As COP30 gets underway, Brazil's president calls for urgent climate action. UN analysis shows global emissions will only decline 12% by 2035, well short of the target for limiting warming.
Last year's UN climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan, opened with the country's president, Ilham Aliyev, calling oil — the fossil fuel that, alongside gas and coal, drives global warming — a "gift of God."
The opening statements at this year's COP30 climate gathering, held on the edge of the Amazon rainforest in Belem, struck a very different note. Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva gave a defiant speech, declaring it was time to confront climate change deniers.
"Climate change is no longer a threat of the future. It is a tragedy of the present," Lula said, criticizing those who reject climate science. He stressed that the crisis is hitting hardest in developing countries and poorer communities already suffering from extreme weather.
"We should have a fair transition," he added, referring to the drive to decarbonize economies and warning that the climate emergency is deepening inequality between "those who can live with dignity and those who should die."
Pressure is now on the negotiators from more than 190 countries who have descended upon Belem to make progress over the next two weeks in curbing record-high emissions and rising global temperatures. At the same time, climate change has slipped from the agenda amid growing economic and security concerns take precedence.
Right direction, wrong speed
UN climate chief Simon Stiell stated that the world has made progress since adopting the Paris Agreement in 2015, which aims to limit global temperature rise to well below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) — and ideally to 1.5C — above pre-industrial levels.
Stiell said countries had successfully bent the global emissions curve downward, but warned that efforts must accelerate rapidly.
"I am not sugarcoating it," he said. "We have so much more work to do. We must move much, much, faster on both reductions of emissions and strengthening resilience."
Before the Paris deal, the world was on track for up to 3.5C of warming by 2100. Current national climate action plans — known as Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) — would limit warming to roughly 2.5C, assuming countries fully implement them. Yet many nations have failed to update their NDCs as required ahead of COP30.
A new UN analysis of national pledges estimates that global greenhouse gas emissions will fall about 12% by 2035 compared with 2019 levels — a slight improvement over the 10% forecast published last month. The update includes fresh commitments from China and the European Union but remains far short of the 60% reduction scientists say is needed by 2035 to stay on track for 1.5C.
"We're moving in the right direction," Lula said, "but at the wrong speed."
The UN has said staying below 1.5C of warming is now virtually impossible without a temporary overshoot — a prospect that poses an existential threat to low-lying island nations such as Tuvalu.
The COP of action
It remains uncertain whether countries will pursue an ambitious final agreement by the end of the summit, with host nation Brazil instead framing this COP as one of "implementation" — a moment to turn promises into tangible action.
Stiell said this must include a managed transition away from fossil fuels, a tripling of renewable energy capacity and a doubling of energy efficiency gains. He added that nations must also agree on indicators to measure progress on climate adaptation and on ways to boost financial support.
Last year's COP29 summit concluded with an agreement that at least $300 billion per year should flow from developed to developing countries by 2035. But many observers argue that amount falls far short of what is needed. A key task in Belem will be identifying how to expand that goal to around $1.3 trillion (€1.12 trillion) annually. This amount, Lula said, is "much cheaper than waging war.
Defense of science, faith in multilateralism
Amid geopolitical tensions, multiple unfolding conflicts, and the absence of the United States — the world's second-largest emitter — from the conference, Stiell urged countries to focus on cooperation.
"In this arena of COP30, your job here is not to fight one another — your job is to fight this climate crisis, together," he said.
Andre Correa do Lago, Brazil's top climate diplomat and president of this year's conference, called on negotiators to embrace mutirao — a Portuguese word of Indigenous origin meaning collective effort.
Both do Lago and Lula underscored the importance of defending science and multilateralism. Lula warned that in an "era of fake news and misinformation," both are under attack. He said this "COP of truth" must help kick against those trends.
A report released last week found COP-related disinformation surging 267% in recent months, adding urgency to the need for credible communication.
"Either we decide to change by choice, together, or we will be imposed change by tragedy," said do Lago, in a letter to negotiators on the eve of the summit. "We can change. But we must do it together."
The cost of inaction
Stiell warned that failing to raise ambition carries devastating economic and human costs. "Not one single nation among you can afford this, as climate disasters rip double digits off GDP," he said.
His remarks came as a super typhoon battered the Philippines and just weeks after a deadly hurricane swept across Jamaica and eastern Cuba. "While climate disasters decimate the lives of millions, when we already have the solutions, this will never, ever be forgiven," said Stiell.
Faltering on action, he added, while "mega-droughts wreck national harvests, sending food prices soaring, makes zero sense, economically or politically."
Stiell emphasized that the tools to tackle the crisis already exist. Wind and solar power are now the lowest-cost energy sources in about 90% of the world, and global investment in renewables — which this year overtook coal as the largest source of electricity — has doubled compared to fossil fuels. "The economics of this transition," he said, "are as indisputable as the costs of inaction."
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