BELEM, Brazil: Brazil’s decision to host COP30 in the Amazonian city of Belem was meant to put the world’s rainforests and the people who protect them at the center of climate negotiations. But as delegates wrapped up tense talks under the rainforest’s dense humidity, the final outcome delivered a mix of unprecedented progress and painful shortcomings.
Countries announced billions in new forest finance, and the summit saw a record presence of Indigenous leaders. Yet despite acknowledging the symbolic weight of meeting “in the heart of the Amazon,” nations failed once again to agree on a binding global plan to halt deforestation relying instead on a voluntary roadmap with no enforcement.
“There was enormous expectation that we could leave with something more concrete,” said Carlos Rittl, director of public policy at the Wildlife Conservation Society. But the final agreement, he noted, fell short of what “the Amazon asked for, and what the world expected.”
The week began with hope: Germany committed €1 billion to Brazil’s Tropical Forests Forever Facility (TFFF), raising the fund’s total to nearly $7 billion. By the summit’s end, however, negotiators had removed the proposed deforestation roadmap requiring countries to demonstrate how they intend to meet the 2030 zero-deforestation pledge set at COP28 in Dubai.
“This was supposed to be the Forest COP,” said Juan Carlos Monterrey Gomez, Panama’s head delegate. “I’m not sure it is today.”
Record-breaking global forest loss, driven by climate-fueled fires and agricultural expansion, has put tropical forests and the thousands of communities relying on them at unprecedented risk. While biodiversity negotiations traditionally take place outside the climate COPs, nature has increasingly forced its way to the center of climate politics.
“Climate change and biodiversity loss are two sides of the same coin,” said Chilean environment minister María Heloísa Rojas Corradi.
Indigenous Leadership Takes Center Stage
Tropical forests received more financing at COP30 than at any previous climate summit, with Brazil expecting additional contributions from China and the UAE to push the TFFF toward its $10 billion goal by year’s end. European governments also backed a $2.5 billion initiative for the Congo Basin.
Brazil’s COP30 presidency introduced voluntary roadmaps on deforestation and fossil fuel transition, while companies and governments unveiled new commitments to forest-friendly beef production and sustainable forest-product supply chains.
“For all those reasons, I would call COP30 a success for forests,” said Frances Seymour of the Woodwell Climate Research Center.
No climate summit in history has hosted as many Indigenous leaders some 3,000 representatives from across the globe, according to Toya Manchineri of the Coordination of Indigenous Organizations of the Brazilian Amazon. Their presence resulted in tangible gains: Brazil announced the demarcation of 10 new Indigenous territories nearly 1,000 square miles and roughly 20% of the TFFF will be directed to Indigenous forest guardians.
Manchineri noted disappointment that a proposal to formally recognize Indigenous land demarcation as a climate policy was not taken up. “But we leave here, as an Indigenous movement from the Amazon, much stronger,” he said.
⁃ Manuela Andreoni
