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COP30 Opens in Belém With Early Forest Finance Pledges and a Turn to Implementation

Organizers frame the Amazon-based talks as a practical test of turning pledges into finance for forests.

Overview

  • Brazil launched the Tropical Forests Forever Facility with roughly $5–5.5 billion pledged on day one from backers including Norway, France, Brazil and Indonesia, with a design under discussion that directs a share to Indigenous and local communities and an eventual ambition to scale far higher.
  • Brazil’s presidency is pursuing an unorthodox, implementation-first format that builds ‘mutirão’ collaboration circles, elevates an ethical stocktake, and resists a traditional single cover decision while exploring ways to streamline the COP process.
  • Brazil, the European Union, China and others announced a coalition to align emissions trading systems toward a shared global carbon market, signaling movement on carbon pricing architecture alongside forest protection finance.
  • Attendance and geopolitics shadow the talks as President Donald Trump boycotts after withdrawing the United States from the Paris Agreement, China’s Xi Jinping and India’s Narendra Modi skip, and logistical constraints in Belém lead many delegations to scale back.
  • Testimony from vulnerable countries and new scientific warnings on tipping points and record greenhouse gases underscore urgency, even as Brazil faces criticism for new oil approvals and Indigenous leaders expand their presence and protests at the summit.