Is Brazil Ready for COP30? No One Is Ready for COP30

The Drain is a weekly roundup of climate and environmental news from Legal Planet.

It’s officially less than 6 months until COP30 — when tens of thousands of people will descend on the Brazilian city of Belém for the annual UN climate conference — and no one is ready.

For one thing, Belém is an impoverished city of 2.5 million that can’t build enough hotels for the 50,000 expected delegates and 150 heads of state that attend Climate Coachella. You may need to book a river boat.

More importantly, there is no agreement on how to get the phaseout of fossil fuels on the COP30 agenda. Key language from 18 months ago at COP28 in Dubai stating that nations work toward a “transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems in an orderly, just and equitable manner” has not yet made the conference’s emerging agenda, write Andreas Sieber and Stela Herschmann, adding “that must change.”

Meanwhile, the head of Brazil’s state-run oil giant Petrobras (appointed by Brazil President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva) faced criticism last week after a video emerged of her saying “Drill, baby, drill!” referring to an oil exploration project near the mouth of the Amazon River, Fabiano Maisonnave reports for AP. Brazil is leaping ahead of the US on climate policy, but the country remains deeply polarized and faces a disinformation landscape as bad as our own. “The strategy is to weaken the UN conference that has been trying for so long to resolve one of our biggest crises, the climate crisis, and to cast doubt on Brazil’s role as host,” write the hosts of a new newsletter called “Oii” that analyzes the actors and tactics shaping disinformation and its impact on climate action in Brazil ahead of COP30.

But it’s not just Brazil. One more reason we’re not ready for COP30 is that only 21 countries — 11% of the parties — have put forward new targets to cut greenhouse gas emissions through to 2035, as required by the Paris Agreement. Brazil and UN officials are encouraging two particularly important players — China and the EU — to submit their so-called NDCs (nationally determined contributions) by September.

An ambassador named André Aranha Corrêa do Lago is the COP30 President. He was in Beijing last month to discuss national pledges with Chinese officials, Manuela Andreoni reported for Reuters. This week, Brazil President Lula met with China’s President Xi Jinping in Beijing and even made announcements about investments in renewable energy.

Brazil is calling on local and state governments to do more, reports Matteo Civillini at Climate Home News. COP30 President Corrêa do Lago wrote an open letter to non-nation states to present climate initiatives – which he called “self-determined contributions.” This is important because states are on the front lines of climate change. They can do things nations aren’t willing to do. Brazil has promised to more directly involve regional and subnational leaders in the COP30 discussions. “The perception that the COPs are solving people’s concerns has decreased,” he said in a recent Wilson Center webinar. “Sometimes negotiators seem like people that are disconnected with the realities on the ground.” This is why states, and the governors who lead them, are going to be key players leading up to and during COP30 in Brazil. They are filling the void left by presidents. They are making forest preservation deals and cracking down on illegal logging. States in Brazil, Mexico, and Indonesia are working with states like California on best practices.

So, with Trump pulling out of the Paris Agreement yet again, will California Governor Gavin Newsom go to COP30? Will Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker? Don’t rule it out. There will be a fat, empty seat where the United States used to sit in the Conference of Parties. Why not fill it? A more interesting wager is whether Pope Leo XIV will come to Belém for COP30. The American Pope saw firsthand the impacts of climate change in Peru and would be a powerful, moral voice for climate action when we need one most.

As for Brazil, I’m not ready either! I’m running around this week to get a vaccine for yellow fever and typhoid. Next week, I am heading to Rio Branco, Brazil in the westernmost state of Acre. I’ll be in that Amazonian city for a week observing an annual meeting of governors who make up the Governors’ Climate and Forests Task Force, a project of UCLA that fosters collaboration on protecting tropical forests. I’m excited to see what states and provinces are doing to restore degraded lands and create sustainable jobs that don’t involve clear-cutting trees. I’ll be reporting on what I see in Brazil here at Legal Planet and in this column next week. For now, I need shots and a new raincoat.

Cover photo:  Daniel Melling / Graphic: Emmett Institute