Who wants what? Delegates likely to clash over targets and costs

Deciding to host a conference for 50,000 people in a small city in the Amazon rainforest was always going to be a controversial decision but Brazil is determined to carry it off.

- Fiona Harvey

Brazil

Brazil is the world’s 10th biggest economy and has risen to become the eighth biggest exporter of oil and gas. But its defining feature is the Amazon rainforest, imperilled by the climate crisis and suffering record droughts, wildfires and the continuing depredations of ranchers and soya planters, but still the lungs of the world and a hotspot for biodiversity.

But Brazil has seemed less keen on the core issue of Cop30: the sharp cuts in greenhouse gas emissions needed to limit global heating to 1.5C above preindustrial levels. Under the 2015 Paris agreement, governments must produce plans on cutting emissions every five years. By the eve of Cop30 only about 60 countries had submitted these nationally determined contributions (NDCs) - and they were grossly inadequate.

Technically, NDCs are not on the mandated agenda for Cop30. But Brazil cannot avoid discussing them and without a clear answer on how these inadequate NDCs will somehow be rescued and the world put on a path to 1.5C, it is hard to see how Cop30 could be a success.

United States

Donald Trump told the UN general assembly in September that the climate crisis was “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world”, a “green scam” based on “predictions ... made by stupid people”. He will not be attending.