It is hard to imagine a more appropriate venue for this year’s United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP30). Delegations from around the world will gather in the equatorial Brazilian city of Belém, on the edge of the Amazon – one of the front lines of climate vulnerability. Some 40% of the city’s population lives below sea level, and around 82% of residents walk on streets with no shade. Heat and humidity define their daily life, and nature directly sustains their existence.

But as COP30 gets underway, there is no point in pretending that governments are rising to the occasion. The UN Environment Programme’s latest emissions gap report makes clear that without stronger governmental action, we will inevitably see temperature levels at which crops fail, cities overheat, economies falter

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