Activists from several organisations held protests on Wednesday in the Brazilian city of Belem where COP30 is taking place, calling for greater action to combat climate change.

Viviana Santiago, executive director of Oxfam Brazil, said world leaders were taking "small steps" when it comes to tackling climate issues and called on politicians to "wake up".

“They’re sleeping, taking a nap, slowly awaking and we need to rush, wake up," she said.

"We need these people to wake up to the urgency of the climate crisis.”

Oxfam activists staged a protest near the COP30 venue, with demonstrators wearing giant heads depicting world leaders including Brazil’s Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, U.S. President Donald Trump, and U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, while lounging on hammocks.

For 30 years, world leaders and diplomats have gathered at United Nations negotiating sessions to try to curb climate change, but Earth's temperature continues to rise and extreme weather worsens.

So this month, they're hoping for fewer promises and more action.

Past pledges from nearly 200 nations have fallen far short and new plans submitted this year barely speed up pollution-fighting efforts, experts say.

And if the numbers aren't sobering enough for world leaders when they kick off the action Thursday, there's the setting: Belem, a relatively poor city on the edge of a weakened Amazon.

Unlike past climate negotiations — and especially the one 10 years ago that forged the landmark Paris climate agreement — this annual U.N. conference isn't primarily aimed at producing a grand deal or statement over its two weeks.

Organizers and analysts frame this Conference of Parties — known less formally as COP30 — as the “implementation COP.”

AP video shot by Lucas Dumphreys and Alan K. Guimaraes