Brazil hopes COP30 can unite world for climate action

BRASILIA

Brazil is betting its much-hyped climate summit in the Amazon next month can deliver something increasingly rare in a fractured world: Proof that nations can still unite to confront a global crisis.

It faces tough odds, with a hostile United States unlikely to show up, political appetite for climate action at a low ebb and eye-watering prices for accommodation threatening turnout.

Some 50,000 attendees are expected at the two-week COP30 conference starting Nov. 10 in Belem, a city in one of Brazil's poorer states best known as a gateway to the Amazon rainforest.

On Oct. 12, climate ministers meet in Brasilia ahead of the marathon U.N. negotiations that bring together nearly every nation for the most important climate talks of the year.

Belem is a symbolic yet fraught setting and a personal choice of Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who wants to spotlight the rainforest's role in absorbing carbon dioxide.

But pressure is mounting on COP30 to provide more than just a scenic backdrop as the world approaches the 1.5 degrees Celsius warming target agreed under the Paris climate accord a decade ago.

The last two years were the hottest ever recorded, and major polluters are not cutting emissions fast enough to avoid destructive and potentially irreversible changes to the planet.

Lula, whose own environmental record is mixed, having slowed Amazon deforestation but approved new oil exploration, has promised a "COP of truth."

"It will be the moment for world leaders to prove the seriousness of their commitment to the planet," Lula told the United Nations General Assembly on Sept. 23.

A likely candidate for reelection next year, Lula is determined to burnish Brazil's global standing after hosting recent major summits of BRICS and G20 nations.

He has invited dozens of leaders to Belem ahead of the negotiations, but numbers are not yet confirmed.

Prince William will represent Britain's King Charles and the leaders of South Africa and Colombia are expected, but Austria's president has already declined, citing high hotel prices.

Officials in Gambia, Cape Verde and Japan also told AFP they expected to reduce the size of their delegations.

U.S. President Donald Trump, who declared climate change a "con job" during his own U.N. address last month, is not expected to attend, nor is anyone else from his administration.

The United States intends to withdraw from the Paris Agreement for a second time as it promotes fossil fuels at home and abroad.

The U.S. absence has underscored the lack of an obvious climate leader in Belem, particularly as the European Union deals with internal revolt over its green agenda.

COP30 CEO Ana Toni told AFP in an interview in September that it was an "extremely difficult" time to be rallying for climate change.

"COPs are not isolated. They reflect the tensions of geopolitics," she said.