From Belém to the World: Climate, Nature, and the Global Ethical Stocktake at COP30

Ten years after the Paris Agreement, COP30 Belém - the first Climate COP in the Amazon - offers a pivotal opportunity to spotlight the critical role of tropical ecosystems and the Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IPLCs) who care for them. Our team are on the ground in Belém, where Brazil’s ‘Mutirão’ spirit and Global Ethical Stocktake are laying the foundations for a global shift towards justice, reciprocity and regeneration. November 10, 2025

Description coming soon — The Brazilian COP30 presidency invites the world to join forces in a major global effort for climate action - a 'Global Mutirão'

We are in Belém for COP30 – the first Climate COP in the Amazon – because it offers a rare moment, while the world is watching, to spotlight the critical role of tropical ecosystems and the Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IPLCs) who care for them. It is also ten years since the Paris Agreement, a moment to renew purpose, integrity and collective ambition. Brazil’s ‘Mutirão’ spirit, grounded in shared effort, and its leadership of the Global Ethical Stocktake, provide a chance to set a moral and practical direction for the decade ahead: one defined by justice, reciprocity and regeneration.

Our four key hopes:

Biodiversity at the heart of climate action: protecting and restoring ecosystems as essential for both mitigation and adaptation.
Rights and equity in stewardship: ensuring Indigenous Peoples and local communities have secure rights, finance and authority.
Joined-up governance: aligning the climate, biodiversity and land conventions so their goals reinforce each other.
Ethics in delivery: embedding the Global Ethical Stocktake as a compass for just and integrated implementation.

Why we’re here

Brazil’s Presidency calls this COP a Global Mutirão, a collective effort uniting governments, Indigenous and local leaders, scientists, investors and citizens to work side by side. It’s a fitting metaphor for a summit that must move from negotiation to implementation, from pledges to practice. Although described as a Finance COP, it is equally a Nature and Peoples’ COP. In the world’s largest tropical forest, COP30 must show that finance can strengthen rights, resilience and reciprocity, investing not only in carbon but in the ecosystems and communities that sustain planetary stability.

Brazil’s unorthodox approach emphasises implementation and deliberation over rigid choreography. In this spirit, the Global Ethical Stocktake invites reflection and shared responsibility, complementing the technical Global Stocktake by asking not just what we do, but how and for whom. The resilience of tropical ecosystems underpins global food, water and climate security, and outcomes here can shape how nations weave together nature, climate and justice in the years ahead.

Brazil’s biomes—the Amazon, Cerrado, Atlantic Forest, Pantanal, Caatinga and mangroves—are immense reservoirs of biodiversity, water and carbon. Halting deforestation and restoring native ecosystems remain among the most effective, equitable routes to net zero, while sustaining livelihoods and food security. These forests, and those of the Congo Basin and New Guinea, are living systems that regulate rainfall, buffer droughts and support regional stability. Their protection depends on the rights, knowledge and leadership of the many IPLCs who have long cared for them.

Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities

It is for this reason that COP30 is expected to see the largest Indigenous participation in the history of the climate process, with around 3,000 delegates from across Brazil and beyond. This is more than symbolic. Where Indigenous and community land rights are recognised and enforced, deforestation rates are markedly lower, carbon stocks higher and biodiversity outcomes stronger. Such outcomes arise from governance systems grounded in reciprocity, continuity and collective responsibility.

Indigenous and local sciences deepen understanding of ecosystem dynamics—from seasonal fire to forest regeneration—and when bridged with other knowledges, including “western” sciences (e.g with two-eyed seeing), can enhance social and ecological outcomes. Rights and knowledge together are climate solutions. Yet barriers to finance and security persist. Only a small share of climate and biodiversity funding reaches Indigenous organisations directly, and many defenders still face violence and legal insecurity. Addressing these inequities is essential to global resilience: secure rights, adequate finance and safe civic space enable the stewardship that stabilises the climate and sustains biodiversity.

Our team and what we’re doing at COP30

We come to COP30 as part of the Nature-based Solutions Initiative, the Smith School, and the Agile Initiative, all working to connect rigorous research with practical pathways for implementation. In particular, we are highlighting recent work by two of our Brazilian scientists, Aline Soterroni and Erika Berenguer, whose research links climate and biodiversity outcomes. Aline’s modelling shows that forest protection and restoration are indispensable to Brazil’s net-zero strategy. Erika’s research reveals how drought and fire interact to erode resilience. Together, our task is to make this and other science accessible and useful for decision-makers.

We are contributing to several events, including our official UNFCCC side event – From Trade-offs to Synergies: Aligning Climate and Biodiversity Policies (11 November, 13:15–14:45, Room 1, Blue Zone) organised with WWF, Greenpeace International and SOS Mata Atlântica, which explores how biodiversity supports both mitigation and adaptation and how ethical guardrails can turn trade-offs into synergies.

We are also speaking at an event with Brazil’s Ministry of Management and Innovation in Public Services, highlighting the amazing Kaya Axelsson’s work on green procurement; as well as at sessions on the importance of nature-based solutions for adaptation. We are following and supporting the COP30 Presidency’s Special Event on Synergies and sessions highlighting the value and importance of the forests of West Papua and the people who care for them. We are attending the GARN Indigenous Council (10 November, Embaixada dos Povos), events in the (always excellent) Nature Pavilion, the Forest Pavilion, and the launch of the Amazon Sacred Headwaters Fund: Scaling Indigenous-Led Forest Stewardship in the Amazon. We are also supporting the 6th International Rights of Nature Tribunal (11 November 2025, Federal University of Pará, Brazil), which will deliver the Tribunal’s final judgments and present A New Pledge for Mother Nature, a call for the international recognition of Nature’s Rights. Plus many more. Stay tuned for reflections and insights from these discussions as they unfold.

What we are following in the negotiations

(and what we hope will emerge)

Strengthening coherence across the Rio Conventions: Parties are considering mechanisms to align the UNFCCC, CBD and UNCCD, building on the SBSTTA-27 decision in Panama. Better coordination can reduce reporting burdens, align incentives and ensure that climate, nature and land policies reinforce one another, while respecting Indigenous rights and knowledge. Ethical guidance can help avoid perverse outcomes and inform how trade-offs are managed.
Embedding biodiversity in the Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA): Indicators under the GGA should capture how ecosystem health and connectivity underpin resilience and risk reduction, from coral reefs buffering coasts to forests stabilising rainfall. Alignment with the Global Biodiversity Framework and inclusion of locally led, community-driven adaptation will strengthen equity and intergenerational outcomes.
Recognising high-integrity ecosystems as critical natural assets: Parties should reaffirm the 2030 goal to end deforestation and land conversion, in partnership with IPLCs who safeguard most remaining high-integrity ecosystems. Mitigation and just-transition programmes must include safeguards for biodiversity, ecosystem integrity and human rights, avoiding large-scale interventions that harm ecosystems or local communities.
Financing ecosystem stewardship: Greater transparency and direct, grant-based channels are needed for IPLCs whose governance maintains forest integrity. Finance should be redirected away from harmful subsidies toward regenerative and agroecological practices that sustain both livelihoods and landscapes. Adaptation, mitigation and land-use funds must enable community-led stewardship, not dependency.
Advancing the Global Ethical Stocktake: Brazil’s initiative offers a way to embed justice at the heart of climate action. Parties should present the GEST results in COP30 Plenary, align its periodicity with the Global Stocktake ahead of COP33 in 2028, and integrate ethics into national plans such as NDCs, NAPs and LTS between cycles. The process should be supported by Ethical Action Champions, akin to the Global Climate Action Champions, with a five-year mandate, and by a UNFCCC–UNSG mechanism to ensure inclusive, well-resourced future Stocktakes.

Beyond the negotiations: the Action Agenda

The action agenda brings voluntary initiatives that can accelerate delivery if designed with integrity. The Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF) was officially launched at the COP30 Leaders’ Summit in Belém last week, with over USD 5.5 billion in initial public pledges from Brazil, Indonesia, Norway, France, the Netherlands and Portugal, and endorsement by more than 50 countries. Structured as an endowment aiming to grow to around USD 125 billion, it will reward countries that keep deforestation low, with 20% of disbursements directed to Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities. Its promise lies in equitable governance, direct access for forest stewards and complementarity with existing funds. Recent insights frame the TFFF’s role in catalysing a new global architecture for financing nature and resilience, recognising tropical forests as ‘too big to fail‘ (Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment).

We are also tracking initiatives linking food, forests and livelihoods, shifting subsidies and investment toward regenerative agriculture and forest-positive supply chains as vital components of a just transition.

Looking ahead

COP30 is more than a milestone; it could mark a turning point. If Belém delivers clear recognition that biodiversity underpins climate stability, strengthens rights and finance for those safeguarding ecosystems, enhances cooperation across conventions and embeds an enduring Ethical Stocktake, it will represent meaningful progress.

This would set the course for the next decade—a decade of regeneration, reciprocity and shared responsibility for the living world. In effect, a Decade for Nature: one where ethical action, biodiversity recovery and social justice advance together as the foundation of a stable climate. That, in essence, is the spirit of Mutirão.