About halfway through the most recent United Nations’ annual climate change conference, COP30 in Belém, Carolina Pasquali, my counterpart at Greenpeace Brazil, started to lose her voice. She was suffering from the kind of hoarseness that kicks in when you have been speaking so much that your vocal cords become inflamed.
Carolina’s voice may have become tired during COP30, but she never fell silent. On the last morning of COP30, at Greenpeace’s final press briefing, I found myself standing behind Carolina as a press pack swarmed her, seeking answers to what was happening.
‘Who is that woman?’ I overheard one of the 56,118 registered delegates ask another.
‘With a crowd like that, she must be the Brazilian environment minister’, was the reasoned but inaccurate answer.
With Brazil hosting COP30, and particularly given the storied history of Greenpeace Brazil as a defender of the Amazon rainforest, Carolina carried an enormous load of leadership and advocacy in the lead-up and during the event. It is no wonder her voice was feeling the strain.
I’ve had the privilege of working with Carolina as part of the Greenpeace global leadership community for a few years now, and she’s an excellent colleague—thoughtful, principled, strategic, a brilliant public speaker, and in possession of a wonderful, wry sense of humour. She’s a friend and a terrific leader whom I admire deeply.
It had been Greenpeace Brazil’s vision that emergency action to halt deforestation was core to the demands that civil society brought to the COP. Given the event’s location in the Amazon, it seemed axiomatic that the goal of phasing out fossil fuels must be accompanied by the other critical half of the climate challenge: addressing deforestation, the second-largest driver of climate change.
Late in the afternoon on the second-last day of the COP, a fire broke out in the middle of the venue, sending a huge fork of flame towards the sky. It was a terrifying moment for those present in the venue. Thankfully, due to good design, the wise use of non-flammable materials, and the rapid response of first responders, there were no fatalities or serious injuries.
In her next speech, Carolina thanked those who had fought the blaze and overseen the evacuation, for their speed and bravery. And she reflected with due gravitas, this is what humanity can do: act together in the face of an emergency—whether that be a fire in a building or our whole planet facing global heating.
As it happened, COP30 got within striking distance of delivering a response that was fit for purpose in our times of planetary emergency, with support from a critical mass of countries for formal roadmaps to end deforestation as well as transition away from fossil fuels. But the official text ultimately fell short in the final hours of negotiations. As Carolina said: ‘while many governments are willing to act, a powerful minority is not.’
In these moments of failure by politicians and negotiators, it would be easy to give in to legitimate feelings of anger and frustration; but the task before us is to appraise every moment for opportunities for momentum. And the critical mass of nations that are committed to roadmaps for ending deforestation and phasing out fossil fuels offered light amidst the gloom.
And so we follow the path. We take the chances. We think through the next phase of strategy. And onwards. As Carolina said simply, ‘the work now continues.’
I’m not only grateful for Carolina’s friendship and for Greenpeace Brazil’s steadfast dedication to tackling deforestation in the Amazon, but for the entire Greenpeace network’s shared commitment.
Greenpeace is relied on for some heavy lifting at climate COPs, and our team consisted of policy experts, campaigners and other specialists from various geographies who brought their deep policy, communications, and campaigning expertise from around the world to the event,. Our morning briefings, sharing analysis, agreeing on focus and assigning tasks for the day, were possessed of that special energy that comes from a group of many backgrounds working very long hours together in common cause.
I’ve reflected over my time with Greenpeace, that when I visit any of our offices, bases or vessels, anywhere in the world, I feel at home. I am confident that you would have the same sensation of coming home too, because if you are reading this, then you are part of Greenpeace too–you, and me, Carolina, and the tens of millions of people all over the world that share our common vision of an earth restored to flourishing.
So on we go. The work continues, in love and hope, together.
Q & A
In the aftermath of the collapse of Australia’s COP31 bid, many people have reached out to ask: What happened? Why didn’t Australia get COP31? And what now?
In the lead-up to November’s COP, nobody in Australia would have anticipated that we would not be welcoming the global climate community to Adelaide next summer. Up until the very final moment when Climate and Energy Minister Chris Bowen told reporters that Türkiye would host COP31 with Australia assuming the role of president of negotiations, hope was alive that we would clinch the deal.
I suspect that the full picture of why the COP31 bid slipped through our hands is a complex mix of factors, some of which may never come to light in the public domain. What we do know is that in the UNFCCC system, decisions on COP hosts are made by full consensus rather than voting. So, for as long as Turkiye declined to withdraw its bid, it was never a done deal.
Much will no doubt be said about whether Australia could have done more to boost our chances of securing the bid. But as I said in the immediate aftermath of the announcement, whatever the forum, whoever the President, the urgency and focus of our actions cannot change. Phasing out fossil fuels and ending deforestation must be at the core of the COP31 agenda.
The task for Chris Bowen will now be to use his role as president of negotiations to drive global emissions reductions at speed and scale consistent with the Paris Agreement.
Next week, diplomats from around the world will descend on Yerevan, Armenia, to negotiate a series of decisions under the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).
Between 19 and 30 October, 196 parties will gather to hammer out the precise wording of the dozens of legal texts that make up the decisions under the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the CBD.
This year’s summit is particularly significant, as it marks the halfway point between the agreement of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework and the deadline for achieving its targets.
The CBD has found that countries are currently not on track to meet 22 out of the framework’s 23 targets.
During the fortnight, delegates will also be negotiating decisions relating to the two supplemental protocols to the CBD: the Cartagena Protocol, which covers biosafety; and the Nagoya Protocol, which covers access and benefit-sharing for the use of genetic resources.
(The Cartagena and Nagoya Protocols, which are each governed by a “meeting of the parties”, or “MOP”, have fewer parties than the CBD as a whole, with 173 and 141, respectively.)
Carbon Brief is tracking the progress of countries towards consensus on dozens of negotiating texts using the interactive table below.
The tracker includes texts from the COP, as well as the MOPs for the Cartagena and Nagoya protocols. It also includes draft decisions from the most recent subsidiary body meetings, as these form the starting point for the negotiations in Yerevan.
The CBD has three subsidiary bodies: the subsidiary body on scientific, technical and technological advice (SBSTTA), the subsidiary body on implementation (SBI) and the subsidiary body on article 8(j) and other provisions (SB8J).
SB8J focuses on issues related to the Indigenous peoples and local communities. It was established at COP16 in Cali, Colombia, in 2024.
The first two columns of the interactive tracker list the topic of each agenda item and the relevant body, with subsequent columns including dates, page counts and links to the original documents.
The table is searchable and can be sorted using the arrows in the header.
Areas of disagreement in UN draft texts are denoted by square brackets. Counting the brackets in a particular iteration of a text therefore gives a sense of how far parties are from reaching consensus.
The bracket column is colour-coded, with dark green indicating a low number of brackets and red indicating a high number of brackets remaining.
Texts can also present parties with choices using “options” or alternatives (“alt”), which are counted together in the sixth column of the table.
The key discussions in Yerevan will centre around two agenda items in particular. The first is the global review, which will assess progress towards the GBF and make recommendations for accelerating action.
The second is finance, which can be separated into two parts: resource mobilisation and the financial mechanism. On resource mobilisation, biodiverse global south countries are likely to push for an increased amount of international finance for conservation.
Disagreement over the creation of the financial mechanism led to the suspension of COP16 in Cali in October 2024, as parties failed to find agreement on the mobilisation of finance before the end of the summit.
Global south countries want the establishment of a separate financial mechanism under the control of the CBD; global north countries largely prefer to maintain the existing mechanism, which sits under the Global Environment Facility.
At the resumed session of COP16 in Rome in early 2025, countries agreed on a roadmap that would lead to the establishment of a permanent mechanism.
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The post Interactive: Tracking negotiating texts at the COP17 biodiversity summit appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Interactive: Tracking negotiating texts at the COP17 biodiversity summit
A beacon of love
On an outer island of Fiji, two thousand nautical miles from Sydney, is a shining light of hope and resilience for our troubled world.
The island of Kioa is home to a Tuvaluan community who migrated from their atoll of Vaitupu in the late 1940s. It is a land of warm hearts, big smiles, and deep cultural roots; a place where the sound of a conch still summons the island together, where islanders paddle out to fish in carved outrigger canoes, and healthy happy children walk barefoot to school.
Here, culture is life. Kioans live sustainably through their traditional knowledge and practices. The island is alive with song, dance and the rhythms of a life tied to the tides, the winds, and the seasons.
Facing the future
Greenpeace has been lucky to have a relationship with Kioa for a number of years now, and we are continually learning from this remarkable community.
Last week, as part of our Voyaging Oceania project, we returned to the island. Our purpose was twofold —- to carry messages from the island to leaders gathering in Nadi this week for the Pacific Pre-COP, and to support the Kioa community in their efforts to improve water security for the island.
Unlike Tuvalu itself, with its eight atolls, Kioa is a mountainous, forested and richly fertile island. It will remain habitable far into the future. Kioans did not initially migrate from Vaitupu due to climate change, but the move was prophetic. They now have a lifeboat.
However, even Kioa faces challenges on our rapidly warming planet, in particular when it comes to water. Climate change is shifting once reliable rainfall patterns. On top of this, the island is already feeling the effect of this year’s intensifying El Niño event, which for Fiji means reduced rainfall and prolonged dry spells.
Right now, fresh water has to be carefully rationed, and is only available for a few hours a day. During last week’s visit aboard our campaigning ship Oceania, Greenpeace was privileged to work with the Kioa community on a new solar-powered water distribution project for the island.
Designed and led by the island, the project involves using a solar pump to move water from a reliable source to a storage tank and then using gravity to distribute the water around the village.
It was a lesson in how local knowledge and ingenuity can be the backbone of today’s climate solutions. To build a dam around the source, the local community knew the exact spot where they could gather gravel at low tide to mix with the cement. They took only what was needed, knowing that all resources must be carefully conserved. Kioa has no roads and no machinery, and it was an all-of-island effort to carry the materials up to the project site, including many heavy bags of sand and rock.
Such projects truly bring to life the vision of a resilient, locally-led, fossil fuel free Pacific.