“And with this sir, we are handing you the keys to our hope”
So said four Brazilian teens after they’d read their youth climate manifesto and then handed it to COP30 President André Corrêa do Lago last week in Belem Brazil. Mr. do Lago had stepped away from the main COP negotiating area for the morning to take part in the high energy celebration and closing plenary of the “People’s Summit”, where civil society voices are welcomed into the climate conversations – not locked out.
I am on my second last day at the “Amazonia” COP (annual UN Climate Change conference) and have had an exceptionally rich experience alongside the two students I accompanied from UWC Pearson College’s Climate Action Leadership Diploma program. We are part of the Center for Global Education’s #decarbonize delegation that had 30 youth from 10 countries listening, discussing and presenting their “Youth Climate Manifesto” in the green (open), yellow (parallel) and blue (“limited access”) zones of COP.
This has been a week of apparent contradictions. Brazil’s President Lula has these past two days been championing the phase down of fossil fuels, while quietly his government just granted new exploratory drilling rights to state owned “Petrobras” off the coast of the Amazon delta.
Stories abounded in discussions of the extraordinary growth of solar power that is steamrolling past even the most backward-looking leaders. (I spoke to an Australian who described that electricity is now free between 10AM and 2PM in many parts of the country) I listened to a thoroughly compelling presentation of a roadmap to clearly sourced 90% renewable energy in 2050 through solar, storage and hydrogen.
But then I step into a press conference that notes that countries producing 93% of the world oil have refused to sign on to the fossil fuel phase-out roadmap. The presence of Indigenous peoples at and around the COP far surpasses anything seen in past events. But we had to wait an hour to get into the Blue zone because they had blocked off the entrance. “We are being refused access while the 1600 fossil fuel lobbyists inside are watching over the destruction of our homelands” (in the Amazon). Their demand to speak with the COP president was met, and the blockade came down. Rich civics lesson here.
Sixty thousand delegates fly across the world to COP to talk in big air conditioned meeting rooms. We three are among them. We’ve got lots of climate action work to do when we get home!
Full of contradictions, yes, but oh my, what a wonderful feeling to be surrounded all day, inside the venue and out, by thousands of people (fossil fuel lobbyists excepted) who are dedicating themselves to find a way out of this crisis .
My head is swirling with encounters, events, and quotes.
I will never forget the energy, scale, size of props/banners and sense of solidarity of the Global Climate March that had over 60000 of us from so many walks of life taking our message through the streets of Belem. Latin America seems to know how to make these a lot of fun!!
Part II of Cam’s article will be published in our blog on Wendesday, December 3.
Many thanks Cam for this first-person account of being at COP30 in Brazil. I appreciated your description of events as well as your commentary.
I identify with your comment that though the proceedings were often full of contradictions, “what a wonderful feeling to be surrounded all day, inside the venue and out, by thousands of people … who are dedicating themselves to find a way out of this crisis.”