Cop30 live: ‘literally insane’ that we are letting global heating happen, says Al Gore

8.51pm GMT It’s time to stop denying the denial Brazil’s president has called Cop30 the “Cop of Truth,” and today, information integrity was in the limelight, reports Dharna Noor, a Guardian US environment reporter. The Declaration on Information Integrity on Climate Change was launched on Wednesday, marking the first time any states have formally committed to fighting against climate disinformation. It follows the inclusion of information integrity on the Cop agenda for the first time, and is a “breakthrough moment,” said Charlotte Scadden, senior advisor on information integrity to the UN Global Communications, at a press conference in Belém. The declaration, which was signed by 12 countries, calls on governments, business, and academia to promote accurate information and fight off climate denialism and attacks on environmental science and journalism. To do so, each country agreed to support a robust media ecosystem, promote equal access to accurate information about climate issues, boost capacity to promote information integrity, and push private sector interests such as big tech to fend off disinformation and irresponsible advertising. The signatories so far include Brazil, Canada, Chile, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Spain, Sweden, Uruguay, Netherlands and Belgium The long overdue commitment comes as climate disinformation is on the rise. A recent report by Coalition Against Climate Disinformation, an international media content watchdog, and Observatory for Information Integrity, an environment and democracy-focused research organization, found a 267% increase in Cop-related disinformation circulating in media and online from July to September 2025. Climate disasters can also trigger increases in the spread of false climate information, studies have shown. Hours before the declaration was announced, almost 400 organizations, academics, and global leaders including two key architects of the 2015 Paris agreement - Christiana Figueres, former UN climate executive secretary, and Laurence Tubiana, France’s chief climate negotiator - published an open letter urging national governments to uphold information integrity and fight climate disinformation.Timmons Roberts, a climate disinformation expert at Brown University and veteran Cop participant, told the Guardian that there has for too long been a “denial of the denial” at the climate talks. Declarations can seem esoteric and squishy. But this one could make a difference. We’re not going to solve climate change unless we understand the forces that are arraying to stop climate action. This declaration is an important step to getting there. The spread of climate disinformation can benefit polluters and their political allies, while taking a massive toll on frontline communities. Melissa Lem, a family physician and president of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment, said: As physicians, we’re left picking up the pieces when climate disinformation costs health and lives. During wildfires, floods and heatwaves, false information spreads faster than facts, leaving people unable to protect themselves. Like toxic air and water pollution, information pollution threatens our health and safety. Earlier on Wednesday, ClientEarth, a legal and policy environmental nonprofit, released new research showing how major social media platforms (Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and X) amplify and incentivize the spread of climate disinformation. Kayle Crosson, a senior officer at ClientEarth, said: Having information integrity on the agenda for the first time in Cop history must serve as a wake-up call. It’s a clear recognition of disinformation as one of the major obstacles stalling climate progress – and a warning to us all. 8.02pm GMT This is climate breakdown Abbie Martin splits her time between captaining a boat in the Virgin Islands and doing research in Brazil’s Pantanal, a region that includes the world’s largest tropical wetland and where she founded the Jaguar Identification Project. Fires in the Pantanal have reached new extremes, killing at least 17 million vertebrate animals and burning 27% of the vegetation cover in 2020. When a fire is really big, all the animals find this small spot where it’s not burning. Then it burns and they all die together. You have a cemetery – howler monkeys, capuchins, coatis, birds and iguanas. Everyone in the area, dead together. The fires aren’t going anywhere. It’s a combination of factors. It’s natural cycles. It’s political, the livestock industry is responsible for fires in the Pantanal, opening up the land for cattle. It’s climate change. It’s getting worse. Read Abbie’s story which is part of our this is climate breakdown series featuring first-person accounts of why what happens at Cop matters Related: ‘There’s fire all around us, this is it’ – This is climate breakdown Updated at 8.16pm GMT 7.51pm GMT The global fossil energy system is deeply implicated in conflict, occupation – and the climate crisis. Research by the UK-based Conflict and Environment Observatory (CEOBS) has found that the global military accounts for at least 5.5% of total global greenhouse gasses – even without accounting for conflict related emissions. This makes the global military the fourth-largest carbon polluter on Earth, bigger than Russia and behind only China, the US, and India. The Global North spends 30 times more on its militaries than they do on climate finance, yet states are not obliged to report military emissions to the UNFCCC. And it’s getting worse. Global defence spending hit $2.7 trillion in 2024 amid mounting geopolitical turmoil – which is more than double the Global South’s demand for climate finance at Cop30, according to War on Climate, a group of experts calling for the full accounting of military emissions. This is another story we’ve been reporting on closely in the past couple of years, especially the climate impact of Russia’s war on Ukraine and Israel’s war on Gaza. Related: Carbon footprint of Israel’s war on Gaza exceeds that of many entire countries Updated at 7.55pm GMT 7.35pm GMT Here’s one to watch for tomorrow: Oil Change International, Palestinian Institute for Climate Strategy, Global Energy Embargo for Palestine, and Trade Unions for Energy Democracy NOW will hold a press conference at 12pm Belém time to unveil a new report tracing the countries and corporations which have sent millions of tonnes of fossil fuels to Israel since October 2023. The uninterrupted fuel supplies have enabled the bombs, tanks, and bulldozers that have caused at least 70,000 Palestinians killed in Gaza, and tens of thousands more injured and unaccounted for. There’s also been record numbers of Palestinians killed and homes wrecked in the occupied West Bank over the past two years. This is a story that the Guardian has covered in-depth, you can read more here Related: Countries fueling Israel’s Gaza war may be complicit in war crimes, experts warn 7.13pm GMT Back to my topic of the day, the Belem Action Mechanism for a Just Transition… thanks to everyone who wrote in with reaction. Keep it coming. Tyrone Scott from the UK-based anti-poverty group War on Want, said: The G77’s statement shows the Global South is leading where the North has stalled — demanding a mechanism that puts people, not profit, at the centre of transition. The UK, with its historic responsibility for emissions, should be backing this call, not blocking it. For a government that claims to be ‘doubling down’ on tackling climate change, opposing a fair global mechanism is the height of hypocrisy. Chadli Sadorra from the Asian Peoples’ Movement on Debt and Development said a new body would have the potential to address global rules on finance that currently block efforts at the national level, and help coordinate efforts within and beyond the UNFCCC. The proposal for the Belem Action Mechanism arose from issues caused by the climate crisis - as well as climate action. We have demanded concrete action for years and now the G77 has heeded our call…[this is] proof that developing countries, trade unions, movements, and civil society are united on the need for a global just transition mechanism. This is a huge step in the right direction. Ultimately, a just transition mechanism will put support and rights for workers at the heart of climate cooperation. Bert De Wel, the global climate policy coordinator at the International Trade Union Confederation, told my colleague Dharna Noor that the G77/China proposal was an important first step. This is important, the BAM is now on the table. Workers and their unions want a place in the UNFCCC to discuss labour rights and social justice. The BAM has to provide this. Now the important discussion can start about its functions and objectives. The BAM has to support the implementation of climate policies… [and provide for meaningful engagement with all relevant civil society groups including the trade unions representing the workers. Nothing about us without us. Updated at 7.16pm GMT 6.36pm GMT Here are more details from my colleague Fiona Harvey on Al Gore’s new Climate Trace tool that can map emissions and air pollutants. Spreading best practice on minimising carbon emissions from the most efficient industrial sites to the laggards would cut tens of billions of tonnes of carbon dioxide in the next two decades, and provide a vital route to limiting global temperature rises, new analysis shows. Climate Trace. a non-profit coalition, uses AI and satellite imagery to pinpoint facilities with large emissions, that could most benefit from intervention, and where it could be done cheaply. Targeting facilities in this way – such as steel plants, refineries, landfill dumps, megafarms and other large carbon sources – would be an efficient way of trying to ensure that emissions are cut as rapidly as possible. Gore told the Guardian: We have identified point sources of emissions around the world, and we’ve identified those that have come up with high-quality, cost-effective ways to decarbonise. Then we have identified other facilities with the same basic technology, scale, and industry subsector, where the successful strategies that we’ve identified as having worked can be successfully replicated. In the steel sector, for instance, if the facilities tracked by Climate Trace were converted to electric arc furnaces, about 20.5 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide could be saved by 2050. That is about half of a year’s current emissions from all sources. The tools could be used to “give a ready-made blueprint” to companies to show where they could decarbonise fastest. In the case of the steel sector, for instance, about a third of large steel plants around the world are due to be expensively “re-lined” in the next five years. If those facilities were converted to the most efficient low-carbon technology instead of simply refurbished, it would be a relatively easy win in decarbonising a stubbornly high-carbon industry. The same could be done for other industrial sectors, and for other sources of emissions such as farming and land management. For instance, Uganda has managed to reduce its forest fires by more than half in recent years – if the same techniques were replicated in Ghana, that could achieve a similar transformation, which would benefit local people and cut the impact on the planet, according to Climate Trace. Coal mines release vast quantities of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas that is estimated to be responsible for about a third of recent global heating. Climate Trace can identify them and show where technology to capture and use the methane would be most effective. Gore hopes that Climate Trace’s data could also be used by countries to help draft their national climate plans. Called nationally determined contributions (NDCs), these set out how far and how fast, and by what measures, countries hope to curb their carbon output, in line with the Paris agreement target of limiting global heating to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels. Governments from nearly 200 countries – but minus the US, the largest historic emitter which under Donald Trump is withdrawing from the Paris agreement – are meeting in Brazil this week and next to discuss their NDCs, which are currently inadequate to fulfil the Paris obligations. Gore added: Our findings can be integrated into sensible, practical plans to move from data to action. Nations can use that, if they choose, for their NDCs. 6.11pm GMT It’s not easy unifying 134 vastly different countries – which is how many members the G77 bloc now has including China, India, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, Benin, Cameroon, Costa Rica, Cuba, Jordan, Tonga and the State of Palestine. Here’s more reaction to the G77/China backing a Just Transition Mechanism – and much of the Global North blocking it – and what it could and should achieve. Hugo Gabbero, director of the International Federation for Human Rights’ defenders desk, said: There is no time to waste after the negotiation failures of Cop29. Cop30 needs to deliver… the Just Transition Mechanism is essential to ensure states can coordinate and accelerate just transition pathways across societies and economies.But no mechanism can work without human rights at its core. Across the world, environmental human rights defenders and communities who are fighting for a fossil fuel phaseout or opposing harmful projects mislabeled as transition policies are paying the price of repression and criminalisation. Indigenous Peoples too bear the brunt of transition policies that sideline human rights. The Mechanism is the way to make all those voices and demands heard by those who have the power to implement them. It must guarantee the full and meaningful participation of the voices fighting for real solutions and the fulfilment of human rights. Nona Chai, the program coordinator at the Just Transition Alliance, criticized the Global North’s claim that at a mechanism already exists and that just transition is in everything, We are deeply concerned with the Global North blocking support… their lack of ambition for a just transition mechanism reveals a larger historical pattern of the Global North countries taking advantage of the Global South and failing to provide reparations. The popularization of just transition doesn’t ensure its success. We need a powerful and inclusive institutional center to create focus, clarify definitions, and provide technical assistance and resources to the Global South, frontline workers, Indigenous Peoples, and fenceline communities. Resources need to be direct and non-debt creating funding in order to create a truly just transition. Updated at 6.16pm GMT 5.39pm GMT Why does BAM matter? The call to elevate the current Just Transition work programme to a formal mechanism comes amid growing evidence that the shift from fossil fuels risks being just as exploitative and unequal as the extractive energy economy that we currently have. These concerns were summarized in July by the UN secretary general António Guterres: The critical minerals that power the clean energy revolution are often found in countries that have long been exploited. And today, we see history repeating. Communities mistreated. Rights trampled. Environments trashed. Nations stuck at the bottom of value chains – while others reap rewards. And extractive models digging deeper holes of inequality and harm. This must end. Advocates of BAM, say that the new mechanism should be designed to address the current fragmentation and limits of global Just Transition efforts, and require states to take concrete steps to ensure that the energy transition delivers justice, transparency and shared prosperity. It would formalize cooperation and knowledge sharing, and prioritize non-debt-inducing finance and technology transfer - key tenets of the Paris agreement and the principle of Common But Differentiated Responsibilities and Respective Capabilities (CBDR-RC), which let’s not forget every state is obliged to comply with, according to the International Court of Justice. Harjeet Singh, strategic advisor to the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative and consistently the best dressed climate activist, said: Dubai COP gave us the promise to ‘transition away’ from fossil fuels; Belém must deliver the plan. The Belém Action Mechanism, now championed by the G77 and China, is that plan. Without it, just transition remains empty rhetoric. Developing countries are ready to move, but they cannot implement this vision alone. They need real finance, technology, and capacity, not more debt. The ball is in the court of developed nations. It’s time to stop delaying. Gaining support from China is a big deal. China controls the majority of the world’s critical mineral supply chain, though the US is extremely keen to expand its share. Neither of the world’s two largest greenhouse gas emitters has historically been supportive of UN initiatives that impose fresh rules on their markets. The US, as we know, is boycotting Cop and back to old-school climate change denial under Donald Trump. 5.14pm GMT Can Belém deliver a Just Transition Mechanism? In 2023 at Cop28 in Dubai, countries finally agreed to ‘transition away’ from fossil fuels. Since then the extraction, expansion, subsidies, greenhouse gas emissions and profits from oil, gas and coal have continued apace alongside the boom in much cheaper and cleaner renewables like solar and wind, and the rush for transition-minerals such as lithium and cobalt. This year, among the key demands from the climate justice movement - which includes Indigenous peoples, frontline communities, human rights advocates, youth groups and workers – is for a new institutional arrangement or formalized body within the UNFCCC to accelerate, coordinate and support a true global Just Transition, including in mineral-producing countries where concerns about land grabs, the exploitation of workers and other abuses are mounting. The Belem Action Mechanism for a Just Transition, known by its catchy acronym BAM, is the proposed arrangement which on Tuesday got a huge boost after the G77 and China, which collectively represents around 80% of the world’s population, announced a strong and unified call in support of creating a Just Transition Mechanism. The G77/China bloc of developing countries emphasized the need to strengthen international cooperation and ensure that just transitions are equitable, inclusive, and responsive to the diverse needs of all nations, which must be done within the context of sustainable development and poverty eradication. The Climate Action Network (Can), the largest international coalition of environmental nonprofits, said: Thank you to the G77 + China for bringing a ray of light and hope to these negotiations. Surprise surprise, wealthy developed countries including Japan, Norway, the UK, Australia, Canada and the EU, did not support the G77/China proposal. You can read more on who said what in this super helpful newsletter from the Third World Network, always great source on the ins and outs of the negotiations from a Global South perspective. 4.44pm GMT Al Gore has just treated, if that’s the right word, Cop30 delegates to a sort of slide show of horrors caused by the climate crisis, writes my colleague Oliver Milman. Standing in front of a huge projection screen showing images of recent disasters around the world that were worsened by global heating, Gore said that it is “literally insane that we are allowing this to continue.” Gore, the former US vice president and climate advocate, appeared slightly croaky (there is a bit of a bug sweeping around Belem) but raised his voice in frustration as he showed images charting record drought in the Amazon, Greenland shedding its ice, huge downpours and storms that have wiped out communities in Vietnam, Jamaica, Brazil, the Philippines and the US in recent times. How long are we going to stand by and keep turning the thermostat up so that these sort of events get even worse? We need to adapt as well as mitigate, but we also need to be realistic that if we allow this insanity to continue, to use the sky as an open sewer, that some things will be very difficult to adapt to. Gore also took shot at tech billionaire and major land owner Bill Gates, who he recently criticized in an interview with the Guardian. Gates, the Microsoft co-founder, has advocated moving away from tackling the climate crisis to instead focus on its impacts upon health. Gore said it was notable that Hurricane Melissa, the category 5 superstorm which devastated Jamaica last month, hit the island on “the exact same day that some erstwhile climate advocate said we should dial down on climate change mitigation.” This is the only public facing event by Gore at this year’s Cop. His main focus at the summit has been to promote his Climate TRACE project, which is mapping planet-heating emissions and air pollutants causing health problems from around the world. Gore said: We are very excited about these new tools. We have got the technology and the deployment models. Some people think we don’t have the political will but as I like to remind people, political will is a renewable resource. 4.36pm GMT I am going to be blogging this afternoon on the proposed Just Transition Mechanism, and if you don’t know what that is, stick around for a crash course. If you want to share thoughts or reaction, feel free to reach out to me at nina.lakhani@theguardian.com. Updated at 4.48pm GMT 4.25pm GMT Hello comrades, this is Nina Lakhani in chilly New York City taking over the blog for the next few hours. Thanks very much to my colleague Matt Taylor in London Town who will be back in the hot seat on Friday morning. 4.18pm GMT Leading climate activists and influencers have signed a letter criticising PR firm Edelman over its role at the Cop30 summit in Brazil. Clover Hogan, Joycelyn Longdon, Mikaela Loach and Tori Tsui are among a list of 65 influencers, creators, and climate activists to sign an open letter organised by campaign group Clean Creatives criticising Edelman over its links with big oil. The signatories have a collective following of over 24 million across Instagram and TikTok. In September Climate Home News revealed Edelman, the world’s largest public relations agency, won the COP30 contract in July 2025, while, according to Clean Creatives F-List 2025 research, the firm also works with fossil fuel clients Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Masdar, Shell and others. The letter explains that “Edelman has the biggest conflicts of interest of any PR agency on earth” because it generates more revenue from fossil fuels than any company of its size. It goes on to highlight one key Edelman staffer, Ana Julião, general manager, Edelman Brazil, who “is overseeing communications for both COP30 and Shell at the same time […] While supposedly working with the UN to stop climate change, she’ll also be advocating on behalf of one of the biggest polluters on earth.” Duncan Meisel, executive director, Clean Creatives said: “The UN must take action to stop Edelman’s fossil fuel clients from influencing the COP negotiations - their conflicts of interest when it comes to fossil fuel clients are simply too numerous to ignore. It is absurd and dangerous to have the same person, literally, writing talking points for Shell and the UN Climate Talks at the same time.” He added the letter also sent a message to other clients who want to work with Edelman. “Companies that want to engage creators, NGOs, and other climate collaborators should know that Edelman’s reputation for fossil fuel PR precedes them, and will be a barrier to effective campaigns.” Edelman had not responded to a request for comment at the time of publication. 3.59pm GMT More on the links between the climate crisis and global health from Sol Oyuela, executive director for Global Policy & Campaigns at WaterAid UK, after Al Gore’s’ remarks on Bill Gates’ shifting position earlier. Oyuela, who is in Belem, reiterated that it was impossible to separate tackling public health and addressing the climate emergency. “Climate change is an international health emergency, directly threatening global health security – and no country is immune. “When extreme weather strikes, water sources run dry or become contaminated and toilets overflow, fuelling deadly outbreaks like cholera and malaria, as well as dehydration and heat stress. And it’s the people least to blame who are paying the highest price - now 15 times more likely to die from floods, droughts, and storms. “Cost-effective solutions exist, from flood defences to drought-resilient water systems. Now, COP30 must be the COP where we embed life-saving water, sanitation and hygiene solutions into climate and health plans and reach historic agreement on the new adaptation goal. “These are life-and-death decisions that will shape the health of millions for years to come - the stakes could not be higher.” Updated at 4.45pm GMT 3.46pm GMT Finding the $1.3 trillion a year needed for developing countries to combat the climate crisis is “entirely feasible” if governments make a concerted effort, and involve the private sector, new research shows. The High Level Expert Group on Climate Finance found that developing countries, excluding China, would need to invest $3.2 trillion a year by 2035 to limit global temperature rises to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, in line with the Paris agreement. The IHLEG, which is co-chaired by the economists Amar Bhattacharya, Vera Songwe and Nicholas Stern, published the research on which the financial settlement on the climate reached by rich and poor countries last year, at Cop29, was based. In their fourth report, published on Wednesday at Cop30 in Belem, they elaborated on some of the sources of funding countries will need and how it should be spent. They said that developing countries should be able to find about $1.9 trillion for their climate effort from their own domestic sources, and will need $1.3 trillion a year from external sources. That is the same amount that developed countries last year said they would ensure flows to the poor world in climate finance within ten years, though they have only pledged to provide $300bn from their own sources. Of the $3.2 trillion in investment required, delivering the energy transition away from fossil fuels would take up about $2.05 trillion a year by 2035, and promoting natural capital and sustainable agriculture would need $350 billion per year. Strengthening adaptation and resilience would require investments of $400 billion, while $350 billion should be spent on coping with “loss and damage”, the term for the rescue and rehabilitation of countries and communities stricken by climate disaster. A further $50 billion would be needed to ensure a just transition away from fossil fuels to cleaner technologies. According to IHLEG, the “entirely feasible path” to delivering the “new collective quantified goal” (NCQG, a requirement of the Paris agreement) of $1.3 trillion in climate finance will require more than $500bn to come from private sector investments. The World Energy Outlook report from the International Energy Agency, also published on Wednesday, found that global investments in clean energy, led by the private sector, were set to continue growing rapidly. Bilateral climate finance from governments would need to increase from current levels of $42 billion per year, which is much less than one-tenth of one per cent of the collective GDP of high-income countries, to about $80 billion per year by 2035, according to the report. The current and former Cop presidents, Brazil and Azerbaijan, published their “Baku to Belem roadmap” last week, also heavily influenced by the IHLEG’s work. That report made about 50 recommendations on how countries could meet the NCQG. These included taxes on wealth, levies on frequent flyers – which some countries at Cop30 have already agreed – and taxes on fossil fuels. Those findings will be discussed at Cop but none of the options for raising climate finance outlined in the roadmap are binding on any countries. The Like Minded Developing Countries grouping, which includes Saudi Arabia and other petro states, and India, want an agenda item at Cop30 on Article 9.1 of the Paris agreement, which deals with the obligations for developed countries to provide climate finance to the poor world. 2.32pm GMT Brazilian Bruno Zanette, 26, is currently pursuing a Master’s in Eco Design. This year, he is attending COP with the Climate Clock, a global movement calling for action on the climate emergency. “My motivation to attend COP began when I heard, back in 2023, that Brazil would host it. I’ve since tried to align my activism toward this moment. For me, COP isn’t just about negotiations — it’s a space for connection, listening, and learning from activists around the world. It’s where strategies are shared and where I hope to strengthen international bridges for climate action. “The main climate challenges facing Brazil are deeply interconnected. In my home state, Rio Grande do Sul, we faced Brazil’s worst flooding ever in May 2024, which killed over a hundred people and destroyed entire communities. It showed how climate change, combined with poor preparation and the weakening of environmental protections, can devastate even wealthy regions. Across the country, droughts, deforestation, and new agribusiness-driven laws are worsening the situation. “At this COP, I don’t expect miracles from negotiations, but I hope we’ll use this moment to ignite real awareness in Brazilian society and push for the country to embrace its potential as a genuine climate leader — not an oil producer expanding into the Amazon.” 2.09pm GMT Fear of being bullied by Donald Trump may have prompted Bill Gates to row back on the climate crisis, the former US vice president Al Gore has speculated, as he slammed the billionaire as “silly”, and the US president for his anti-climate stance. Trump, “the most corrupt president in American history”, was “badly damaging the US economy” by pulling away from renewable energy and promoting fossil fuels, Gore warned. “He’s already doing a lot of damage [on the climate],” Gore said, in an interview with the Guardian at the Cop30 UN climate summit in Brazil. “Maybe the biggest harm he’s doing is to the United States itself, and one figure now illustrates it. China is now exporting green technology to the rest of the world that has a cumulative export value that is significantly higher than all of the fossil fuel exports from the United States to the rest of the world. And that trend is obviously accelerating quite dramatically.” Gates, a philanthropist and founder of Microsoft, made waves around the world when he publicly argued for pushing the climate crisis down the international agenda, in favour of more focus on health issues. “The idea of slowing down on climate again, every climate scientist that I know and respect just threw up their hands and said, ‘What in the world is he thinking?’” said Gore, in an interview with the Guardian at the Cop30 UN climate summit in Belem. “When Trump was elected the second time, Bill fired most of his climate staffers and went to the White House and lavished praise on Trump, and then put out this series of statements last week that puzzled anybody who was really concerned about the climate crisis.” Gore noted that the chiefs of many large businesses in the US are in fear of reprisals from the US president if they disagree with him. “It may be that he is really worried that Trump will bully him the way he has bullied other ultra wealthy business people. It looks like it may be possible that he’s scared of Trump.” The US president responded with social media posts praising Gates’ reversal. Gore said: “I don’t know why [Gates] would do this… the only rave review of what he put out last week was from Donald Trump. Yeah,Trump loves it. That may be what Gates was shooting for.” Gates and Gore were formerly seen as philanthropic allies in the fight against major problems facing humanity, including the climate crisis, appearing at the same events to warn of the consequences for humanity and the need to act. Setting up the climate crisis and the global health crisis as opposing choices for intervention, as Gates appeared to do, was wrong, added Gore. “The idea that there is a binary choice between health and climate is an idea that’s been roundly rejected by virtually every scientist in this field, and the World Health Organisation has said long since that climate is the number one health threat to humanity.” He added: “I almost felt badly for Bill when the same day he put his statement out the Lancet, the very authoritative, deeply respected Lancet Commission, put out its latest report showing the enormous health consequences of not accelerating climate action. The idea that you have to choose one over the other is quite silly.” Instead of taking money away from climate action, Gates should have advocated that governments re-purpose the hundreds of billions they spend giving subsidies to fossil fuels, and focus them on health instead, Gore argued. “It’s literally insane that governments around the world are forcing their taxpayers to subsidise the destruction of part of humanity’s future,” he said. “Accelerating solutions to the climate crisis is one of the single most effective ways to improve health care in the world.” Gore also robustly defended the UN process of annual “conference of the party” meetings on climate. “The cop process accomplishes far more than it is given credit for accomplishing, partly because it serves as a nucleus for all of the industry and NGO and trade groups and civil society groups that assemble at cop every year, and many of them come up with their own agreements that move things forward.” Industries and governments were pushing ahead with new technology and implementing renewable energy and other low-carbon initiatives, he said. “The achievements of each successive cop are often cumulative, and the Cop process itself is one of the principal reasons that the sustainability revolution has shifted into high gear, and more and more nations are now realising that this is the future.” He said: “There is a lot of very positive progress underway. It’s just stunning to watch the progress in these solutions [to cutting greenhouse gas emissions and shifting to a low-carbon economy.] There’s a completely false view out there that somehow we are losing ground.” Although temperatures have for two years surpassed the vital threshold of 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, there was still time to avoid the worst ravages of the climate crisis if governments acted now, Gore said. “We still have agency. It is certainly not too late to avoid the catastrophic harms that the scientists have have been warning us about, but every 10th of a degree matters. We are recklessly moving toward some negative tipping points that we need to avoid. So it’s not too late, but it’s time for us to to accelerate action.” He added: “All around the world, people are listening to the most powerful voice in this entire global debate, and that voice is the voice of Mother Nature.” Gore also celebrated what he sees as a “generational change” in the US, by which many people are turning towards climate action even while the federal governments is dismantling it. He warned that Trump might face a “less obsequious” Congress, in the light of the series of election defeats for Republican candidates at US elections last week. “The American people spoke pretty loudly and clearly last week, in unexpectedly large landslide defeats for Trump in every election that was on the ballot, and Republican senators have now begun to break with him on some of his priorities,” said Gore. “It may be that going forward, he will have a less obsequious Congress that is not as terrified of him as they have been in his first year.” Gore had some praise for Zohran Mamdani, the progressive politician who was elected mayor of New York. “Some of his proposals were ones that I did not agree with, but I thought that he ran a stunningly effective campaign. His basic skills as a politician were impressively on display.” 1.37pm GMT A fluvial adrenalin rush flooded into the COP30 host city of Belém on Wednesday morning with the arrival of a flotilla of more than 100 boats, carrying indigenous activists, forest defenders and other civil society campaigners. Singing, chanting and waving flags and banners declaring “Fight for the Right to Life” and “No to Soy!”, the demonstrators made their presence evident on the river as they are expected to do on the streets in the coming days. Organisers said 5,000 people from 60 countries were participating in the “Boats for Climate Justice Flotilla,” which converged on Guajará Bay close to the University of Pará, which will be the venue for a “People’s Summit” that runs for several days alongside the main climate talks. Activists said they are already staging four events a day in Belém, the first COP host city in several years to encourage civil society participation. Most of the events have been colourful and peaceful, but on Tuesday night there were scuffles in the conference centre when a group of several dozen indigenous and non-indigenous activists burst into the Blue Zone, where they were confronted by UN security guards. More than 10,000 civil society activists are expected at COP30. They are united in their desire to protect nature and the rights and territory of traditional peoples. But there are many different strategies and focal issues, ranging across anti-dam protesters, river defenders, campaigners against agro-toxins, environmental justice advocates, demarcation supporters, and groups calling for direct payments to forest people for their role in maintaining globally important biomes. In the flotilla, The Guardian counted at least 102 vessels, including Greenpeace’s Rainbow Warrior and the Imperatriz on which this reporter arrived in Belém. The organisers said 200 would take part over the course of the event. They have come from all parts of South America and Europe. On board the main vessel of the “Answer Caravan,” which has travelled over 3,000 kilometers from the main Soy-growing region of Mato Grosso, carriyng more than 300 indigenous, riverine, quilombola and peasant leaders. Among them was Maya-Lou Kayapo, who had spent the past six nights sleeping on a hammock. “We are here to resist the threats to our land from agribusiness and mining. We want to protect our territory from invasions and destruction,” she said over the din of chanting. The ship was festooned with banners, highlighting the many threats to the Amazon, a globally important ecosystem that, scientists warn, been pushed close to the point of no return by human activities. : “We are the frontline of the climate crisis”, “Clean rivers without mining”, “Soy destroys”, “Demarcation now!”, “No Hydrovia!” (A reference to a contentious plan to turn the Tapajos and other rivers into a traffic corridor for soy barges.” Several participants said they were united behind the vision of a “great cobra” - a dream spirit that has become a symbol of protest and has now taken physical form in a 50-metre-long inflatable snake. In Portuguese, the word “cobra” also means payment Sarah Rodrigues, from the Volte Grande region of the Xingu river basin.carried a banner bearing the slogan: “Snake People” “The Cobra is the guardian of our campaign,” she said. “Financial support needs to go directly to the traditional peoples who protect the forest, not to the extractivist industries.” Updated at 2.06pm GMT 1.01pm GMT Here’s a little timeline cleanse amidst the serious business of Cop30. Or in fact a big one - very big. A new, double-headed floating wind turbine is set to obliterate the record for the largest turbine. It will be not far off a kilometre wide and rival the Empire State Building in height, generating 50MW of power - double today’s largest turbine. It is being built by Ming Yang Smart Energy in China and the company has already deployed a 16MW version of the device (pictured below), which is called OceanX. The prototype has survived multiple typhoons, the company says. “If successful, this model can be a game changer in the floating wind industry,” Umang Mehrotra, at research firm Rystad Energy, told Scientific American. The Age of Electricity is here, the International Energy Agency said today in its flagship annual report. Even if all climate action halted today, renewables would still grow faster than any other major energy source - their cheapness means their growth is locked in. China knows this - it also reported today its first month where more than half of new cars sold were electric. The US, under Trump, does not. The IEA’s central scenario projects that Trump’s anti-climate policies means the US will have about 30% less solar power by 2035 than forecast last year. Updated at 1.08pm GMT 12.33pm GMT Hello, Matthew Taylor here. I will be running the liveblog for the next few hours, keeping across on the latest developments from Day 3 at Cop30. We had protests overnight and there are more planned for this morning. But as we wait for things to get going in Belem it is worth flagging this piece by my colleague Nina Lahkani highlighting the health impact of fossil fuel projects around the world. Related: Fossil fuel projects around the world threaten the health of 2bn people 12.10pm GMT Day three begins at Cop30 The second day of Cop30 ended with a bang, as dozens of Indigenous protestors forced their way into the conference center. The demonstrators, some of whom wore headdresses and carried instruments, pulled doors from their hinges, shoved through security scanners, and tussled with guards before successfully entering the venue. “Our forests are not for sale,” one protestor’s sign read. It’s a sign that this year marks the return of major protests at UN climate talks, after several years of repression. More demonstrations are planned at the venue for the rest of the week, both on and off site. Some 50,000 people are attending Cop30, from the civil society groups holding rallies, to the researchers poring over esoteric documents, to the politicians huddling together in brightly lit rooms. One group, however, is conspicuously absent from the climate talks: a delegation from the US, the world’s largest historical greenhouse gas polluter. It’s the first time the US has sat out the negotiations completely, research organization Carbon Brief confirmed on Tuesday. US president Donald Trump, who calls the climate crisis a “hoax,” pulled the country from the Paris Agreement in January as part of an all-out assault on climate policy. California governor Gavin Newsom, who arrived at the climate talks on Tuesday, strongly condemned Trump’s anti-environmental agenda: “He’s an invasive species, he’s a wrecking ball president,” he said at a press conference. “He’s trying to roll back progress of the last century, he’s trying to recreate the 19th century, he’s doubling down on stupid.” Newsom, whose state has the world’s fourth-largest economy, is the topmost US official at Cop30. Everywhere he went on Tuesday, he was followed by hoards of spectators. In meetings and press conferences, he assured crowds that California is committed to climate action. “The United States of America is as dumb as we want to be on this topic, but the state of California is not,” he said at a meeting earlier Tuesday. “And so we are going to assert ourselves, we’re going to lean in, and we are going to compete in this space.” Response to the US’s absence has been mixed. On Monday, Tuvalu’s Home Affairs and Environment Minister Maina Vakafua Talia said Trump’s withdrawal showed “a shameful disregard for the rest of the world.” But on Tuesday, Christiana Figueres, former executive secretary of the United Nations framework convention on climate change, said on Tuesday that the US’s absence from the talks “actually is a good thing.” “Ciao, bambino,” was her response to the US’s departure from the Paris agreement. At a press gaggle, Newsom said: “That’s a hell of a statement coming from the mother of the Paris Agreement.” Trump’s absence “creates opportunity” for local leaders to step into the fold on climate policy, Newsom said. “What stands in the way becomes the way. This is an opportunity for us bottom up at the local level to assert ourselves,” he said. “He pulled away. That’s why I pulled up.” Tuesday was a big day for the showcasing of local climate leadership, said Ana Toni, Cop30’s CEO, at an evening press conference. More than 185 city representatives met to speak about adaptation to extreme heat, and more than $20 speak about about concrete action to beat the heat and financing for it, she said. Subnational actors can make a major difference in climate policy, including in the US, studies show. But Trump could still attempt to derail that progress, some have warned. Cop30 are especially concerned in light of the Trump administration’s behavior at an international maritime meeting last month, where officials menaced some foreign leaders and threatened tariffs on those who supported a carbon fee on shipping. Tomorrow morning, activists will hold another protest, placing the spotlight on Trump specifically. They will hold a banner that says “resist climate saboteurs,” adorned with an outline of the US president. “Trump’s lack of presence so far is a blessing in disguise, but you never know when he’s going to try and botch the talks,” activist Denise Robbins, an organizer of the action, told the Guardian. She urged global leaders to resist any pressure they may face from the US. “No matter what happens in the US, the rest of the world needs to come together and act on climate,” she said. “It’s the only way we’ll keep to the goals of the Paris climate agreement.” Updated at 6.28pm GMT