Thousands march outside COP30 summit in call for action

Marching to the beat of sound systems, thousands of climate protesters are taking their message to the gates of the COP30 climate talks in Brazil.

Demonstrators in the host city of Belen, chanting and chanting “Free the Amazon,” carried three giant coffins with the words “Oil, Coal and Gas” flanked by two grim reapers.

Indigenous groups held up signs reading “We Are the Answer” as an inflatable elephant and anaconda made their way through the crowd in the scorching sun.

For the first time since 2021, protesters were allowed to demonstrate outside UN climate talks. The last three occurred in countries that do not allow public protests.

“We are holding a funeral for fossil fuels,” Tuga told the BBC's Cynthia. She is from the Hydra Dance theater group of the Federal University of Pará.

“I’m here because I’ve had enough of the SC meetings and theory. It's time for us to act,” she said.

Indigenous communities, Brazilian youth groups and activists from around the world joined the march by the thousands.

As the afternoon sun grew stronger, some took refuge in the gas station grounds.

“Fossil fuels are still being burned. We know all too well what it's like to live on the front line of climate change,” Brianna Fruan, a climate activist from Samoa, a low-lying island extremely vulnerable to climate change, told the BBC.

“We are here after so many police marching for justice, for ending the use of fossil fuels,” said Ilan, of the NGO 350, who lives in Brazil.

Some carried signs reading “Demarcation Now,” calling for indigenous peoples to be given legal title to their territories.

Hundreds of indigenous people live in the Amazon and are considered by experts to be the best guardians of biodiversity and forests.

Smaller sister protests took place around the world, including in the UK.

Security at the COP30 venue was tight, with police guarding the entrance with shields.

On Tuesday Protesters with placards broke through security lines at the summit. The incident resulted in minor injuries to two security personnel and minor damage to the establishment.

Representing indigenous voices has become a flashpoint in these negotiations, with some setting up kiosks outside the fenced-off COP30 venue to sell products to passing delegates.

The meeting was called an “Indigenous COP,” but many groups feel their concerns about deforestation, land protection and resource extraction in their homes are not being heard.

Negotiations continued at the COP30 talks on Saturday. Some 200 countries are meeting to try to make progress on climate change.

Little progress has been made in the first week of talks, although some delegations say they are pushing for a coherent strategy to deliver on past pledges to phase out planet-warming fossil fuels.

Brazilian President Luiz Ignacio Lula da Silva is holding talks and has chosen the city of Belem to bring the Amazon to the world's attention.

But just before talks began last week, his government granted permission to the Brazilian state oil company for oil exploration at the mouth of the Amazon.

On Friday, an analysis of attendee lists by the Kick Out Big Polluters (KBPO) coalition showed a record number of delegates from fossil fuel companies attending the meeting.

There are believed to be 1,600 lobbyists in Belém, 12% more than at the CC meeting last year.

Business leaders usually come to negotiations to make agreements.

With the US largely absent from the negotiations, progress has been slow. This is the first time the country has not sent a delegation to the talks since President Donald Trump called climate change a “scam.”

Earlier this week, a group of senior climate leaders wrote a letter calling on the summit to ensure that the facts about climate change are “reaffirmed.”

Ten countries signed an initiative at COP30 called the Climate Change Information Integrity Declaration, initiated by the Global Climate Change Information Integrity Initiative.

The project aims to create international commitments to combat climate misinformation and disseminate science-based information on climate issues.

On key issues of how to combat the root cause of climate change and how to help countries adapt to ongoing global warming, Brazil pledged that the talks would lead to action to implement multi-year agreements and commitments.

Negotiations will continue next week.