COP30 in Belém at Brazil : The south speaks, the north dtays silent
Belém, the beating heart of the Amazon, hosts the 30th Conference of the Parties on Climate Change. Yet, listening to the opening session, one might think it’s a COP missing a few vital organs: no United States, no Russia, no India, no China. Four absentees who weigh heavier in carbon than in climate conscience.
And still, Brazil moves forward. President Lula da Silva is taking a bold gamble to rekindle the spirit of Paris without Washington’s signature. No agreement will be signed in Belém and that may be a good thing. The grand rituals of unkept promises have run their course. Brazil is choosing another path to awaken political will instead of multiplying hollow declarations.
Thirty years after the Paris Agreement, the planet hasn’t only grown hotter it has grown cowardly. The Global South, meanwhile, refuses to remain a victim. From the Sahel to the Amazon, from the Pacific islands to the banks of the Congo, the peoples paying the highest price for the climate crisis are now demanding their place in global governance.
Climate leadership is no longer measured by the number of zeros in green budgets, but by the ability to keep one’s word. And on that score, the great powers have become small.
Belém may not change the planet’s trajectory, but it redraws the moral map of the world a map where the South speaks clearly while the North keeps calculating.
Brazil doesn’t need a new accord to matter at this COP. What it needs and what it reminds us is that the climate struggle is, above all, a battle of political courage.
