As Brazil prepares to host COP30, Rio de Janeiro's favela residents are mobilizing to make sure the voices of the world's informal settlements are not left out of global climate negotiations.
SASHA PFEIFFER, HOST:
The 2025 UN climate conference, known as COP30, opens tomorrow in Belem, Brazil. Ahead of the official meetings, community members from Rio's favelas, the lowest-income areas, mobilized. They want to be sure that as climate solutions are discussed, their voices and the needs of more than a billion people around the world living in similar informal settlements are recognized. Julia Carneiro reports from Rio.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “BREATHING”)
NEGRA RE: (Repping in non-English language).
JULIA CARNEIRO, BYLINE: Brazilian funk music originated in the favelas of Rio.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “BREATHING”)
NEGRA RE: (Repping in non-English language).
CARNEIRO: Today at the Festival of Sustainable Favelas in the center of Rio, this rhythm tells people about climate change.
NEGRA RE: (non-English spoken).
CARNEIRO: “My song is called “Breath.” It talks about carbon emissions, deforestation and pollution,” says musician Negra Re. “Trash must go in the trash can or nature will collapse,” she sings.
(CROSS)
CARNEIRO: There are dozens of stalls where projects from favelas across Rio display and sell their work, such as upcycled goods, organic soaps and fresh produce from community gardens.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: (speaking non-English language).
CARNEIRO: On stage, community leaders presented the COP30 letter from the world's informal settlements, addressed to negotiators nearly 2,000 miles away in the Amazon city of Belém.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: (speaking non-English language).
CARNEIRO: “Nothing that affects us should be decided without us,” the letter says. Teresa Williamson, an urban planner and head of Catalytic Communities, says many favela leaders want to attend COP but can't.
TERESA WILLIAMSON: The community organizers that we work with wanted to participate in COP, but they can't actually get there. It's very far away. It's very expensive.
CARNEIRO: About one in five people live in informal settlements in Rio, like a quarter of the world's urban population, facing problems such as poor housing and a lack of basic services. But little attention is paid to them at the CS.
WILLIAMSON: They're largely unaffected, even though that's where such a large percentage of those in the world who will be hit hardest by climate change live.
CARNEIRO: A letter written by more than a hundred community organizers and signed in more than 25 countries will be delivered to Belém for the People's Summit at the same time as the official negotiations.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: (speaking non-English language).
UNIDENTIFIED CHILDREN: (Non-English spoken).
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: (speaking non-English language).
UNIDENTIFIED CHILDREN: (Non-English spoken).
CARNEIRO: In the north, in Belem, known as the gateway to the Amazon, favela activists are already organizing. At this event, children learn to protect the environment. Urban favelas and baixadas, low-lying settlements along river banks, make up more than half the population, and pollution and flooding are part of everyday life.
SAMARA CHITARA: (speaking in a non-English language).
CARNEIRO: “Our main goal is to put marginalized communities at the center of the climate debate,” says Samara Citara of Na Cuia, one of the many collectives that make up the COP Baixadas. Jurema Werneck heads Amnesty International Brazil and is the COP30 Envoy for Marginalized Communities. She traveled across the country, hearing from people on the front lines.
KHUREMA WERNECK: (speaking non-English).
CARNEIRO: “On the periphery, I saw a lack of government presence and people creating their own solutions to emergencies such as floods, water shortages and heat,” she says. Werneck will present his findings to the COP30 President in Belém.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #4: The spirit of Rio should encourage us to constantly think about the future, the future of our children.
CARNEIRO: COP30 may be Brazil's first, but global climate diplomacy has roots here. The UN Climate Convention was launched at the Earth Summit in Rio in 1992, when leaders from Cuban President Fidel Castro to President George H. W. Bush gathered to chart a path for environmental protection. The US will not be present at the talks in Brazil this year, unlike when Bush set the tone in 1992.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
GEORGE BUSH Sr.: There are those who say economic growth and environmental protection are incompatible. Well, let them come to the USA.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #5: (speaking non-English language).
CARNEIRO: Then civil society held a massive parallel forum across the city, a massive climate meeting that Werneck says influenced the outcome of the conference.
WERNECK: (speaking non-English).
CARNEIRO: “Our movement was so strong,” says Werneck, “that it helped shape global environmental governance.” And now she hopes that voices outside COP30 will be heard loud and clear by decision-makers in Belém. For NPR News, I'm Julia Carneiro in Rio.
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