5 d. ago ‘The dinosaurs didn’t know what was coming, but we do’: Marina Silva on what needs to follow Cop30

Exclusive: Brazil’s environment minister talks about climate inaction and the course we have to plot to save ourselves and the planetSoon after I returned home to Altamira from Cop30, I found myself talking about dinosaurs, meteors and “ambassadors of harm” with Brazil’s environment minister, Marina Silva.No one in government knows the rainforest better than Marina, as she is best known in Brazil, who was born and raised in the Amazon. No one is more aware of the sacrifices that environmental and land defenders have made than this associate of the murdered activist Chico Mendes. And no one worked harder to raise ambition at Cop30, the first climate summit in the Amazon, than her. So what, I asked, had it achieved? Continue reading...

Politics

1 week ago How food on our supermarket shelves is driving destruction of Amazon rainforest

The COP30 climate change summit in Brazil highlighted the importance of the Amazon to us all

Politics

3 w. ago 'A big scandal': Outrage over Brazil cutting down 100,000 Amazon rainforest trees to build road for Cop30

US President Donald Trump has criticised the building of a new highway in the Amazon for the Cop30 climate summit

Politics

3 w. ago Outrage as Amazon Rainforest is cleared of 100,000 trees to make way for climate summit

Both climate activists and skeptics have slammed the destruction of miles of the Amazon rainforest in order to build a road for a two-week climate change summit.

Politics

4 w. ago Cop ahoy! Sailing up the Amazon to the climate summit – podcast

Jonathan Watts sets off on a three-day boat trip down the Amazon – with indigenous leaders, scientists, artists and more – to report on Cop30, the climate summit taking place this year in BrazilThis week, delegations from countries from all over the world are flying into Belem, Brazil, to attend Cop30, the world’s biggest climate summit.The Guardian’s global environment reporter Jonathan Watts, however, had a different idea – to take the slow road. Or, in fact, the slow boat – a three-day journey up the Amazon, across hundreds of kilometres, to arrive in Belem just in time. Continue reading...

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4 w. ago Lula’s balancing act: Cop30 Amazon summit juggles climate and social priorities

Brazil’s president welcomes world leaders while navigating divided government, promising action on deforestation and emissionsHow could the Tropical Forest Forever Facility tackle deforestation?Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has welcomed world leaders to Belém for the first climate summit in the Amazon, where conservationists hope he can be a champion for the rainforest and its people.But with a divided administration, a hostile Congress and 20th-century developmentalist instincts, this global figurehead of the centre left has a balancing act to perform in advocating protection of nature and a reduction of emissions. Continue reading...

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last month Less arguing, more action: will Brazil’s unorthodox approach to Cop30 work?

Host uses Indigenous concepts and changes agenda to help delegates agree on ways to meet existing climate goalsShipping containers, cruise ships, river boats, schools and even army barracks have been pressed into service as accommodation for the 50,000 plus people descending on the Amazon: this year’s Cop30 climate summit is going to be, in many ways, an unconventional one.Located in Belém, a small city at the mouth of the Amazon river, the Brazilian hosts have been criticised for the exorbitant cost of scarce hotel rooms and hastily vacated apartments. Many delegations have slimmed down their presence, while business leaders have decamped to hold their own events in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. Continue reading...

Politics

last month Ed Miliband urges progressives to unite around green policies ahead of Cop30

World leaders are gathering in the Amazon city of Belem for the United Nations climate summit against a gloomy background.

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