Dive Brief:
- COP30 President-Designate André Corrêa do Lago unveiled climate action goals and priorities that will anchor discussions at this year’s global climate summit in a Monday letter addressed to stakeholders.
- The letter called on governments to “pull the levers of climate action and ambition” when drawing up their emissions reduction plans — or Nationally Determined Contributions — to keep the goal of limiting additional global temperature rise to 1.5°C within reach. Corrêa do Lago wrote that policymakers and political leaders “must honor their resolve” to pursue efforts to limit their carbon footprint ahead of the November conference in Belém, Brazil.
- Corrêa do Lago — a veteran climate diplomat who was tapped to lead the summit in January — highlighted how forests could be leveraged for immediate climate action in a “rapidly closing window of opportunity.” The president-designate advocated for reversing deforestation, and said the process could help “unlock massive removals of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere while bringing ecosystems back to life.”
Dive Insight:
Corrêa do Lago has been the secretary of climate, energy, and environment at Brazil's Ministry of Foreign Affairs since 2023 and was previously director of the energy department and the environment department at the foreign affairs ministry. He has also served as Brazil’s chief negotiator for climate change and published several books and articles on climate and sustainable development.
COP30’s leader called climate change a “common enemy” and global warming “an existential threat to humankind” in his March 10 letter. He urged leaders and stakeholders to transition from the negotiation phase to targeted implementation, noting that “science confirms we have the resources to combat climate change.”
“We need a new era beyond negotiating talks: we must put into practice what we have agreed,” Corrêa do Lago wrote.
Belém, which will host COP30, is a rainforest city often referred to as the gateway to Brazil’s lower Amazon region. Corrêa do Lago’s letter touted the role forests can play in cutting emissions, boosting ecosystems which, in turn, can “offer resilience and bioeconomy opportunities by promoting local livelihoods, creating sophisticated value- chains, and generating innovations in biotechnology.” However, he said that tapping into the potential of forests would require increased financial support, investments and technology transfer.
The president-designate’s letter also pointed to COP29’s climate finance deal, pledging to provide the nations most vulnerable to climate change a collective $1.3 trillion by 2035. Corrêa do Lago called on governments, international finance institutions and multilateral development banks to scale up the climate financing needed by countries most vulnerable to climate change. The COP30 leader also noted he would collaborate with the president of the prior summit in Azerbaijan and other parties to guide the “Baku to Belém Roadmap to 1.3T” goal.
The Brazilian climate diplomat’s appointment to lead the 30th iteration of the UN-backed climate summit was well-received overall. However, some climate advocates, environmentalists and policy makers expressed concerns about the ambition of the initiatives he outlined in his first letter.
“COP30 must be about delivering action, not just having discussions and announcing commitments without clear ways for them to be implemented,” Ilan Zugman, the Latin America and Caribbean Director of 350 — an environmental organization — said in emailed comments.
“While the letter acknowledges the importance of Nationally Determined Contributions … it falls short on calling for concrete renewable energy targets and phasing out fossil fuels,” Zugman said.
