Conference expands participation of peoples and movements and recognizes rights in UN agreements but still has to confront fossil fuels, critical minerals, megaprojects, and violence in the territories.
Category: Brazil
The Critical Minerals Trade: The Illegal Route Connecting the Amazon with China
A complex network of actors has emerged around the critical minerals of the Amazon. Some operate along contested river corridors, trading with guerrilla groups and corrupt security forces. Others, under a façade of legality, move massive quantities of material through large port cities connected to international trade routes. Together, these operations endanger the environment and the sovereignty of entire nations.
The Price of Progress: The Dark Side of Critical Minerals in the Amazon
Based on extensive fieldwork and an investigation of supply chains, tracing minerals from extraction to international buyers, we reveal how the global race for the inputs of the energy transition is intensifying violent disputes along the Colombia–Venezuela border, where armed groups control the territory, commit systematic abuses, and destroy one of the planet’s most important carbon sinks.
COP30 ends with minimal commitments, Latin American objections, and lots of work ahead
The conference that sought agreements and actions to mitigate the impacts of global warming ended with criticism of its final decisions that did not include clear targets to transition away from fossil fuels, its superficial texts on mitigation, adaptation and financing, and its lack of transparency.
Without global consensus, Brazil seeks a roadmap with scientists and oil companies to keep the fossil fuel phase-out proposal alive
Amid diplomatic progress and domestic contradictions, Brazil tries to turn its proposal to gradually eliminate oil, gas, and coal into a global roadmap. Studies backing the roadmap presented in Belém are set to involve international agencies, scientists, and representatives from the oil sector, while the country keeps exploration of new reserves in the Amazon open.
In a historic achievement, Afro-Descendants and Indigenous Peoples’ prior consultation are included for the first time in the UN Climate Conference
The recognition was included in the text on just energy transition, but also in other key texts of COP30, alongside the defense of Indigenous territorial rights.
When race is a detail: the COP30 plan that erases Black women
In its second draft, the Gender Action Plan for 2026-2034 acknowledges inequalities and mentions some vulnerable groups but still treats race as a detail.
False Climate Solutions Advance in the Amazon as COP30 Discusses the Planet’s Future
In Belém, public hearings symbolically tried 21 cases of socio-environmental violations. Experts warn: greenwashing has become more sophisticated and turned into a disinformation strategy.
Quick as Fire: Misinformation Becomes a Political Weapon Over the Fire at COP30
Fire at the conference is being used on social media to reinforce misinformation about the Chinese artwork gifted to Brazil.
COP30 Daily: What’s Happening in the Final Days of Climate Negotiation
See what is moving forward — and what is stalling — in the negotiations of the final week of the 30th United Nations Climate Change Conference.