Belém, Brazil — Welcome to Day 2 of the 30th United Nations Climate Change Conference, or COP30. Things are definitely starting to hum. The hallways are packed, the drone of the air conditioning is losing out to a low buzz of conversations, and those half-built pavilions from yesterday are suddenly looking photo-ready. It’s harder to weave through the crowds now — everyone’s walking, texting, and networking at once.
If the rain holds off, that’ll be a win. Some delegates reportedly returned to soggy rooms after yesterday’s downpour, but hey — this is the Amazon. And that’s part of the magic.
There’s a different kind of energy here precisely because of where we are. As Alistair Dutton, secretary-general of Caritas Internationalis, put it at a Tuesday side event: many had rolled their eyes at the last two COPs for being held in wealthy petro-states. This time, he said, “The poorest and most vulnerable could be close” — and it’s all happening in one of the “great lungs of the earth.”
About the authors
Jesse Chase-Lubitz
Jesse Chase-Lubitz covers climate change and multilateral development banks for Devex. She previously worked at Nature Magazine, where she received a Pulitzer grant for an investigation into land reclamation. She has written for outlets such as Al Jazeera, Bloomberg, the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, and The Japan Times, among others. Jesse holds a master’s degree in Environmental Policy and Regulation from the London School of Economics.
Ayenat Mersie
Ayenat Mersie is a Global Development Reporter for Devex. Previously, she worked as a freelance journalist for publications such as National Geographic and Foreign Policy and as an East Africa correspondent for Reuters.
