Father Dario Bossi, mccj: “The COP30 demands a profound conversion”

The Catholic Church in Brazil at COP 30.
An active and prophetic presence

The Church have prepared for COP 30 by engaging Christian communities and reaffirming its alliance with the causes of indigenous peoples, people of African descent, family farming, and popular urban movements.

One of Pope Francis's greatest legacies is his vision of integral ecology. Rooted in faith and supported by science, this clear vision offers a way forward in the face of the grave and urgent context of environmental and climate collapse. Integral ecology integrates spirituality, ethics, and socio-transformative action. Its purpose is to proclaim the Gospel in a way that challenges a deadly economy, sheds light on politics, and effectively promotes the common good.
These are the convictions that have underpinned the Church's active participation in recent years in the process of the United Nations Conferences of the Parties on climate change, the so-called COP. The encyclical Laudato Si' was published a few months before COP21 in Paris and had a profound influence on that multilateral meeting. More recently, concerned about the lack of resolve among nations after Paris, Pope Francis launched the exhortation Laudato Si' on the eve of COP28 in Azerbaijan.
The Church's presence in these events occurs on various levels. Three main dimensions can be distinguished: the preparatory phase, participation with peoples and grassroots movements during the COP, and presence in the Blue Zone, the institutional space where states negotiate global agreements and seek collective commitment. At COP30, scheduled for Belém, the Church will also be present at these three levels, which we present below.
The Church's main effort has focused on the preparatory phase, investing primarily in popular education and community mobilization. Indeed, there is a great distance between global climate negotiation processes and the daily lives of communities living in the countryside, forests, and cities. We are convinced, however, that climate change is primarily effected from the bottom up, when communities are guaranteed the right to land, to their life projects, and to sustainable local economies deeply integrated into the ecosystem.
For this reason, the Church in Brazil has promoted various training activities, engaging communities and reaffirming its alliance with the causes of indigenous peoples, people of African descent, family farming, and urban grassroots movements. The 2025 Fraternity Campaign, which inspires reflection, celebrations, and pastoral commitments all over the country throughout the year, had integral ecology as its central theme.
Additionally, the "Church towards COP30" platform organized five macro-regional events, called "pre-COP," aimed at training multipliers. These, in turn, promoted smaller, more widespread initiatives in dioceses, parishes, schools, and universities. The primary focus of these meetings was to connect the ongoing struggles and proposals in the various territories with the requests presented to the Brazilian government, in dialogue with the National Climate Plan and the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) that each country must submit to the COP.
To support this process, various educational and pastoral materials were produced, such as the COP30 Multipliers' Guide, training manuals for schools, and resources for conversation circles and popular study on the main topics addressed during the conference.
Another significant aspect of the Church's participation was political advocacy. In Brazil, the Church made a decisive contribution to the drafting of a document that gathered contributions from other local Churches in Latin America, Africa, and Asia, which subsequently resulted in "An Appeal for Climate Justice and Our Common Home: Ecological Conversion, Transformation, and Resistance to False Solutions."

This document was presented to Pope Leo XIV by the three cardinal presidents of the episcopal conferences of these continents and has become an important tool for political advocacy. It was presented at the Bonn Conference in preparation for COP30 and served as the basis for an open letter sent to the United Nations. The text called on all states to assume their responsibility to present coherent NDCs, compatible with the gravity of the climate crisis, and commensurate with the challenges it poses.
This entire preparatory process will naturally lead to the Church's active presence at COP30. From the beginning, the Church has not considered itself an isolated or independent entity, which is why it has collaborated with grassroots movements, non-governmental organizations, and entities representing indigenous peoples and traditional communities throughout 2025, thus contributing to the People's Summit. Comprising over a thousand national and international organizations, the Summit represents the broadest body of civil society in relation to the Conference. It has worked intensively in the months leading up to the event and will organize activities, debates, and a major global march during its duration.
In a complementary manner, the Catholic Church is also participating in Interreligious Tapiri, a process that brings together different faith traditions in defence of the climate and our common home. This initiative includes activities with the Churches and Mines network, which demonstrates the resilience of communities affected by predatory projects.
The National Conference of Brazilian Bishops, for its part, will organize a symposium bringing together representatives of the religious, scientific, and indigenous worlds for a high-level discussion. The meeting will be followed by a procession and an international Eucharistic celebration in which social and environmental commitment will be placed under the blessing of God and Our Lady of Nazareth, patroness of the Amazon.
Finally, the Church will also be present in the Blue Zone with thematic debates and the active participation of the cardinal presidents of the continental episcopal conferences of Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean, the so-called “Churches of the Global South.”
The choice to hold COP30 in the Amazon and the Church's active participation throughout the process confirm that the defence of our common home has become a permanent and irreversible commitment for faith communities. Religion, in its diverse expressions, represents a fundamental dimension for inspiring change, uniting peoples, and strengthening shared responsibility in the face of the climate crisis. COP30 itself recognized this role when it established the Global Ethical Balance, which brings together religions, faith traditions, and cultural expressions around a common call for life and climate justice.
This unprecedented convergence of science, politics, spirituality, and culture is a source of hope. It demonstrates that humanity is not alone, but can count on the moral, spiritual, and communal strength of religious traditions, which, together with peoples and social movements, can lay the foundations for ecological conversion, global solidarity, and a renewed covenant between God, humanity, and creation.

Father Dario Bossi, mccj

COP30 brings together
the contradictions that permeate the entire climate process

1. Introduction

In November 2025, Belém do Pará, on the banks of the Guamá River and in the heart of the Amazon, will host the 30th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The event, known as COP30, marks three decades of multilateral climate negotiations — three decades of renewed hopes alongside recurring frustrations. It is a moment laden with symbolism: for the first time, the COP will take place in the Amazon, a region that harbors not only one of the planet’s greatest biodiversities, but also the vulnerability and resilience of peoples who have long been guardians of the forest and sustainable ways of life.

Expectations are high. For many, Belém will be the decisive moment when the climate agenda must move from paper to practice. Over the course of recent conferences, important mechanisms have been designed — climate finance, adaptation, the loss and damage mechanism, and just transition — yet they have almost always come with deferred promises. Now, the central challenge is to mobilize concrete resources, confront fossil fuel interests, and translate commitments into verifiable policies. The hope is that Belém may represent a qualitative leap: that the political texts negotiated in Bonn, Dubai, Baku, and other conferences may finally find their translation into effective action.

But there is also the risk of disappointment, by now almost habitual in the climate process.^[1] As Pope Francis reminds us in his encyclical Laudato Si’, the environmental and social crisis cannot be reduced to technical formulas but requires profound changes in lifestyles and in the ways economic and political systems are organized.^[2] The great conferences often fail to deliver responses proportional to the urgency of the moment. Yet they can also become occasions for new processes arising from the grassroots: communities, peoples, and organizations that translate the defense of life into concrete practices of solidarity and care.

COP30 will thus be an ambivalent stage. Promises of diplomatic progress coexist with the persistence of forces that delay the ecological transition. But it will also — and perhaps above all — be a space of encounter: of Indigenous movements demanding land demarcation, of young people envisioning different futures, of churches and faith-based organizations bringing their prophetic voice. Belém may be remembered not only for negotiations among states, but for the vitality of its streets, rivers, and communities. It is from this tension that we can reflect on expectations, possible advances, and inevitable frustrations of the upcoming global climate gathering.

2. OFFICIAL NEGOTIATION AGENDA: BETWEEN BONN AND BELÉM

The mid-year conference held in Bonn (SB62), in June 2025, served as a thermometer for what will be at stake in Belém. Each year, the subsidiary bodies of the UNFCCC — the SBSTA (Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice) and the SBI (Subsidiary Body for Implementation) — produce drafts and reports that, in theory, should help pave the way for consensus. Yet in Germany, once again, the process revealed its limitations: provisional formulas failed to reach conclusions and central issues were pushed forward to the Amazonian stage.

2.1 The Historical Balance: Progress and Gaps

The recent history of COPs has been marked by significant steps forward, but also by their limits. In 1997, COP3 in Kyoto inaugurated the first binding regime for emission reductions, though restricted to developed countries.^[3] In 2009, COP15 in Copenhagen launched the promise of USD 100 billion annually in climate finance — a commitment that would only materialize decades later.^[4] In 2015, COP21 in Paris represented a watershed moment: for the first time, nearly all nations united around the goal of limiting global warming to well below 2°C, ideally 1.5°C, sustained by voluntary commitments known as Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs).^[5] In 2023, COP28 in Dubai brought the creation of the Funding for Responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD),^[6] but still without clear resources, alongside a Global Stocktake (GST) that fell short of expectations.^[7]

Within this historical arc, each achievement seems to evoke its own incompleteness: regimes are created, but remain fragile; targets are announced, but lack implementation. This contradictory legacy is what Belém will have before it.

2.2 Climate Adaptation: Metrics in Dispute, Plans on Hold

On the climate adaptation agenda, the debate focused on the Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA) — conceived under the Paris Agreement to track global progress in building resilience. The process of distilling thousands of proposals resulted in a list of about one hundred key indicators, covering areas such as agriculture, water, health, biodiversity, infrastructure, and community resilience.^[8] In Bonn, however, a sharp divide emerged: developed countries favored generic indicators detached from resources, while developing countries insisted that without financing, technology, and capacity building — the so-called “means of implementation” (MoI) — the GGA would risk remaining merely rhetorical.

Another central issue was the National Adaptation Plans (NAPs), designed to guide each country’s strategy on the matter. Many have yet to be submitted and, among those already in place, the process is marked by insufficient technical support and funding.^[9] This connects to the broader challenge of adaptation finance, which remains far below global needs. Reports estimate that adaptation costs in developing countries could reach US$215–387 billion per year, but current financial flows cover only a fraction of that demand.^[10] Thus, Belém faces a triple challenge: consolidating global indicators, strengthening national plans, and expanding the reach of financial instruments, so that adaptation moves beyond abstract narrative and becomes an effective axis of climate action.

2.3 Climate Finance: the deferred promise

In the field of climate finance, negotiations continue to expose the gap between commitments made and the means to implement them. At COP29 in Baku, parties agreed on the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG), designed to succeed the US$100 billion target in the post-2025 period. The so-called “Baku–Belém Route” projected the mobilization of US$1.3 trillion by 2035, equivalent to roughly US$300 billion per year.^[11] However, during the Bonn sessions, discussions failed to advance on the mechanisms needed to make this commitment viable — such as sources of funds, disbursement schedules, and responsibilities — postponing decisions to COP30 in Belém.

The deadlock is not only about the volume of finance. A dispute persists over the nature of resources: developed countries tend to favor market-based instruments and loans, while developing countries call for grants, concessional funds, and debt relief mechanisms. Technical reports also warn of the difficulties in tracking private flows and ensuring transparency.^[12] This structural asymmetry — between promises, actual resources, and real needs — keeps climate finance as one of the regime’s greatest credibility tests. Because of the disputes surrounding the means of implementation of the new NCQG, the Baku–Belém Route is expected to stand at the center of COP30 negotiations, serving as a litmus test of the multilateral process’s ability to turn commitments into tangible outcomes.

2.4 NDCs and the Revision of Ambition

The Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) were expected to be submitted by COP29, but only a fraction of countries met the deadline. In Bonn, the absence of new pledges was perceived as a sign of stagnation. Now, it is expected that by Belém more countries will present updated targets, under the pressure that they be aligned with the 1.5°C limit. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva went so far as to call on countries to submit their NDCs in Belém, signaling that this will be one of the key credibility tests of the conference.^[13]

2.5 Loss and Damage: between mechanisms and gaps

The Warsaw International Mechanism (WIM) and the Funding for Responding to Loss and Damage Fund (FRLD) returned to the table in Bonn amid discussions on their scope and integration. Created in 2013, the WIM carries three functions — generating knowledge, coordinating institutions, and promoting action and support in finance, technology, and capacity-building — yet it still struggles to turn these mandates into tangible outcomes. Its third review sought to assess this performance and to discuss ways of articulation with the Executive Committee (ExCom), the Santiago Network—designed to support developing countries in identifying technical needs—and the LDF. The goal is to avoid overlapping mandates and the dispersal of efforts across different structures, which can undermine the effectiveness of these mechanisms.^[14]

The most recent estimates suggest that global loss and damage needs in vulnerable countries may reach US$395 billion annually by 2025, with ranges between 128 and 937 billion, while actual commitments amount to only a few hundred million dollars.^[15] The central dilemma is whether the WIM will remain confined to the technical field or advance toward a role of resource mobilization. COP30 in Belém will be decisive: if it succeeds in advancing guidelines to operationalize the LDF, articulating it with the Santiago Network, and adopting clear timelines for disbursement, it could represent a leap in functionality. Otherwise, there is the risk of perpetuating a cycle in which vulnerable countries continue to bear the impacts of the climate emergency on their own.^[16]

2.6 Just Transition: a concept in dispute

The debate on just transition gained momentum in Bonn, stemming from the recognition that it is not only about retraining workers in the energy sector but about driving transformations across “the whole economy” and “the whole society.” This includes principles such as human rights, intergenerational equity, gender justice, workers’ participation, respect for Indigenous peoples, and social protection systems.^[17] The dispute, however, remains unresolved: industrialized countries tend to narrow the concept to the spheres of labor and energy, while developing countries argue for a broader approach that encompasses health, social inequalities, adaptation, and food sovereignty.

The discussions also highlighted the need for clear means of implementation — financing, technology transfer, and capacity-building — so that just transition does not remain a mere abstract promise. Belém will have to determine whether this program will be consolidated as an operative instrument, integrated into NDCs and national plans, capable of generating decent jobs and expanded social participation, or whether it will continue to be invoked as a principle without practical force to guide policies.^[18]

2.7 Gender and a New Action Plan

The gender agenda was present in Bonn with the first discussions on renewing the Gender Action Plan (GAP), whose revision is scheduled for COP30. The plan aims to integrate a gender perspective into all climate policies, recognizing that women and girls are disproportionately affected by the climate crisis yet play a central role in building solutions.^[19]

In Bonn, debates highlighted the need for disaggregated data, gender-responsive budgets, recognition of care work, and stronger participation of women in decision-making. However, disagreements persist over language, resources, and institutional responsibilities. In Belém, the expectation is to adopt an updated version of the GAP, with clearer mandates and financing links, making gender a cross-cutting axis of climate action rather than a peripheral annex to negotiations.

2.8 Expectations for Belém: the promise of implementation

The Bonn negotiations made clear that COP30 inherits a long list of unresolved tasks. The challenge of consolidating global adaptation indicators, unlocking the new financial goal, capitalizing the loss and damage fund, advancing the just transition program, and renewing the gender plan forms a dense, interconnected agenda. Each of these points reflects both the fragility and the resilience of the multilateral process: technical advances were achieved, but without political decisions or the resources needed to give them practical force.

Not by chance, many actors now call Belém the “Implementation COP.” The normative architecture of the climate regime is largely in place: mitigation targets, adaptation mechanisms, compensation funds, transition plans. What remains is to turn this structure into reality — mobilizing resources, operationalizing programs, and tying commitments to verifiable deadlines. The risk, however, is that “implementation” becomes just another label, repeated without changing the logic of deferred promises.

This contradiction is clearer when looking at global resource allocation. In 2024, military spending reached about US$2.7 trillion, while climate and humanitarian flows stayed far below estimated needs. The contrast shows the issue is not only new targets or normative frameworks, but how global priorities are set and sustained.

It is in this deadlock that other forces emerge. In times of weakened institutions, transnational movements question fragile solutions and offer alternatives rooted in territories. In Belém, the thermometer will not be only in negotiation rooms but also in the vitality of Indigenous, grassroots, and interreligious mobilizations. As Pope Francis emphasizes in Laudate Deum, this is a multilateralism built from the bottom up, putting life itself at the center of climate politics.^[20]

3. THE COP IN THE HEART OF THE AMAZON

The choice of Belém do Pará as host of COP30 places the Amazon at the center of global climate politics. More than a geographical shift, it is a symbolic gesture that highlights the forest as a vital territory for planetary balance, but also as a stage for historic contradictions: deforestation, extractive pressures, and social inequalities directly affecting the region’s peoples.

The conference therefore carries a dual dimension. On one hand, it inspires through the strength of Amazonian peoples and the possibility of rooting negotiations in local territories. On the other, it challenges due to the city’s logistical limitations and Brazil’s internal political tensions. This contrast will permeate the entire event: while heads of state and negotiators meet in official halls, communities, social movements, and churches intend to turn Belém into a space of contested narratives and the affirmation of alternatives.

3.1 Conference Logistics and People’s Mobilization

A city of just over two million inhabitants, with limited infrastructure, will be called upon to host tens of thousands of delegates, journalists, observers, and social movements. Concerns over transport, accommodation, and connectivity demand extraordinary preparation by the Brazilian state and international organizers.^[21] These aspects, while technical, are not irrelevant: they are mobilized by political actors, including fossil lobbies and groups opposed to broad social participation, as arguments to restrict access and accreditation. Logistics, therefore, also becomes a field of dispute in the main international arena of climate decision-making.

The meeting will also compel heads of state, negotiators, and international organizations to confront the real territory of the Amazon — its rivers, its communities, and its ways of life. For social movements, this is the opportunity to show that the ecological transition must move from distant offices to the lived reality of peoples on the frontline of the climate emergency.

In this context, distinct mobilizations are already underway. The so-called COP of the Baixadas, organized by peripheral communities of Belém, aims to highlight urban socio-environmental inequalities, showing that the climate crisis also unfolds in Amazonian cities. Meanwhile, the People’s COP will feature a Tribunal of the Peoples, where violations committed by economic enterprises against Indigenous, quilombola (afrodescendent), and traditional communities in Brazil will be judged.

The People’s Summit is expected to bring together over 15,000 participants in Belém, articulating social movements at both national and international levels. Its agenda is built around thematic axes defined by the real demands of peoples, such as agroecology, land demarcation, a just energy transition, and the rights of nature. Alongside these initiatives, ecumenical and interreligious movements are preparing vigils, celebrations, and the installation of an ecumenical tapiri — a symbolic space for spiritual and intercultural dialogue — to affirm that the climate struggle is also an ethical and faith-based issue.

These mobilizations do not stand outside the official conference; they actively challenge it, offering counterpoints to formal negotiations and denouncing so-called “false solutions” that privilege markets over rights. At the same time, they develop concrete alternatives — from the recognition of ecological debt to ways of living with the biomes — underscoring that the implementation of global commitments will only be possible if rooted in the territories. Among these struggles, Indigenous leadership will undoubtedly stand out. Leaders have already announced that they will bring to Belém the agenda of land demarcation and titling as a central axis of climate justice, echoing both inside and outside the negotiation halls of what they call the NDC of ancestral peoples.^[22]

3.2 Disputa de forças dentro do governo

Compared to recent Climate Conferences, Belém is expected to offer greater openness to social participation — a result of both Brazil’s effort to reaffirm its international standing and the vitality of local movements. This approach has been reinforced by mechanisms articulated by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Itamaraty), the Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change (MMA), the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples (MPI), and the Special Secretariat for COP30. Initiatives include accrediting civil society representatives in the Brazilian delegation, the CoParente Cycle for Indigenous registration, self-managed Global Ethical Reviews, the Global Climate Action Task Force, and the digital platform Maloca, available in multiple languages to broaden remote access.

At the same time, political and legislative tensions contradict this openness. The so-called “Devastation Bill” (PL 2.159/2021) — which has 63 presidential vetoes — weakens environmental licensing and reduces requirements for “strategic” projects.^[23] Meanwhile, during the Bonn Conference, the government auctioned 172 oil blocks — 47 of them in the sensitive Amazon River mouth — highlighting the gap between climate rhetoric and governmental practice.^[24] In Belém, this contradiction may be leveraged by international actors and will test how far Brazil can reconcile its climate leadership with the pressure of internal economic and political interests.

4. THE PERSPECTIVE OF THE CHURCHES

Beyond technical negotiations, the conference in Belém will also be a space for the affirmation of ethical, spiritual, and civilizational values. In the lead-up to COP30, the Churches of the Global South, Cáritas Brasileira, the ecumenical movement, and other faith-based organizations have insisted on placing climate justice, human rights, and care for Creation at the center. Their proposals reflect a critical reading of the international climate process, marked by persistent “false solutions” — such as the commodification of carbon markets and the financialization of nature — and by the absence of robust commitments to the most vulnerable peoples.

Along this path, Cáritas Brasileira released its COP30 Position Paper — “For a just, inclusive, popular, and democratic transition” — the result of broad consultation across its national network.^[25] Structured around seven strategic pillars, the document diagnoses the climate emergency and puts forward concrete guidelines for the Brazilian government, rooted in territorial experience. Among the central themes are: fiscal justice in climate finance, recognition of non-material loss and damage, an energy transition that respects territories, agroecology as a structuring policy, and the right to free, prior, and informed consultation of traditional communities affected by large projects.^[26]

The Churches of the Global South, in turn, presented in July 2025 their joint declaration “A Call for Climate Justice and Our Common Home”. It explicitly condemns extractivist and technocratic models that continue to exploit natural resources and marginalize vulnerable communities, while rejecting “market-based solutions” such as carbon offsets or the financialization of nature. In contrast, it calls for a transition centered on human dignity, ecosystem restoration, the protection of Indigenous territories, and the promotion of local alternatives. Hope, in this vision, emerges through the denunciation of the “throwaway culture” and through the ecological conversion of peoples, resonating with particular force in the Amazon.^[27]

In parallel, the ecumenical movement drafted a Call to Action, delivered directly to Minister Marina Silva during a meeting in March 2025. The document calls for greater protagonism of faith communities in the climate agenda, emphasizes the centrality of Indigenous and quilombola peoples, summons youth engagement, and insists on urgent mechanisms that recognize both the material and immaterial dimensions of climate devastation.^[28]

Belém may thus become a symbolic milestone for the presence of Churches and faith movements within climate negotiations. Vigils, interreligious celebrations, and the tapiri ecumenical space are meant to affirm that the struggle against the climate emergency is also a spiritual and ethical calling. If the voices of the peoples are heard and the channels between grassroots and negotiating tables remain open, COP30 could inaugurate a more plural institutional framework, rooted in territories and connected to the diverse faiths and spiritualities of Churches and peoples.

5. CONCLUSION

COP30 in Belém brings together the contradictions that permeate the entire climate process: technical advances without secured resources, political promises without clear timelines, and commitments postponed in the face of an accelerating emergency. Yet the choice of the Amazon as the global stage gives the meeting a unique symbolic weight: more than a negotiation forum, it becomes a space to dispute the very meaning of ecological transition.

As Pope Francis has emphasized, the climate emergency cannot be reduced to technical debates or market calculations;^[29] it demands a profound conversion — ecological, social, and spiritual — capable of transforming political priorities, lifestyles, and power relations.^[30] In this horizon, COP30 may not resolve the structural deadlocks of the climate regime, but it can strengthen a broader movement, rooted in peoples and communities, pointing toward a conversion that transcends the individual and embraces the communal.^[31]

Belém may not close the cycle of deferred promises that has marked the last three decades of climate negotiations. But it can inaugurate a new grammar of hope, in which peoples and their practices take center stage in building the ecological transition. Its legacy, therefore, may lie in concrete pathways for territories, through stronger transnational alliances, empowered local communities, and the ethical and spiritual mobilization that radiates from the Amazon to the world.

Father Dario Bossi, mccj