By Douglas Diniz – Journalist, member of the Board of Directors of Revolução Socialista (RS) and of the International Socialist League (LIS)
BELEM, PA – COP 30, to be held in Belém in November 2025, is being criticized by environmental activists and social movements. Far from representing a solution to the climate crisis, the conference is denounced as a new business opportunity for big business and a fertile ground for corruption.
In the midst of the enthusiasm of President Lula (PT), Governor Helder Barbalho (MDB), former mayor Edmilson Rodrigues (PSOL) and the current mayor of Belém, Igor Normando (MDB), for hosting COP 30, the organization Revolução Socialista, Brazilian section of the International Socialist League (ISL), denounces that the event totally ignores the demands of the native peoples, traditional communities, the poor and the working class, favoring an agenda in favor of the capitalists.
While the bourgeoisie, especially the civil construction and hotel sectors, celebrate the opportunity to obtain exorbitant profits, a very small part of the city’s infrastructure is adapted for a ten-day event, with expenses exceeding R$5 billion.
The amount of money invested in the implementation of COP 30 has led to an avalanche of complaints of overpricing in the works and diversion of public resources.
A speculative bubble has been created in the real estate sector, which has led to the eviction of families living on rents. This bubble also extends to the hotel sector, which is charging exorbitant rates to accommodate COP 30 participants. All this is happening to the detriment of the poor population of Belém, most of whom survive on half the national minimum wage, suffer from the lack of basic sanitation, solid waste collection, precarious public transportation, the deterioration of public services and enormous social inequalities.
Militarization as a mechanism for the control of demonstrations
The discourse that COP 30 would promote a deep and democratic debate on the Amazon, with the participation of local communities, disseminated by the traditional leaderships of the mass movement in Brazil – especially the PT/CUT, trade unions, social movements linked to the government and by the majority of the national leadership of the PSOL – began to crumble.
COP 30 will be an “ultra-restricted and totally militarized” space, where a minority will conspire to do business, with no commitment to the environment or to stopping climate catastrophe.
The expectation that the mobilizations may “corner” the main heads of state of the planet is being treated as a matter of national security by the Brazilian government.
Therefore, President Lula will issue a Guarantee of Law and Order (GLO), transferring to the Armed Forces and the National Security Force the responsibility for public security during the event, and building a “military cordon” to prevent environmental activists, trade unions and independent social movements from approaching the “casino wheel” that will be transformed into the Parque da Cidade de Belém, the scene of big business.
Unlike the World Social Forum, held in Porto Alegre and later in Belém, which was a space – albeit limited – for popular participation, COP 30 and its green capitalism agenda will be developed without even listening to the demands of the populations of the countryside, rivers and jungle, whose territories are invaded for projects that plunder natural wealth, trample centuries-old traditions and leave a trail of death and destruction.
The importance of the People’s Summit and its limitations
In order to neutralize social discontent with governments around the world, the federal government, in alliance with the bureaucracy that leads a large part of the social movements, hijacked political organization in an attempt to impose limits on the rebellion that gave rise to the People’s Summit.
The event, which has always been held almost in parallel, will this time take place a week before COP 30, precisely to avoid demonstrations during the Conference that also question the government of President Lula and its environmental policy of authorizing oil exploitation on the equatorial margin, its slowness in demarcating indigenous territories – which has increased the violence exercised by usurpers of land, illegal miners, soybean farmers and multinationals – all in order to favor agribusiness.
Even with these limitations, sectors of the independent left intend to use the People’s Summit as a mechanism to join forces, protest against global capitalism and build a platform to denounce the farce of COP 30. The objective is to promote debates that can involve the majority of the population that suffers environmental racism, in the perspective of elaborating a set of proposals and political initiatives with an ecosocialist solution and with the necessary mobilization to overcome the systemic crisis of capitalism.
This will be the task of Revolução Socialista and the LIS that will participate with a delegation of other countries in this summit. Understanding the historical need to confront the climate denialism led by Trump, Bolsonaro, Milei in the region, as well as the lie of “green capitalism” that Lula preaches, we will be present to bring our program and policy in all the spaces where it is possible and thus strengthen an alternative to the ecocidal barbarism of capitalism.
