“COP of the Forest” highlights global conservation contradictions

Abstract

The annual United Nations Climate Change Conference—COP, or the Conference of the Parties—is the main global forum to advance climate goals through international collaboration. Its most recent gatherings underscored the urgency of reducing carbon emissions, conserving forests and biodiversity, and creating better ways to sustainably manage water and produce food. However, the pathway to achieve such goals is often challenged by a global economy serving the high resource demands of wealthy countries and by socio-environmental conflicts in the Global South.

Critics often argue that COP benefits wealthy countries the most by setting a global stage for them to showcase their policies. Moreover, the inflow of resources into host cities is applied to event management and infrastructure, which poorly reflect long-term positive changes. Like many other international mega-events, COP might leave behind a legacy of degradation and disruption, for which the host city's most vulnerable residents will bear an outsized impact. And the next one—COP 30, November 10–21, 2025—will be held in the Amazon, with Belém, the capital of the Brazilian state of Pará, as its host city.

Central to global climate stability, the Amazon region is facing severe, unprecedented environmental crises, which highlight the contradictions of hosting such an event in this place. In 2024 alone, Pará recorded over 50,000 wildfires, almost half of all wildfires recorded in the Brazilian Amazon. That same year, on November 24, in Santarém, Pará's third largest city, air pollution spiked to levels more than 40 times those recommended by the World Health Organization, thereby prompting a climate emergency declaration. Six days later, on November 30, Belém citizens awoke under a blanket of smoke from fires on Mosqueiro Island, over 80 km away. Meanwhile, unlicensed infrastructure projects to meet COP 30 necessities, including a major highway expansion, threaten local biodiversity. Such projects betray the local governance priorities, placing international optics over meaningful action.

The juxtaposition of Pará's role as host of the “COP of the Forest” and its pressing environmental issues highlights the contradictions that COP faces. These challenges go beyond deforestation and pollution, exposing deep socio-environmental inequities. For instance, 80% of Belém's population lacks access to basic sanitation (Res Soc Dev 2020), underscoring the persistent gap between governance rhetoric and tangible action. Pará has been at the forefront of deforestation in the Amazon, leading the region in forest loss for about two decades. This ongoing deforestation threatens the state's rich biodiversity, including over 20,000 animal and plant species, while also impacting 134 traditional and Indigenous communities across over 25% of Pará's territory. These communities already face increasing pressures from illegal mining, highway and hydroelectric projects, and violent conflicts with farmers.

Adding to these challenges, the state's governor recently enacted Law 10.820/2024, which risks replacing in-person education with remote learning in rural areas. This decision sparked widespread protests across Pará in early 2025 among traditional and Indigenous communities and their allies, who demanded the law's repeal and the establishment of a new model of Indigenous education developed in dialogue with these communities. Such exclusion and insensitivity raise critical concerns among residents about whether COP 30 will genuinely address Pará's urgent environmental challenges or merely serve as a performative gesture. To effectively confront these issues, Indigenous and traditional communities must be allowed to play a central role in COP planning, including holding key leadership positions such as the vice-presidency.

The issues in Pará highlight the challenges for making COP effective. Although COP meetings are framed as central for climate action, their tangible accomplishments often fall short of their stated goals. Despite decades of international conferences, deforestation and carbon emissions are still on rise worldwide, affecting already marginalized communities the most. If COP cannot catalyze meaningful change in a region as critical for climate action as the Amazon, it raises fundamental questions about its role in global climate governance.

As the countdown to COP 30 continues, the world will watch our home state closely. Whether it becomes a symbol of hope for climate action and biodiversity conservation or yet another cautionary tale of the mismatch between the words and actions of global leaders and local policy makers remains to be seen. To set the baseline for future COPs, the local government should prioritize tangible actions instead of performative gestures to the international community. This includes addressing local challenges, such as ensuring basic sanitation and combating wildfires. Likewise, Indigenous and local voices must be central to decision making, with mechanisms to hold governments accountable for their commitments. Doing so requires aligning global priorities with local realities and ensuring that hosting responsibilities come with concrete deliverables. Otherwise, the next COP will end up being known as the “COP of the Burned Forest”.