Belém, Brazil (EFE).- Tens of thousands of people rallied on Saturday in the Global March for Climate Justice, marching through the streets of Belém, an Amazonian city, to advocate for a just energy transition and to oppose the “false solutions that dominate the official COP30 agenda.”
According to organizers, nearly 30,000 people walked about five kilometers (three miles) to reach the official venue of the COP30 negotiations to demand that their concerns be incorporated into the global climate agenda.
The so-called “People’s Summit,” a counterpoint to climate summits, is the most important event that brings together civil society, gathering NGOs, Indigenous peoples, and environmental activists from around the world.
The mobilization demanded that official climate negotiations focus on financing adaptation, a just transition, and the total and immediate elimination of dependence on fossil fuels, especially in the Amazon.
Furthermore, the demonstrators rejected the “false solutions” dominating the official COP30 agenda, such as carbon markets, a bioeconomy without community control, and other offsetting strategies.
According to the demonstrators, these strategies are used by industrialized nations and large corporations to evade responsibility for the climate crisis.
As of Sunday, the People’s Summit organizing committee will deliver a letter to André Corrêa do Lago, the president of the 30th climate summit, with several demands, including the recognition of Indigenous ancestral knowledge on climate issues and the mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming. EFE
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