'People want to be heard': protesters blockade Cop30

Protesters blockaded the main entrance to the Cop30 climate conference for several hours yesterday, demanding to speak to Brazil's president about the plight of the country's Indigenous peoples.

- Oliver Milman Jonathan Watts Damien Gayle

André Corrêa do Lago, the Cop president, spent more than an hour listening and talking to the group's representatives. Long queues formed outside the centre and delegates were diverted to a small side entrance.

Eventually the activists relocated to a building to hold further discussions with Corrêa do Lago.

These protests are just a small part of what is expected at the Belém summit. For the first time in four years the UN climate conference is being held in a democracy, and senior figures at the Cop30 conference centre have encouraged the presence of civil society groups.

The UN secretary general, António Guterres, told the Guardian that Indigenous and other people's organisations were needed to balance the power of corporate lobbyists, who have dominated recent summits.

One in every 25 participants at this year's summit is a fossil fuel lobbyist, according to analysis by Kick Big Polluters Out, it emerged yesterday. Corrêa do Lago has said civil society will play an important role in raising the ambition of negotiators.