COP30 stews over fossil fuels and final deal as Indigenous fight for forest
Outside, Indigenous groups rallied in protest at the ongoing industry and development in the forests they call home
Highlights:
- Indigenous representatives meet COP30 president
- Brazil hopes to advance world's commitment to transition from fossil fuels
- Momentum builds for cover text to show global climate unity
UN climate talks were nearing a midway point on Friday, with countries still wrangling over which issues they might be able to rally around in a final summit deal – and whether such a deal was even possible.
Outside, Indigenous groups rallied in protest at the ongoing industry and development in the forests they call home. They staged a peaceful sit-in at the summit entrance in the morning, before successfully demanding a meeting with COP30 President Andre Correa do Lago.
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"We are the ones who protect the climate, and the Amazon cannot continue to be destroyed to enrich big companies," read a statement from the Munduruku Indigenous group, whose territory in northern Brazil covers nearly 24,000 square km (9,000 square miles), about the size of the US state of New Hampshire.
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has highlighted Indigenous communities as key players in this year's COP30 negotiations.
However, Indigenous representatives used the meeting with Correa do Lago to ask why they had been brought to the host city of Belem if they were not part of the talks.
They were told that more conference passes were being arranged for them, though environment minister Marina Silva said their demands were to the Brazilian government and best addressed there.
Delegates nervous over ambition of summit
Brazil's COP30 presidency has said it wants the summit to focus on realizing past promises, rather than making new ones.
To prevent an agenda battle at the summit's start, Correa do Lago struck an early deal to keep contentious items like climate finance, a shortfall in national climate plans, trade and global greenhouse gas reduction goals to one side to be handled separately.
The official agenda has negotiators from 195 governments working to flesh out earlier deals, such as advancing ways of measuring and supporting efforts to build resilience against weather extremes and other consequences of global warming, known in COP jargon as "adaptation."
That approach to the talks left some nervous about the summit's outcome – worrying that the talks could deliver a lightweight response to an escalating climate crisis, or instead fall apart altogether.
"If we continue on this current trajectory, there's going to be a very, very weak outcome, that will kind of make this a washout when this was supposed to be a very pivotal moment," said Andrew Wilson, deputy secretary general for policy at the International Chamber of Commerce.
Some countries including host Brazil were angling for a strong statement to advance countries' COP28 promise to pursue "transitioning away from fossil fuels."
It was unclear if the two-week summit would deliver on that before it was scheduled to end on 21 November.
With action on fossil fuels left off the formal agenda, one way of presenting agreed progress on the issue is to include it in a negotiated cover text, often seen as the conference's central deal.
"I know it can be a difficult topic to sort of find the right way to talk about, but if we can have a chance to do that here in Belem, I think that's a good thing," Andreas Bjelland Eriksen, Norwegian climate minister, told Reuters.
While a cover deal is still not certain, momentum is building for one to demonstrate that global unity on climate change is still intact outside of the United States pulling away.
