Brasília [Brazil], November 11: The 30th annual UN Climate Change Conference began on Monday in the Brazilian city of Belem, in the Amazon rainforest, with hosts expecting around 50,000 participants for nearly two weeks of hard negotiations.
More than 190 countries will discuss how to curb the climate crisis and its devastating impacts, including more frequent and severe droughts, storms, wildfires and floods.
Talks at the conference known as COP30 will also address demands from poorer nations for more funding to adapt to increasingly hostile climate conditions.
The meeting will see numerous calls for more action from governments: Contrary to previous commitments, only around a third of countries have submitted their climate plans for the period up to 2035 in time for the conference.
"In view of the inadequate national climate policies, the conference will focus on how the limitation of global warming necessary for our survival can still be achieved," said the head of Greenpeace Germany, Martin Kaiser.
Host country Brazil is meanwhile promoting a new, multi-billion-pound fund to protect tropical rainforests, called Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF).
Countries that preserve their tropical forests will be rewarded, while heavy penalties will be imposed for every hectare destroyed, with the proceeds going into the fund.
The mammoth gathering comes 10 years after the Paris climate agreement, hailed at the time as historic. Back then, the international community agreed to limit global warming to as close as possible to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
That has failed, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said at a preparatory summit with dozens of heads of state and government, calling this "the hard truth."
He said the 1.5 degree threshold would be exceeded temporarily by the start of the 2030s at the latest, describing this as a "moral failure and deadly negligence."
The United States, the world's second-biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, is in the process of leaving the Paris climate deal, and is skipping the conference. The lack of US funds will make it harder for other countries to make commitments to support poorer nations in battling climate change.
According to a current UN forecast, the world is on track for 2.8 degrees of warming with existing climate policies.
Previous summits have ended with mixed results. The last edition of the conference in Azerbaijan, COP29, saw oil-rich states such as Saudi Arabia trying to block an agreement to phase out the use of fossil fuels.
Source: Qatar Tribune
