The aim is to take the democratic debate from the Amazon to the world
The Peoples’ Summit Towards COP 30 (30th United Nations Conference of the Parties on Climate Change), building popular convergence between more than 600 social movements, networks and organisations from around the world, expects to bring together more than 15,000 people in Belém (PA) in November this year. The aim is to hold a democratic debate, from the Amazon to the world, on a popular project for climate justice that is capable of combating inequalities and environmental racism.
The Summit is being organised around axes of convergence of proposals, based on the diversity of practices, knowledge, cultures, memory and history shared between the peoples of Brazil, Latin America and the Caribbean. They are:
- Peoples’ sovereignty over water, land, territories and also food sovereignty, with the right to land and territories, agrarian reform and the diversity of peoples’ agroecological knowledge as real solutions to the climate crisis;
- The need for historical reparations and the cancellation of illegitimate debts, built on violations of the rights of indigenous peoples, Afro-descendants, women and diversity of peoples who, in the secular resistance to colonialism, imperialism, neoliberalism and the death projects of transnational corporations, have built webs of protection for the territories and for solidary social relations;
III. The construction of a just, popular and inclusive transition with decent work, based on the organisation and mobilisation of the working class and the reorganisation of an economy centred on the sustainability of life, and not on the continuation of neo-colonial extractivism for the sustenance of great fortunes and private technology companies as well as fossil fuel consumption, which also sustains wars, genocides and the artificial death of human ideas and ideals;
- Against oppression, for democracy and for the internationalism of peoples and real and radical solidarity as a possibility to recreate political and democratic care and commitment between people, territories and nations, in the fight against fascism and the wars that multilateralism, in crisis and captured by corporate interests, can no longer contain;
- Just cities and lively urban peripheries, with rights, housing, mobility, healthy food, health, education public systems, also with coexistence and adapted to the climate crisis, without racism and social segregation; and finally,
- Popular feminism and women’s resistance in the territories because women are at the forefront of the struggles for environmental justice, dismantling the patriarchal structures at the origins of the capitalist system’s accumulation process, which need to be radically transformed if we are to change the world.
The Amazon, like the rest of Brazil’s biomes, matters. And, with the exception of the Caatinga, those biomes contain riches in socio-biodiversity and cultures that we share with other South American countries. In addition, the Blue Amazon, within the limits of the Continental Shelf, which constitutes a maretory (sea “territory”) of 360,000 km² area on Brazil’s Equatorial Margin, brings us closer to and connects us with the Caribbean and neighbouring countries on the Atlantic coast as far as the Mesoamerican region. Based on the boom of Latin American and Caribbean struggles in defence of democracy against colonialism, neoliberalism, imperialism, fascism and the ultra-right, the unity among the peoples in defence of democracy, and without amnesty for the coup plotters, builds the popular power needed to confront the climate crisis with environmental justice, dismantling the power of the big transnational corporations and the free trade agreements that benefit them. This is happening on the basis of the concept and political project of Food Sovereignty, the proposals of the working class for a Just Transition with regional integration, the practices of the feminist economy with decent work for all in times of accelerated technological change and the fight for the right of Free Movement for migrant people, not for goods. These are the political agendas of the peoples with whom we have historically shared stories of struggle and solidarity: today, facing the daunting results in Ecuador’s elections, and always.
How can we translate these political and practical proposals from the territories and peoples in the region, who are building real solutions for climate justice, beyond the spaces captured by corporate interests at the United Nations? The People’s Summit is a space where movements converge to share a long-term analysis and build a common political agenda beyond COP30. It is already on the move, from the Amazon to the Pampa, from Abya Ayala lands, for some Latin America, to the world. And we have to navigate a sea of contradictions in a world where imperial powers are in decline and at war, so the distance between popular visions and proposals and those of the UN climate negotiations is abysmal. However, in the face of the crisis of capitalism, this is where people’s solutions must be recognised and strengthened, bringing lessons from the Amazon to the world.
In 30 years, the climate COPs have not reached a decision on climate financing – apart from the fact that it is operated by financial institutions like the World Bank and with debt-generating loans and funds from private investments and carbon markets. The peoples and civil society are competing with companies, which are increasingly specialised in profiting from climate disasters, for access to and local management of resources to strengthen their territories and social projects, in a legitimate but unequal way, in the limited context of social participation in the negotiations.
On the other hand, the social and popular movements of the region, faced with the escalation of hunger and violence in Haiti and the military invasion of Kenya financed by the United States, are demanding the repay of an immoral and illegitimate debt levied by France exactly 200 years ago on 17 April 2025, for having enslaved black people on that Caribbean island, named after its decimated indigenous population, which dared to be the first European colony to liberate itself and gain independence in 1804. They demand not only historical reparations for black and quilombola peoples, but also the effective recognition of their ancestral culture and the permanence of their territories as a central theme in the care of biodiversity and the climate, having already won an important victory at the 16th Biodiversity Conference in Cali, Colombia, last year.
COP 30 in Belem is supposed to review the NDCs, which are the Nationally Determined Contributions of each country to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions so that global warming does not exceed the 1.5oC limit stipulated in the Paris Agreement. However, there is still no target for ending pollution and no treaty to hold the big corporations in the fossil fuel industry accountable for their violations of rights and for their historical and current climate responsibility (70 per cent of global emissions that heat up the planet and destroy territories, maretories and the life of ecosystems and local communities come from fossil fuels). The indigenous peoples of Brazil are demonstrating why they are part of the solution, defending not only their environments, but all biomes and the health of the population and the planet, as well as pointing out those to blame for the attacks on their territories and ways of life, and uniting with the rural movements affected by agribusiness, which deforests and pollutes.
Although Brazil has no historical responsibility compared to the countries that developed and benefited from the Industrial Revolution, today it is the seventh largest emitter of Greenhouse Gases (with 3% of global emissions). Around 75 per cent of Brazil’s emissions come from the Amazon, and 14 per cent from the Cerrado region. 48% of Brazil’s emissions come from deforestation, and 27% from agriculture (20% agriculture proper and 80% livestock). Considering that the main culprit of deforestation in Brazil is the agricultural sector, we can say that more than 75 per cent of Brazil’s climate pollution is the direct responsibility of agribusiness. Not to mention all the emissions involved in the production and use of pesticides and fertilisers, machinery and the intercontinental transport of commodities. As well as heating up the planet, it destroys biodiversity; contaminates bodies and territories with pesticides; expels and murders indigenous people, quilombolas, peasants and environmentalists; concentrates land and power; and all this not to produce food, but to export commodities, in a highly subsidised and tax-free way.
The corporate agribusiness combine, dependent on mining and oil, is preparing its Agri COP in the town of Marabá (PA) in October this year. For their part, the ultra-conservative Trumpists and Bolsonarists are calling for CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference) 2025 to counter COP 30 in Manaus in the same period. The hope and commitment to caring for life lies in grassroots organisations, the defence of democracy and the mobilisation of peoples at the People’s Summit towards Belém, where all waters flow. Brazil’s presidency of this historic COP must see this movement as an ally for the success of the conference, besides being essential for autonomous and self-organised popular participation in defence of democracy and integration between peoples, instead of promoting business climate champions and public resources for the false solutions of the financialisation of climate and nature with corporate territorial control.
This journey, for the peoples and social movements of Brazil and Latin America, has come a long way and joins the solidarity and global mobilisation for climate justice, in alliance against fascism, genocide in Palestine and social inequalities. In order to combat global emissions, starting with the accountability of the countries and transnational corporations with the greatest historical contributions, we want to show, from our region – from Brazil, from the Amazon and to the world, how we fight in unity against the degradation of our biomes, our health and our ways of life, whether in the forests, the seas, the fields or the cities.
May our voices echo in unison to warn of the urgency of confronting and transforming the current global oil and agribusiness, hydro and mining export model, fostered by free trade agreements from the former colonies of the Global South to the imperial powers that, in crisis, continue to fuel wars and genocides and heat up the planet. Our struggle for an ecological transition, with environmental justice and popular feminism, involves protecting territories of life, rebuilding food and energy systems, water management and urban spaces, quality public services, health, education and sanitation, with reparations for native and traditional peoples, black people, women and diverse people, as well as respect for the cultures of the inhabitants of this land who have the wisdom, strength and willingness to fight to continue this journey. May this meeting grow like the waters when they come together, converging with the strength and the unity of the peoples of the world in the diversity of Amazonian knowledge.
Translated by Alan Noronha – Friends of the Earth Brazil
Article originally published in Portuguese in the newspaper Brasil de Fato on https://www.brasildefato.com.br/colunista/amigos-da-terra-brasil/2025/04/16/clima-complicado-como-navegar-com-unidade-popular-no-mar-das-contradicoes-rumo-a-cop-30/
