climate justice in the Amazon and public safety in Brazil’s urban margins?

A * favela is a densely-populated informal settlement in Brazil, often built without formal planning, land titles or basic infrastructure. Over the decades, many have become permanent neighbourhoods despite originally emerging through spontaneous or irregular housing. The 2022 Brazilian census estimated more than 16 million people lived in favelas and similar urban communities, about 8.1% of the national population. Wikipedia+1

The favelas of Complexo do Alemão and Complexo da Penha* (both in Rio de Janeiro’s North Zone) have particular histories:**

• Complexo do Alemão began in the 1920s as land partly used for a tannery and workers’ housing, expanded in the 1950s when industrial decline left voids that informal settlements filled. Wikipedia+2Knowledge at Wharton+2
• By 2010, it housed around 69,000 people, living in an area of roughly 3 km². Wikipédia+1
• It has been one of the most visibly contested parts of Rio’s urban fabric: the state has launched multiple large-scale police and military interventions there, including a major operation in 2007 that attracted strong human-rights criticism. Wikipedia+1
• Complexo da Penha comprises a cluster of at least thirteen favelas inside the neighbourhood of Penha. The area evolved from 1930s labour-housing initiatives into one of the city’s largest and most challenging informal housing zones. Wikipédia
• Both areas are densely built, lack full formal infrastructure, and have long been arenas of territorial contention between state security forces, informal criminal networks and residents.

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