Beyond negotiations: action and hope on the road to COP30

The road to COP30 has been anything but straightforward. As the world prepares to convene in Belém, Brazil this November, the moment is marked by both unprecedented urgency and growing questions about whether these global summits can deliver the transformative change our planet desperately needs.

This year’s summit carries particular weight. Called the ‘forest COP,’ it’s happening in the heart of the Amazon, a region that stands as a symbol of what we stand to lose, and what’s possible when we integrate nature into climate policy.

It also marks a decade since the Paris Agreement,where world leaders pledged to limit global warming to 1.5°C.The Brazilian presidency is calling this a “post-negotiation era” focused more on action and highlighting the indigenous concept of a mutirão, meaning a community coming together on a shared task as a central ethos for the conference.

Behind the technical language and closed-door negotiations, there are people working every day toward a liveable future. People who are grappling with real risks to their communities, businesses and hopes for what comes next. We reached out to Charmian Love, Chief International Advocacy Officer of Natura, and Larissa Pinto Moraes, Executive Director – Steering Committee of Engajamundo, to understand what they’re facing, and what they’re hoping for.

What is the single biggest climate-related challenge your sector is currently facing outside of the COP negotiations?

Charmian: As a business, we are entirely dependent on nature thriving. We source ingredients from places like the Amazon. In the Amazon, Natura is connected to 45 socio-biodiversity communities, which benefits over 10,000 families in the region and 12,000 families across all Brazilian biomes, contributing to the conservation of 2.2 million hectares of forest.

That’s why we’re pushing for high-level ambition in global climate negotiations, it’s fundamental to our ability to continue doing business. At the same time, we try to turn these risks into opportunities and have a robust traceability system to guarantee the security of our supply. We believe business is a powerful tool, but it needs to be harnessed to solve the problems we face.

Another major challenge is that progress requires collective action. We need mainstream business to step up, yet many are dialing back commitments or “green-hushing” so doing the work but staying silent about it. That silence is dangerous because it changes norms. If we’re not talking about what’s working, we lose the momentum for systems-level change.

Larissa: The biggest challenge is getting Brazil’s Congress to approach the climate agenda with true urgency. Right now, there’s this sense that climate is just a trendy topic to address, but a pressing demand that needs to be integrated into public policy. The problem is that climate usually only becomes a priority when disaster hits like big floods, droughts, or industrial collapses like what happened in Mariana. It’s reactionary rather than preventive.

At Engajamundo, we focus on climate education with young people, going to schools and public spaces to make these conversations accessible. Climate discussions often use too much academic and foreign language due to inequality, but we can connect this to people’s daily lives in what we eat, where we live, how we get to work and how we’re integrated with nature. What’s beautiful is seeing how vulnerable communities are already building climate solutions without even realising it because they don’t have the language for it.

Our most pressing challenge is organisational growth. We’ve gone from small to somewhere in between, with 300 young volunteers across Brazil. We’re navigating financial stability, scaling up, and maintaining our identity, all while being entirely run by young people. The next few years will be harsh for civil society with shifts in funding and growing authoritarianism. It’s challenging to continue building the next generation of decision makers when funders aren’t prioritising that work.

What is the one thing you are personally focused on achieving or contributing at COP this year?

Charmian: At COP30, we’re focused on championing what the sociobioeconomy looks like in practice and encouraging other businesses to join us. The sociobioeconomy is about building economic models that protect nature while supporting the people who live within it. In the Amazon, that means partnering with traditional communities through models like agroforestry to create biodiversity, keep trees standing, and ensure carbon stays in the ground.

We want to use COP30, taking place in Belém where many of these communities live, to show that the sociobioeconomy works but also that no single company can do it alone. Saving the Amazon depends on collective engagement and scaling what’s already being proven possible.

Larissa: First, making sure the agendas from young people, Indigenous Peoples, and Black women are heard and put front and centre. I’ll do my best to ensure the media and negotiators take the urgent callouts these groups are bringing seriously.

Second, celebrating Brazilian civil society. We’ve mobilised for two years with limited resources to show the world what we’re capable of. We’re exhausted but still creative and inventive. For me, this COP is about celebrating how civil society in Brazil organises, demands action, and remains resilient despite government inaction.

There’s been growing debate about the effectiveness and inclusivity of COP in driving real change. From your perspective, what needs to shift for these summits to truly deliver for people and the planet?

Charmian: Article 12 of the Paris Agreement is really important to me. It calls for engaging people, helping them understand the climate crisis, and empowering them to act. Real change won’t come from negotiators or CEOs alone; it will come when everyone, everywhere, feels their own agency and power to do something. We often talk about the race to net zero or to a nature-positive future, but in those races, we can’t leave people behind. Tackling inequality and ensuring everyone can be part of the solution is the only way these summits will truly deliver for both people and the planet.

We need to bring COP out of the conference rooms and into living rooms around the world.

We also need to move beyond treating climate, nature, and people as separate issues because they’re deeply interconnected. True progress will require integrating these agendas, even if it makes things more complex.

For Natura, it is essential that people occupy the spaces at COP. With this in mind, we are bringing community representatives so that their voice can also be considered in a just and secure climate transition.

Larissa: COP is a flawed system. We’ve been doing this since the nineties and little has changed. But it’s still an imperfect system where we can gather and build multilateral connections on a global issue that requires collective action and accountability.

Understanding inequality in my country helps me understand inequality between global states. It’s like a mirror of our national context. We need to talk about imperialism, colonisation, and capitalism as the main sources of this crisis – who is paying for this problem and how, without repeating past processes that put nations in debt for issues they didn’t create.

I’m practical. We need to work within the system to get things done. Being critical and opposed won’t solve it. If this isn’t working what solutions can we create for a more equitable system that properly hears urgent voices.

Until we create that other system, and please invite me to that new body, we have to work with what we have.

When you look past the headlines, what gives you the most genuine hope for the future of our Global Goals?

Charmian: There’s a poem I love called “Hope Is a Sewer Rat”by climate activist Caitlin Seida. Mitzi Jonelle Tan recited it at the Natural History Museum a few years ago, and it’s always stayed with me. When you asked about hope, that’s immediately where my mind went.

For me, hope isn’t a gentle or easy thing: it’s gritty, raw, and determined. It’s not about pretending everything will be fine. It’s about facing the hard truths, and still choosing to keep going. Real hope is stubborn. It refuses to give up and keeps showing up, even when the odds feel impossible.

Larissa: The resilience of our elders. The resilience of women from the Black movement who persist despite not being heard and being criticised. The creativity of children and young people putting forward all this energy. I don’t believe we’d still be working on this if we didn’t believe something could still be done.

Look at grassroots movements, Indigenous movements. These people have survived for hundreds of years despite having their lands taken, being killed, having their religions and beliefs tarnished. They’re still here.

That’s what gives me hope. Looking back and seeing how, despite all odds stacked against them, they persist and thrive.

–

The people closest to the work understand that COP30 cannot be business as usual with a common thread emerging: this work is fundamentally about people and bringing everyone along isn’t optional, it’s essential.

As COP30 begins to convene, the question isn’t whether this summit will solve everything, but whether we’ll use this moment to demonstrate what’s already possible and ensure the solutions we build work for people and planet together.

Title photo credit: COP30 Brasil

Author: Amber Zafar, Social Media Manager, Project Everyone