Belém, Broken Promises, and the Quiet Roar of a Warming World
Belém felt like a crossroads last week: the humid Amazon air pressed against the glass of conference halls while outside, the river breathed slow and brown, carrying the stories of fishing families and rubber tappers who know the forest’s moods better than any negotiator. Inside, the world’s diplomats and activists tried to stitch together a response to a crisis that refuses to knit itself back together.
But when the lights went down on COP30, the verdict was unmistakable to many: small steps, big rhetoric, and what one global rights leader called “meagre results.” Volker Türk, the UN human rights chief, spoke plainly at a business and human rights forum in Geneva: “I often wonder how future generations will judge our leaders’ actions—and their fatal inaction—on the climate crisis. Could the inadequate response of today be considered ecocide or even a crime against humanity?”
The words landed like stones in a still pond. They reflected a broader frustration at the summit in Belém, where negotiators approved a package that nudges money toward vulnerable nations but conspicuously skirted the subject many expected to be front and center: fossil fuels.
The good news—and what it leaves behind
There were tangible gains. Heads of state and negotiators agreed to scale up finance for poorer nations wrestling with droughts, floods and coastlines swallowed by rising seas. The summit launched a voluntary initiative intended to accelerate action so countries meet their existing emissions pledges, and it called for richer nations to at least triple the money they provide for adaptation by 2035.
“Money matters,” said María Silva, a climate policy advisor from Mozambique who attended the talks. “Our coastal communities need seawalls, farmers need heat-tolerant seeds, and our cities need cooling plans. If finance only trickles, the places that already suffer the most will continue to pay with lives and livelihoods.”
Yet even the victories felt partial. Delegates from several countries objected to the summit closing without stronger, concrete plans to rein in greenhouse gas emissions or to explicitly name the prime culprit: fossil fuels.
Missing words, loud implications
When negotiators neatly avoided the phrase “phase out” of fossil fuels in formal text, many in the climate community saw a symptom of a deeper political calculus. The deal’s silence on oil, gas and coal did not come from ignorance. It came from politics: alliances of producing countries, economic dependence, and the messy reality of transitioning energy systems that currently depend on hydrocarbons.
Mary Robinson, former president of Ireland and chair of The Elders, struck a nuanced tone on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland. “We didn’t get what we would have liked,” she said, “which was a formal mention of phasing out fossil fuel. But there is an informal process that is robust—more than 80 countries behind it. Momentum is real.”
Robinson’s optimism hinged on an economic pivot she has watched for years: renewable energy is falling in cost and rising in reliability. “Clean energy is getting cheaper and more dependable every year,” she said. “Even oil producers can see the future market—Saudi Arabia could move into clean energy tomorrow and make millions. The hard part is moving from billions to millions right now.”
From coral to canopy: the science keeps knocking
Scientists at COP30 warned—again—about planetary thresholds. Coral reefs, already bleached and brittle in many parts of the world, could face irreversible losses if global warming continues on its current trajectory. The Amazon, too, increasingly reads as a region on edge, with drought and fire stress threatening what we’ve long called the planet’s lungs.
“We’re not negotiating abstract numbers,” said Dr. Kamal Bhattacharya, an ecologist who has worked in the Amazon for two decades. “We are bargaining with systems that sustain millions—freshwater cycles, fisheries, seasonal rains that farmers depend on. When you cross ‘tipping points,’ the changes become self-reinforcing and, often, rapid.”
These scientific warnings are not new. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has repeatedly signaled the narrow margins left to keep warming below 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels—a threshold that, if breached, brings more extreme heatwaves, sea-level rise and biodiversity loss.
Money, trust, and a long shadow of debt
Finance was the story’s more pragmatic strand. Developing countries have made clear they need immediate, predictable funds for adaptation—the concrete work of protecting people from harm already in motion. At COP30, the push to triple adaptation finance by 2035 speaks to an acknowledgement that adaptation has been chronically underfunded. Rich nations promised $100 billion annually to developing countries more than a decade ago. The delivery has been slow, and many say it fell short or was poorly targeted.
“We are asking for justice, not charity,” said Aline Teixeira, a community leader from Pará state, where Belém sits at the mouth of the Amazon. “Our mothers and fathers read the weather differently; they are already losing crops, fish, homes. We need predictable funds, not promises that evaporate at the airport lounge.”
There was also a nod toward making trade policies and climate action speak to each other—an admission that rising barriers and tariffs can block the spread of clean technologies. Aligning trade and climate policy is political heavy lifting, but it could make renewable transition cheaper and faster if done right.
Local color: Belém’s pulse amid global debate
Outside the conference center, Belém’s markets perfumed the air—rumbling with a cacophony of acai vendors, fishmongers and artisans. Children ran past stalls selling carved wood and river fish skewers. Indigenous leaders held quieter conversations about tradition, knowledge and survival. The contrast was stark: local rhythms of life that lean on the forest and river, and international negotiations that often forget those granular human realities.
“You can’t separate the climate from culture here,” said Joaquim, a fisherman whose family has navigated the estuary for generations. “When the river changes, our songs change. We are not statistics.”
What now? A question for the reader—and a call for wider imagination
COP30 left us with a mixed ledger: modest financial progress, a failure to target the core mechanics of the crisis, and a clear signal that the politics of fossil fuels remain the Gordian knot of climate diplomacy. Volker Türk’s haunting question—could inaction amount to a crime against humanity?—is not meant to criminalize politicians overnight. It is meant to pry open our moral imagination.
How will history judge this moment? Will our grandchildren inherit a planet shored up by courageous transitions and equitable finance, or will they inherit a ledger of compromises and missed deadlines? The answer depends on choices that will be made in boardrooms, ministries, and town halls across continents.
So I’ll ask you—what do you think matters most right now: accelerating finance for adaptation, a fast and fair phase-out of fossil fuels, or technological fixes like carbon capture and storage? Your answer will likely reveal how you weigh immediate human suffering against long-term planetary stability.
Belém was not an ending. It was a mirror. It showed us that momentum exists, but also how fragile it is. The forest, river and people around that city keep living in the consequences of decisions made in far-off capitals. That closeness—between the global and the local—is where accountability must begin.
