Belem, Brazil. Pedro Magrod/Shutterstock

For two weeks during November, countries are coming together in the city of Belém in Brazil to negotiate their responses to climate change. This will be the 30th UN climate summit, known as Cop30. It marks ten years since the negotiation of the Paris agreement (a global agreement to keep temperature rise to well below 2°C, and as close to 1.5°C as possible). For the first time, this global summit is being held in the Amazon, the largest rainforest ecosystem in the world.

But most countries have not submitted their national climate plans, and the US has withdrawn from the Paris agreement. While many governments remain committed to climate action, the agreement’s objective requires difficult decisions.

Research has documented how countries dependent on fossil fuel wealth have sought to weaken climate science published by the UN’s climate authority (the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change or IPCC) and undermine its influence on UN climate negotiations for decades.

The transition away from fossil fuels is difficult for countries. An ambiguous timeline for fossil fuel phase out and investment in technologies that remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere are easier options. The Paris agreement also comes with financial and technological obligations for developed countries.

Read more: US politics has long shaped global climate action and science – how much will Trump’s opposition matter?

Under the Paris agreement, countries agreed to reach a new climate finance target by 2025. Developed countries failed to reach the previous goal of providing US$100 billion (£76 billion) by 2020.

At the UN climate summit in Azerbaijan last November, known as Cop29, a new financial goal was agreed. However, the US$300 billion a year by 2035 target agreed fell well below what developing countries actually needed to mitigate and adapt to climate change. Progress to increase climate finance to US$1.3 trillion will be a key debate at Cop30. Despite historical responsibility, these weak financial commitments indicate that developed countries are not providing the climate leadership needed.

Brazil’s climate presidency

Brazilian Cop30 president, André Corrêa do Lago, has a critical role to play as mediator and bridge builder to increase the collective ambition of governments.

In Brazil’s leadership of Cop30, the tension between negotiating and implementing the Paris agreement are apparent. While Brazil deploys its diplomatic resources to strengthen the global climate response, it appears to undermine it nationally by approving new fossil fuel exploitation.

Less than one month before Cop30, the state oil and gas company, Petrobras, was authorised to begin exploratory drilling in the mouth of the Amazon. Brazil intends to expand production by more than 20% by 2030 and is projected to become the fourth-largest producer in the world. The Brazilian government justifies this through the Paris agreement, which enables countries to choose their own climate action plans.

However, the Paris agreement is not just about government action. It recognises that action is needed by businesses, investors and cities and regions, and that everyone has a role to play, from climate youth to Indigenous people in collective climate action. Mobilising broader social participation and support has been a key objective of Brazil’s Cop30 presidency.

Amazon visions and voices

Brazil is hosting Cop30 in the Amazon, despite resistance to this location from countries because of limited and costly accommodation. Brazil Cop30 organisers are supporting greater Indigenous participation than any previous UN climate summit.

This will provide a platform for community voices most affected by climate change and deforestation. One of the key goals for Indigenous and other Amazonian communities at Cop30 will be to demand direct financing for their community funds — grassroots mechanisms designed to channel money directly to those protecting the forest. They argue that funding should go straight to local hands, not through government agencies, to ensure real autonomy and impact on the ground.

Gatherings outside the main venue for negotiations include the people’s summit and planned protest. At these alternative summit events Indigenous peoples and other civil society groups call for climate justice and try to hold governments accountable to their climate promises.

As researchers, we sit and listen to the climate negotiators. We have watched country negotiators push difficult decisions back another year and weaken collective commitment to fossil fuel phaseout. Fossil fuel interests have been empowered in US energy decision making and the US government now seeks to slow the energy transition outside of the Paris agreement. It is not clear which governments, if any, will lead the collective effort necessary to leave this dependence behind at Cop30.

We will be in Belém as a research team documenting the unfolding events. Our research into global agreement-making shows all the diverse ways that people participate in climate politics are important to ensure the Paris agreement objectives are met. In Belém, these diverse visions will come alive in vivid and tangible ways, offering glimpses of alternative futures and collective paths that could reshape how the world approaches climate action. That is what many people will be hoping to see.

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This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Hannah Hughes, Aberystwyth University and Veronica Korber Gonçalves, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS); Universidade de Brasília (UnB)

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Hannah Hughes receives funding from British Academy.

Veronica Korber Gonçalves receives funding from the Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq).