Update from COP30 in Brazil

Maryknoll representative Lisa Sullivan reports on what is happening during the second week at the UN Climate Change Conference in Belém, Brazil.

November 20, 2025

Greetings from COP30, the UN Conference on Climate Change, meeting in the Amazonian city of Belém in northern Brazil. We are more than half-way through the two-week negotiations on global climate actions. This is the time when the rubber meets the road, when agreements need to be made to protect the planet and people from the devastating impacts of climate change.

I am at COP30 to represent Maryknoll missioners and the communities they serve on the margins around the world. My focus is on amplifying the voices of the Global South and advocating for climate justice and debt relief. 

Before the conference, I helped numerous people from the Global South to get observer badges to attend the conference. Demand for observer badges was high because of the limited number at this strictly controlled private conference.

During the first week of the conference, I organized two side events, creating a platform for indigenous leaders and Catholic Church representatives to share their wisdom and lived experiences. Now in the second week, I am busy meeting with the Holy See delegation and others who have a say in the final negotiations.

It has been a lot of work for the 193 countries plus the EU who have sent delegations. Only three countries in the world did not send delegations — Afghanistan, Myanmar, and, for the first time, the United States. About 56,000 people have registered to attend COP30, representing indigenous communities, civil society organizations, and faith-based groups. In addition, the People’s Summit, a parallel event, drew over 25,000 participants, and the People’s Climate March on Saturday, Nov. 15, saw 70,000 people participate.

COP30 is divided into two very different weeks, especially felt here in Belem. The first week was bursting with hope and input and dreams and connections, forged both inside and outside the venue.

Outside: the People’s Summit, the Tapiri Ecumenical gathering, the People’s Climate March and numerous masses, meetings, symposiums, boat and martyrs processions, to name a few things. A huge sum of collective hope and shared pain.

Inside: side events, plenaries, press conferences, issue-specific dialogues and especially tedious negotiations on numerous different areas in which country negotiators—technocrats who many here believe have little connection to outside reality—wield their red pens to insert fine points in dense documents that no one can decipher. 

This second week brought a changing of the guard. The technocrats left and the country ministers arrived, to make decisions. On Monday, they arrived in high heels and three-piece suits but by Tuesday—after 93+ degree heat, 100% humidity and torrential rains—they shifted to flowing dresses, sandals and Hawaiian shirts. Hopefully that loose attire will enlighten their decisions to be more in sync with this splendid Amazon surroundings.

Last night, the COP President, Andre Correa do Lago, a Brazilian diplomat and longtime advocate for sustainable development and climate action, “dropped” a draft text for final decisions, offering multiple choices for some key points. He is calling this the “multirao,” which is a traditional Brazilian term meaning something like collective effort.

Minutes after the draft text was released came a notice from COP authorities that food and transportation would be available throughout the next three nights. This should give an idea of how long it will take to come to agreements. Remember, COPs run by consensus, and one country can block the other 193. So, don’t hold your breath.

The COP leadership is pushing for this to be the COP of action and implementation. That is a big wish.  Some hopes for specific action are:

• Concrete ways of transitioning from fossil fuels. (Mitigation)
• Getting the money to make this happen (Climate finance)
• Centering people in the already-happening transition to a new clean-energy economy (Just transition)
• Helping those already battered by climate change (Loss and Damage)
• Resiliency standards and funds to prevent further loss of lives and land (Adaptation)

The United States has not been present here on a national level. However, a handful of subnational leaders are here, including California Governor Gavin Newsom, Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse and a few former U.S. State Department negotiators.

We have had several exchanges with the former State Department representatives, including one as an invitee on our second panel. While they try to make the point that “America is still in” at the state and city level, they also share a fear that if the United States were to return at future COPs, they may not be met with the same open arms.

In current negotiations, no country has stepped in to fill the role that the United States played at previous COPs as the delegation willing to reach out to more resistant countries, such as the oil producing states, who often attempt to insert roadblocks in the negotiations. So, yes, people here miss the Biden version of the United States which sent a delegation of 405 people to last year’s COP. However, many people here have expressed relief that the Trump administration did not send a team bent on disruption but also concern that the United States might never get back in on global climate negotiations.

We just received news that COP31 will be in Turkey next November but the presidency will fall to Australia. The two countries had been battling it out, and I think (hope) it speaks well to multilateralism to come to this decision. Turkey will be accessible/affordable for most global participants and Australia is likely to push a more progressive agenda.

Between now and then, no matter what outcome at COP30, we have a lot to do. Already I am hopeful that the Catholic Church has stepped up to bat in a powerful way. When Pope Leo XIV released a statement on Monday, Nov. 16, the reception here was electric, and not just among Catholics. In a video message to the many bishops and cardinals of the Global South representing their communities at COP30, the Holy Father said the world needs “concrete actions” to stop climate change.

“The creation is crying out in floods, droughts, storms and relentless heat”, Pope Leo said, noting that “one in three people live in great vulnerability because of these climate changes.” The time for climate action is now, for these people and for the entire planet to avoid irreversible damage.

Recalling the hope and direction that the Paris climate agreement gave to the 197 countries that signed it in 2015, the pope said “it is not the agreement that is failing, we are failing in our response. What is failing is the political will of some.”

While I feel we Catholic groups can do a better job working together with other faith groups (and I am extremely disappointed that there are no U.S. Catholic bishops and only two representatives of Catholic Relief Services here), I am hopeful that the powerful Global South church leadership on climate justice that is so visible in Belem will propel us all forward. 

Here is a link to an article that just came out from an interview I did with UCA News and a podcast version. The editors made a few minor mistakes (I am no longer a Lay Missioner) and my mention of Vanuatu was meeting with the UK not the United States, but otherwise it is a helpful way of presenting COPs to those with little familiarity.  

Stay tuned for more updates when COP30 concludes, hopefully with good news.

Lisa Sullivan
Senior Program Officer for Integral Ecology
Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns
Reporting from the UN Climate Change Conference COP30
Belem, Brazil