COP30 has opened with fierce calls for both stronger action and some of the starkest warnings yet for the urgency of our climate crisis.
In a fiery speech, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres scolded world leaders for failing to act faster and for doubling down on fossil fuels.
Speaking at the opening of the Leaders’ Summit, Brazilian President Lula labelled COP30 the “COP of truth”. Guterres mirrored this theme with some hard truths for leaders, calling their failure to act in line with limiting warming to 1.5ºC a “moral failure – and deadly negligence”. He labelled those who obstruct progress as “not just short sighted [but] self-destructive”, saying “a bet on fossil fuels is a bet against humanity”.
At Greenpeace, we couldn’t agree more. Corporate greed and government inaction has brought us to the brink of climate chaos. COP30 must be the ground where we hold big polluters accountable, and in doing so turn the tide on fossil fuels and climate destruction.
Climate change can seem very complicated, but often the solutions are beautifully simple. The single most effective policy to accelerate climate action, force a fair and fast fossil fuel phase out, and ensure that all communities are supported, is making big polluters pay.
By putting a levy on fossil fuel extraction, we can level the playing field, ensuring fossil fuels are forced out of the energy system and that we accelerate the transition to renewable energy. Revenue raised can be used to support vulnerable communities adapting to the devastating impacts of climate change, as well as support workers through the transition and drive the energy transformation in less developed countries.
In Belém, the campaign to make big polluters pay is one of our three top priorities, alongside a global response plan to address the 1.5C emissions gap, and a new plan to end global deforestation and forest degradation by 2030.
Our team is fired up and ready to take action, and we’ll be using the Rainbow Warrior and every other tool at our disposal to get this demand in front of leaders and to the heart of the negotiations.
At this decisive moment for the planet’s climate, the ship returns to the Amazon alongside traditional peoples and social movements to call on world leaders for ambitious climate targets, an end to global deforestation by 2030, and a just energy transition — now! © Filipe Bispo / Greenpeace
Last night, on the bus back to our hotel, I sat with Trixy Elle, a member of our Greenpeace team in Belém and a survivor of Super Typhoon Odette, which nearly destroyed her small island in the Visayas archipelago in the Philippines in 2021. Right now, as Trixy prepares to speak truth to power at COP30, her two boys, husband and parents are in an evacuation centre as yet another powerful typhoon—the second in as many weeks—bears down on her island.
Trixy’s small fishing community has done nothing to cause the climate crisis. Her family struggled to rebuild their lives after Super Typhoon Odette, and they now face the real possibility of losing it all again.
Trixy’s story epitomises the injustice at the heart of the climate crisis, and is the very reason we are here at COP30. She will be with us throughout this week, courageously sharing her story with the media and decision makers.
You can be part of this mission by adding your name to Polluters Pay Pact.
