Cop ahoy! Sailing up the Amazon to the climate summit

0:00This is The Guardian.

0:10Today, a slow boat to COP30.

0:22This year, when John Watts was planning how he'd get to COP, he decided he was going to take the long way round. We got a producer based in Santarém to find the right boat. So he spent weeks going along the riverfront asking which boats might be available. And they eventually found a vessel that was called the Carolina do Norce. That's kind of a river bus, I think you might say. And normally people would take this for long journeys between cities in the Amazon. And this would be a very long journey, three days across hundreds of kilometres from Santarem in Brazil to Bolem, the host city of this year's climate conference, deep in the rainforest.

1:08So we hired this boat, we liked the crew, we redecorated the boat and then put out the invitations for a really incredible group of people who joined us on this voyage. The Guardian's global environmental reporter wasn't doing this journey alone. With him on this trip down the Amazon River were an eclectic group of indigenous leaders, scientists, artists, journalists, lawyers and musicians. So we started the journey fairly late at night. The first thing everybody did was eat, which was great. There was a wonderful cook and the bottom deck of the ship had been given over to a restaurant and kitchen and we all kind of got to know each other over some food.

2:04Then everybody retired to their hammocks and that was really a sight to behold. 70 or 80 hammocks all strung together in two rows. It looked like chrysalises lined up and really crammed together. So once you were in the hammock, if you moved too much to either side, you would kind of bump your bum against the person next to you. And finally, you have to see that the most light things are on the top deck.

3:02One day you're hearing about indigenous cosmology, and then the next day you're hearing about the latest in neuroscience and marine biology, climate science, on understandings of psychedelics and so on.

3:26As you're listening to the lecturers, you can see the trees on either side of you. You can look down into the river. On one occasion, I glimpsed a river dolphin, which was very exciting. And every evening, having films about the Amazon or carimbo music, which is from the Amazonian region of Pará, It was just an extraordinary blend. Very, very creative. Very, very inspiring.

4:14Today, COP30 officially opens. and over the next two weeks, world leaders and thousands of delegates will grapple with the climate emergency. And this year, more than any other, the well-being of the rainforest and the people who call it their home will take centre stage. From The Guardian, I'm Annie Kelly. Today in Focus, a view on COP from the Amazon.

4:44Can you tell me about this year's COP? How significant is it that it's being held in the Amazon? It's incredibly significant. This is a front line of climate change. It's an area that is very badly affected by rising temperatures. Last year, we suffered the worst drought in history, really shockingly bad, with some people not able to grow food for the first time, one guy told me, in 70 years. and many trees dying just because they don't have enough water. Belem is the poorest city, I think, to have ever hosted a COP summit. Although there have been COPs held in poorer countries, they're usually held in the kind of the wealthier resort cities of those countries.

5:37So there have been a lot of grumbles beforehand about the logistics and the fact that the city's not really well prepared in terms of accommodation. But I think it might be a good thing that everyone who comes will not necessarily be in five-star air-conditioned accommodation where you don't feel what's happening to the climate. When you're in Belém, you really can't avoid it. You really cannot avoid inequality, climate change. You can't ignore any of the big problems that the global south is facing, largely as a result of how it has been treated by the global north. And we saw the leaders' summit last week in Belém, which was kind of a curtain-raiser to COP.

6:27Kirstama was there, but of course, notably Donald Trump wasn't. Nor was China's Xi Jinping, though he did send a senior delegation. how significant is this? China is the world's biggest emitter so it's incredibly important and it's also the biggest source of hope for an energy transition because it's producing most of the solar panels and electric cars that are part of this shift away from fossil fuels and there'll be a lot of scrutiny on China whether China can step into the void that's left by the US. It's also very significant that there will be a large indigenous presence at this COP, that it's not just private jets.

7:12It's also people coming from the base, coming from the forest, coming from nature to attend.

7:23One of the people we invited was a woman called Juma Shepaya, and she is becoming quite famous now. She was the subject of a big film that was released earlier this year, and she joined Brazil's first ever Indigenous Peoples Ministry. And she said, yes, there's been some gains for Indigenous people. They are having their voices heard more than in the past. There is a wider recognition than before that they have important things to say about the state of the world and how we might move in a healthier, more sustainable, more natural direction. But she said that she was worried that it might just be lip service, that people might sit there patiently and listen to an indigenous person talk for a short while and then just go completely back to what they were doing before.

8:23It's not a difficulty to accept it, but it's a vision that really is climate. or it's a climate space for big businesses. And can you tell me about COP itself this year? What is the main focus going to be? The Brazilian hosts have stressed that this is going to be the implementation COP. This is the COP where it's not just promises of what you're going to do in the future and plans and agreements, but it's actually where countries are supposed to come forward with solid action. So it's taking all of the long discussions that we've had for the past 10 years, pretty much on the Paris Agreement, and trying to put them into action.

9:08That's the key goal. And then there are several other very contentious but important issues, particularly regarding money. One of the big proposals that the hosts Brazil are putting forward is the idea of a new way of funding conservation of tropical forests. And they call this the Tropical Forest Forever Facility, the TFFF. And the idea is that countries will come together, they will invest. So it's not a donation. They will invest$25 billion between them. That money will go into a pot. And that money will then be used to sort of leverage more money from financial institutions up to 125 billion.

9:54And with that, they plan to invest in bonds and generate enough money every year for a really substantial increase in the amount of money that's going into forest protection. World leaders have promised again and again to reduce deforestation. So everything that's been tried so far isn't working. And Brazil is saying, look, we're not getting anywhere near where we need to be when it comes to forests. So we have to try something different. Do you think it's going to work? Keir Starmer's already said the UK won't be contributing anything to this fund. It's a really challenging environment. This COP is under more pressure than any COP I can remember.

10:39I think it's coming at a time when the world's attention is really distracted by war. when world leaders are divided, when rising temperatures are pushing politics towards more extremes where it becomes even harder to find common ground. Donald Trump has moved back into the White House and once again pulled the United States out of the Paris Agreement. It's going to be more difficult because Europe's more divided than it has been in a long time. So Brazil will have its work cut out. And the Brazilian Environment Minister Marina Silva is arguably the world's most impressive, sincere, dedicated defenders of forests and nature, and has proven that over more than 20 years and will try to push a really ambitious agenda.

11:28but it really depends on the global north stepping up, helping to provide the funds that are needed, taking the actions themselves in terms of reducing emissions to show that there is a path out of this dangerous, dangerous predicament that we're in. Ambition without action is completely fake. We have now 30 cops, OK? We have progressed very little. One of the passengers on the boat was Antonio Nobre. He's one of Brazil's leading climate scientists, and he knows as well as anyone just how grave the situation is. You know, of course, the cops are becoming more mementos. Many people are paying more attention.

12:15But what have we actually accomplished? Oil production is increasing everywhere. everywhere. So what have we turned the cops? What? Cops are incredibly impressive diplomatic undertakings. Governments coming together, especially in the Paris Accord case, it was successful from that point of view. But people finally come together, all converged into, and without the disagreements that we should do something. But for nature, nature really doesn't care about diplomacy and economics. Nature cares about the laws of physics, chemistry, biology, geology, astronomy, and so on. And on that realm, Paris Accord and the cops are just laughable.

13:17They're basically nothing. This is 10 years since the Paris Agreement. Back then, it felt like a really significant step in the fight against climate change or the climate emergency. It set this target of not going over the 1.5 degree increase in world temperature as an achievable goal. I just wonder if you could give me a very top line on where we are with that now. The world is in a very difficult place right now. The Paris Agreement set a target of keeping global heating to between 1.5 degrees Celsius and 2 degrees Celsius. The lower threshold has pretty much already been passed, or if it's not passed, it very soon will be.

14:02And a couple of weeks ago, I interviewed the United Nations Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, who told me it was now inevitable that the world would overshoot the 1.5 degree target. and he said that there has to be a change of course at COP30 or we will be entering a territory where we might see the Amazon reach a tipping point where it starts to degrade and become a different kind of ecosystem, a drier ecosystem, a savannah. The Amazon is a body. It's the body that covers this beautiful part of the planet and it's wonderfully rich and vital in many ways. And it's under attack. And the Amazon is breaking down.

14:53And this is a characteristic of self-regulated systems. It absorbs abuse to a certain point until it breaks down. We're cutting down the trees as crazy and put fire and put cattle in, replacing it with cattle. to a point that it becomes a desert. We have ideas on how to fix, how to restore, how to make the system functional again. So now is the time to stop it once and for all.

15:44Of course, the Amazon's a crucial battleground when it comes to global warming, but it's also home to millions of people, many of them indigenous. John, as you mentioned, you invited several indigenous leaders onto the boat. Did they talk to you about what sort of threats they're facing? Yeah, there were a number of indigenous leaders on the boat, and they told us just how much they are feeling the threat of climate change and how much their communities are being threatened by invasions of land grabbers, of illegal miners, of loggers. And it was clear they see themselves as the true guardians of the forest, the people who understand the technology of the forest, the science of the forest.

16:37The Yanomami people, my people, we live in the forest. We are forest people. If they destroy the forest, if we don't have the forest, where are we going to live? Where are we going to eat? It's the forest that feeds us. It's the forest that we grow our child. We don't want you to destroy the forest. We don't have money. You white people, you choose the money. I had several conversations with an indigenous artist, Eruana Yaira Yanomami, of the Yanomami people in the far northwest of Brazil. And she described in just a horror story of how her community has been threatened by illegal mining initially, but now with a new project proposed by the Brazilian government to start industrial mining in that territory.

17:42So you can imagine how dramatically people's lives have been affected. The Yanomami people and our territory, we've been treated by the illegal gold miners and inside we feel very sad and we're very angry. The land where we live, it's not their land. It's our land, but they're always trying to destroy it. Why are they doing that? Almost everywhere you look in the Amazon, there are these big contradictions between forest conservation and efforts to boost the Brazilian economy. President Lula came to power because he pulled together a broad-front coalition to beat the last president, Bolsonaro. So he has people on the far left, he has environmentalists, but he also has agribusiness and people who want to push ahead with construction projects and oil drilling.

18:52So he gives a little bit of this to one group and a little bit of that to another group. Brazil has made progress in reducing deforestation over the past three years. But at the same time, his government has introduced some really detrimental policies and laws for the environment, for nature. And the most controversial coming into COP was that just a couple of weeks ago, his government approved the sale of licenses to explore for oil at the mouth of the Amazon. And that totally goes against protection of nature. It totally goes against efforts to keep global heating to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

19:42I'm not going to COP30 without a reason. I want to tell the authorities from other countries because I want to explain them. We are the ones who live in the forest. We are there defending the forest. So we want to talk about that. We want to talk about our struggle and we are suffering. So I don't want you white people to destroy the forest.

20:20Coming up, the boat's onboard dream expert on why we need to start using our imaginations for the planet.

20:34John, it sounds like you had some really fascinating conversations on the boat but maybe some tough ones too? You know, it wasn't easy all the time because it was very intense the discussion, some of them were quite hard in fact to listen to because there was so much criticism of white men from colonial powers so you know I felt that very strongly being a British guy and it wasn't directed at me it was you know people incredibly friendly but you can't help but feel uncomfortable when indigenous people are saying it was the arrival of white men that you know really started us on this dangerous path but part of the purpose is that you face up to those things that you listen you absorb even if it's not that easy.

21:25And then you reconcile and find a way to move on together. Were there any other conversations you had that left you feeling hopeful? Yeah. What was inspiring is the willingness to experiment with new ideas, to listen to other ways of thinking. And nobody encapsulated that more, I think, than Zidata Ribeiro, who is an expert in neuroscience and a particular specialist on dreams and psychedelics and talked about the necessity of imagination. I think one of the most dangerous things about this moment is this feeling that is growing that there is no other way, that there is no way out of this crisis, that things will inexorably lead to our demise because the forces of capitalism, of greed, are just too powerful and we can't go against that.

22:23And I think this is just wrong and we just cannot accept that. And there are surely ways that we can get out of this, but they require us thinking out of the box. And what really enables us to do this and what has enabled us to do that for millennia is our dream capacity. And we need to exercise our dream muscles. We need to put our dream machinery to function so that we can come up with creative solutions, compassive solutions, empathic solutions. And I think that it's no coincidence that at the same time that we are killing our ability to imagine by being completely overloaded with audiovisual stimuli nonstop, we are transferring to machines the capacity to create.

23:14There's still time for us to change our course. So I think this is a critical moment because this is a moment in which we can still negotiate the terms of this future. That was the last panel of the three-day trip and quite a good one to end on. The importance of dreaming and imagination and emotions maybe things that aren't normally part of the process, but when you're travelling along an Amazonian river with artists and indigenous people, it doesn't seem so strange. At one point he said to everyone, you know, just close your eyes. So everybody just closed their eyes and floating past this incredible stretch of the Amazon just at sunset, so the light was stunning on the huge trees on either side.

24:06and he said close your eyes and imagine what Santorum was like 100 years ago and how much colour it had then and how much more life it would have had then and then look forward 10, 20 years and imagine how much worse things will be if we don't do anything but then finally imagine how much better things can be if we do take action and we realise that we are capable of change.

24:42On the last night, there was a really fantastic performance by a group of carimbo musicians, and that was very lively, and everybody was dancing and having a good time, and it was dark, but there were lights, and there was an almost full moon that was glimmering in the water and you could see the silhouette of the trees on either side as we passed through. It was a really great way to end everything. A really very special end to a very special journey.

25:31John, we're now speaking to you when you're back on dry land in Belem where COP's just getting underway How did your journey leave you feeling heading into the conference? Are you hopeful at all? Despite all the frustrations we feel anybody involved in the COP process feels about the lack of progress There has been progress. I remember when I started out covering climate conferences, and back then everybody was saying three degrees seemed the most likely way that the world would go. And the most ambitious target anybody could think of back then was maybe we could aim for two degrees. Paris changed that.

26:14It set a more ambitious target. We haven't reached that. but the policies that have been put in place and the goals that have been put in place by governments have reduced the amount of warming that was likely not enough not fast enough but there have been gains it hasn't been for nothing and the trouble is it's very hard to show to the public we fix this because all you did is slow the rate of of the problem but that is that is progress and There needs to be more and we need to rebuild that relationship with nature. And people of the forest who are closest and who haven't broken that connection are the ones who are most likely to lead us away from the dangerous direction that we are currently taking.

27:07John, thank you so much and I hope you have a really good cop. Thanks very much, Annie.

27:17That was John Watts. He organised this trip through his own journalistic organisation that he founded with his wife. It's called Sumoma, and it's dedicated to journalism about the forest and its peoples. You can, of course, follow all of our COP30 coverage over the next couple of weeks on theguardian.com. That's all for today. This episode was presented by me, Annie Kelly. It was produced by Eli Block. Sound design was by Joel Cox, and the executive producer was Sammy Kent. We'll be back tomorrow.

28:01This is The Guardian.