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Belém can't handle COP 30?
Could it be smaller to minimize its impact?
Will it run its course and potentially wreak havoc on the most marginalized populations in Belém?
What if it is moved to another city or spread across multiple cities?
How can politicians, corporations and the UN be held accountable for their promises and actions?
Should it be cancelled all together?
These questions are worth asking not because we think Belém is doomed for failure but rather to pause and consider the risks and rewards of hosting the most important global climate change conference in one of the most vulnerable ecological and social environments in the world.
In other words, how can COP 30 defy precedent to be beneficial for people and planet, not just politics and profit?
Stilt houses in Guama, a peripheral neighborhood of Belém (Photo by Tommaso Protti/Al Jazeera)
Based on our research and conversations in Brazil, we conclude with a challenge to the international community, especially those with economic and political power:
COP 30 should not be speaking for the people of Belém nor should it be speaking about them, but rather COP 30 should be speaking with them. If this event is to be truly revolutionary, it will center and collaborate with those that climate change affects the most which, in the case of Belém, means the people at the margins that have little to gain and everything to lose from COP 30.
Belém Metropolitan Region (Photo by Andressa Mansur)
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