As 50,000 delegates descend upon the Amazon city of Belém for Cop30, Brazil is implementing a radically different approach to the global climate summit that could redefine how nations tackle the environmental crisis.
A Summit Like No Other
The logistical challenges alone mark this conference as extraordinary. Shipping containers, cruise ships, river boats, schools and even army barracks have been converted into accommodation for the unprecedented influx of attendees to this small city at the mouth of the Amazon River. The scarcity of conventional lodging has drawn criticism for exorbitant costs, forcing many delegations to reduce their presence while business leaders relocate events to São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.
Yet Brazil remains steadfast in its unconventional planning. This Cop bears the host country's distinctive stamp more than most previous conferences of parties, representing a homecoming to the nation where the UN framework convention on climate change began at the landmark 1992 Earth Summit in Rio.
Brazil's Philosophical Framework
At the heart of Brazil's strategy lies the Indigenous concept of mutirão, which Cop30 president André Corrêa do Lago describes as "a community coming together to work on a shared task". This philosophy underpins Brazil's vision for international climate cooperation, moving beyond traditional negotiation formats toward collective action.
The host nation has deployed wide-ranging diplomatic efforts, recruiting dozens of senior diplomats, community leaders and statespeople as Cop30 envoys and ambassadors. These include a "circle" of previous Cop presidents featuring the UK's Alok Sharma, finance ministers, Indigenous community representatives, and special envoys for energy, agriculture and business.
Nicholas Stern, economics professor at the London School of Economics, observes that "Brazil have put a lot of preparation into this Cop over two years. Whatever comes out will be more considered than a rush job would have been."
Structural Innovations and High-Risk Strategies
Brazil's departures from convention extend to the summit's fundamental structure. World leaders including the UK's Keir Starmer, Germany's Friedrich Merz and the EU's Ursula von der Leyen arrived early for preliminary roundtables aimed at galvanising action before the main negotiations.
Most notably, Brazil is resisting calls to conclude with the traditional "cover decision" - the comprehensive document that typically represents a Cop's main outcome. This high-risk strategy means some key issues might be omitted, echoing frustrations at last year's Cop29 where important matters were left unaddressed.
One official from a previous Cop host expressed concern: "We found [the cover decision] was the best way to capture the progress we had made in the negotiations across a range of issues."
Focusing on Implementation and Equity
Brazil's central tenet for Cop30 is implementation - taking concrete measures to achieve existing climate goals rather than squabbling over new targets. The summit's "action agenda" organises thematic days around six key areas: energy transition, forest stewardship, agricultural transformation, urban resilience, social development, and financial enablers.
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has prioritised social issues through the global ethical stocktake (GES) initiative. Environment minister Marina Silva explains that the GES integrates "the ethical dimension to bolster political decisions and technical measures", ensuring fairness and equity in climate policy while giving Indigenous peoples and marginalised communities unprecedented representation.
As Ana Toni, chief executive of Cop30, states: "Our role at Cop30 is to create a roadmap for the next decade to accelerate implementation."
Streamlining the Unwieldy Climate Process
Even the Cop process itself faces scrutiny, with Brazil announcing intentions to streamline the UN climate framework's byzantine negotiating structure. Simon Stiell, executive secretary of the UNFCCC, acknowledges the need for evolution toward "faster, fully inclusive, higher-quality decisions that tie the formal process ever-closer to real economies and real lives."
The irony remains that with 145 agenda items to address in just two weeks, substantive discussion of streamlining may prove challenging. Yet Brazil's unconventional approach represents a bold experiment in whether changing how we talk about climate change can transform what we do about it.
