COP30 Indigenous protesters defend summit incursion as climate talks roll on

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By William James, Leonardo Benassatto and Simon Jessop

BELEM, Brazil (Reuters) -Indigenous protesters on Wednesday defended charging the gates of Brazil’s COP30 climate summit and clashing with security a day earlier, saying the action was aimed at demonstrating the desperation of their fight for forest protection.  

With negotiators from countries across the globe inside the compound discussing the world’s changing future as temperatures rise, the protesters told a news conference they wanted mostly to have their voices heard.

“It was an attempt to get the attention of the government and the U.N. that are in this space,” said Auricelia, a member of the Arapiun community in the Brazilian Amazon state of Para, where the summit’s host city of Belem is located. 

Indigenous leaders have said they are aghast at the ongoing industry and development in the Amazon.

Inside the COP compound, housed in a former airport, talks continued for a third day on Wednesday across the range of issues.

Among them is climate finance – for funding the clean energy transition and preparations for worsening climate impacts in developing countries. The issue has become increasingly tense in the COP negotiations, with funds failing to flow in the amounts needed to meet demand amid rising damages and costs from extreme weather events. 

A COP-commissioned report by independent academics on Wednesday said that meeting a goal set at last year’s COP29 to scale yearly funding for climate action to $1.3 trillion by 2035 was still “entirely feasible” with the right combination of national policies, regulatory standards and development bank reforms. 

“Failure to achieve these goals would put the world in a dangerous place,” the report said.

AL GORE RINGS THE ALARM, AGAIN

Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore delivered his annual climate presentation to the summit – which the United States snubbed this year despite being the world’s biggest historical polluter since the Industrial Revolution.

Rattling off a long list of recent disasters made worse by climate change, Gore asked the summit: “How long are we going to stand by and keep turning the thermostat up so that these kinds of events get even worse?”

Gore was a co-winner of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for his environmental advocacy. 

Many delegates from the 195 governments taking part in the talks have worried about the world’s splintering consensus around climate action – taking aim in particular at the U.S. reversal on the issue.

Several countries, including Brazil, Canada, France and Germany, joined an initiative vowing to fight against special interests sowing climate misinformation, including through promoting evidence-based climate assessments.

Many countries have wanted to emulate how U.S. federal climate assessments were produced and peer-reviewed, before the United States dismissed its entire team of assessors and took down the agency’s website in April.  

COP HELD IN ‘HEART OF THE FOREST’

Earlier on Wednesday two Brazilian navy vessels escorted a protest flotilla carrying Indigenous leaders and environmental activists around Belem’s Guajara Bay.

Participants held signs saying “Save the Amazon” or calling for land rights. Hundreds of people – including Indigenous leaders, residents and COP delegates – crowded the waterfront to watch.

“We are actually bringing climate negotiators and climate leaders to the heart of the forest to experience firsthand what it is to live here,” Greenpeace Brazil’s executive director, Carolina Pasquali, told Reuters.

The world’s governments have so far failed to do enough to limit global warming increasing beyond 1.5 degrees Celsius – the threshold at which scientists say we could unleash catastrophic extremes.

Last month, scientists warned that the Amazon rainforest could begin to die back and transform into a different ecosystem, such as a savanna, if rapid deforestation continues as the global average temperature crosses 1.5 C. It is predicted to do so around 2030, earlier than previously estimated.

“They (the Brazilian government) aren’t the least bit concerned about the Lower Tapajós,” said Margareth of the Maytapu community, referring to a tributary of the Amazon that is several hundred miles from Belem.

“They aren’t concerned about our struggle. What they say is that we’re against the government,” he said. “On the contrary: we’re not against the government. We need the government with us. But it must be honest with everyone.”

(Reporting by William James, Leonardo Benassato and Simon Jessop in Belem, Brazil; Editing by Katy Daigle, Philippa Fletcher and Nia Williams)