Brazil will host the 30th Conference of Parties (COP30) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Belém from 10 to 21 November.

More than 190 parties to the Paris Agreement will discuss issues such as scaling up climate finance, especially for adaptation, national targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions; how and when to “transition away” from fossil fuels as agreed at COP28 and how to support measures to reduce climate harms and address unavoidable loss and damage in lower income countries that are bearing the brunt of climate change despite contributing the least to it.

Amnesty International is calling on COP30 delegates to:

1. Conclude with a clear plan and timeline to phase out fossil fuels, deliver the wholly inadequate $300 billion climate finance target (agreed upon in COP29) and scale up the provision of public grants-based finance. The plan must also ensure that international investments flow into projects that actually help to address climate change and not into risky and unproven technologies like direct air capture or solar or marine geo-engineering that could cause human rights harms and delay the fossil fuel phase out we need.
2. Encourage high-income high-emitting states, especially those historically the most responsible for climate change, to come forward with new and additional contributions to the Fund for responding to Loss and Damage to meet the scale of need. Also, the Fund’s Board must conduct its activities in a transparent, inclusive, and accountable manner while ensuring direct access to funding for affected communities and insulation from undue private sector influence. 

“The global climate crisis is the single biggest threat to our planet and demands a befitting response. The effects of climate change are becoming more pronounced across the whole world. We confront increasingly frequent and severe storms, wildfires, droughts and flooding, as well as sea level rise that will destroy some small island states,” said Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s secretary general, who will be attending the conference.

“COP30 in Brazil presents an opportunity for collective resistance against those trying to reverse years of commitments and efforts to keep global warming below 1.5°C. The fact that levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere soared by a record amount last year should ring alarm bells for world leaders at COP30.

“Amnesty International is urging governments to resist aligning with the Trump administration’s denial of the accelerating climate crisis and instead demonstrate true climate leadership. In the face of President Trump’s rejection of science coupled with the intensified lobbying for fossil fuels, global leaders must redouble their efforts to take urgent climate action – with or without the US. They must push back against attempts to curtail funding for renewable energy projects and resist the bullying efforts by the USA and others to weaken policies and regulations to combat climate change.

“Humanity can win if states commit at COP30 to a full, fast, fair and funded fossil-fuel phase-out and just transition to sustainable energy for all, in all sectors, as recently confirmed by the International Court of Justice’s recent Advisory Opinion. These commitments must go hand-in-hand with a significant injection of climate finance, in the form of grants, not loans, from states that are the worst culprits for greenhouse gas emissions. Crucially, states must take steps to protect climate activists and environmental defenders. This is the only way to secure climate justice and protect the human rights of billions of people.”