World must ‘honour 1.5C’, small island states insist at Cop30 summit – live

8.50pm GMT More than 100 people gathered outside the Cop29 venue on Tuesday evening calling for an end to Israel’s siege on Gaza, reports my colleague Dharna Noor. “Stop, stop ecocide,” they chanted. “Stop, stop genocide.” At the UN climate talks, some activists are calling for Israel to be removed from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. “A state committing genocide and apartheid cannot participate in the UNFCCC negotiations without threatening their credibility,” one activist said, noting that UN bodies have said Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. The organizers also called for an energy embargo on Israel, blocking the fuel that sustains the country. As of November 10, the latest figures from the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza, confirm that at least 69,ooo people have been killed. Two thirds of Gaza’s farmland has been destroyed by Israeli forces. Many at the protest said they had been directly impacted by Israel’s war on Gaza. “The Israeli regime has killed my entire father’s side of my family and has displaced my entire mother’s side,” said Mohammed Usrof of the Palestinian Institute for Climate Strategy. Organizers said they were not permitted to have the protest in the halls of Cop29. This has not deterred the movement, said Jamal Juma of the Boycott Divest Sanctions movement and Stop the Wall Coalition. “Our voice is louder than their voice,” he said. 8.32pm GMT Meanwhile, in case you missed this powerful piece yesterday, Reuters reported on how land erosion is affecting people in Bangladesh. Every year, hundreds of families in northern Bangladesh’s Kurigram district face the same fate. As riverbanks collapse, people lose not only their homes but also their land, crops, and livestock. The Brahmaputra, Teesta, and Dharla rivers — once lifelines for millions — have become unpredictable, eroding land faster than ever before. The chars — sandy, shifting islands scattered across the country’s northern plains — are among the most fragile places in Bangladesh. Families rebuild again and again, only for the river to take everything they have. 8.09pm GMT It appears there has been some kind of mix up and Gavin Newsom, the California governor, won’t actually be speaking at Cop30 for another hour or so. Sorry about that! 7.50pm GMT Kayapo chief Raoni criticises Amazon infrastructure projects Brazil’s most prominent indigenous leader has urged the country’s government to empower indigenous peoples to preserve the Amazon rainforest, Reuters reports. In an interview with the news agency, Raoni Metuktire warned that plans to build infrastructure in Amazon region – including proposed highways, rail projects and oil wells – are a direct threat to the forest and its people, and would harm people across the world. Speaking in his native language of Kayapo, with his grandson translating, Chief Raoni told Reuters: These projects destroy rivers and lands and they are continuing to do it. I don’t like it. I had said long ago that there will be many very bad consequences for us. It will be very bad for us. And for you too. You are bringing the consequences upon yourselves. Dozens of indigenous leaders have travelled to Belém for this year’s UN Cop30 climate summit, which had been billed as the “Amazonian Cop”, with promises of greater representation for indigenous peoples. A key demand of indigenous groups worldwide is for a greater say in how the lands they live on are managed. Chief Raoni urged Brazil’s government to give legal protections to tribal lands. He said: I had spoken to Lula when we met before he took office and told him that it was necessary to do it so, that finally my people, my relatives, could have their lands by right. He also criticised a number of projects, including a plan to pave a highway through the forest, and a license granted a few weeks ago allowing Brazil’s state-run oil company Petrobras to explore for offshore oil 500km from the mouth of the Amazon River. Raoni is no stranger to international environmental summits. He attended the 1992 Earth Rio Summit, which produced the UN climate treaty under the auspices of which the Cop summits take place. He was downbeat on progress since then. When there were forests everywhere, I went to that meeting to talk about the forest. I said that our forest had to be preserved. And even so, they continued to destroy everything. You non-Indigenous people, perhaps you should have listened and thought about your children, thought about your grandchildren, so that the forest can live and contribute to the lives of new generations, of your grandchildren. 7.29pm GMT California governor Gavin Newsom will be speaking at Cop30 in a few minutes. Embedded at the top of the blog is a live feed of the summit’s session on adaptation, cities and climate innovation, at which Newsom will speak alongside Christiana Figueres, the former UN climate chief. Newsom is in Belem representing America Is All In and the US Climate Alliance, two organisations trying to keep America relevant in the fight against climate breakdown. 7.07pm GMT Removing carbon from the atmosphere will be necessary to avoid catastrophic tipping points, one of the world’s leading scientists has warned, as even in the best-case scenario the world will heat by about 1.7C, writes Jonathan Watts, the Guardian’s global environment writer. Johan Rockström of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, who is one of the chief scientific advisers to the UN and the Cop30 presidency, said 10bn tonnes of carbon dioxide needed to be removed from the air every year even to limit global heating to 1.7C (3.1F) above preindustrial levels. To achieve this through technological means, such as direct air capture, would require the construction of the world’s second biggest industry, after oil and gas, and require expenditures of about a trillion dollars a year, scientists said. It would need to be done alongside much more drastic emissions cuts and could also have unintended consequences. Rockström was among several leading climate experts who spoke at a first public event for the Science Council, which was set up as an advisory body by the Belém Cop30 presidency. Related: Removing CO2 from atmosphere vital to avoid catastrophic tipping points, leading scientist says 6.57pm GMT 6.36pm GMT California will prioritise green tech and climate, governor tells Cop30 California will continue to prioritise green technology and climate policy, the state’s governor, Gavin Newsom, told delegates at Cop30, in defiance of Donald Trump’s opposition to the green agenda. “The United States of America is as dumb as we want to be on this topic, but the state of California is not,” Newsom said, in the first of several scheduled appearances at the U.N. climate summit in Brazil. “And so we are going to assert ourselves, we’re going to lean in, and we are going to compete in this space.” Newsom, one of Trump’s most strident opponents, who has for months been teasing a run for the White House in 2028, arrived this week in Belém with a message that his state will continue to be a “reliable partner” on green policy. Though California is just one of 50 US states, the size of its economy – the world’s fourth-largest – makes it a key player in influencing markets and energy policy. Newsom is expected to meet with officials from some of the 195 governments taking part in Cop30, as well as a series of subnational leaders, including the governor of Brazil’s state of Para, the location of the summit. Trump, who has declared climate change a hoax, made withdrawing the US from the Paris Agreement one of his first acts on resuming the presidency at the beginning of this year, and he has not sent a single official to this year’s climate summit. “The reason I’m here is in the absence of leadership coming from the United States,” Newsom said at an investors summit in Brazil’s financial hub of Sao Paulo on Monday, according to Reuters. “This vacuum, it’s rather jaw-dropping.” 6.18pm GMT Visitors to the Cop30 climate summit may have tried the Amazon’s famous acai berry before. But they are likely to be in for a surprise when they taste its authentic preparation in Belém, according to a report by the Associated Press. The US-based news agency reports that acai bowls served by local vendors in the Amazonian city are served – true to the dish’s rainforest roots – unadulterated and without sugar. Punters more used to the frozen and sweetened acai cream sold in other countries, and elsewhere in Brazil, are finding it an acquired taste. “I can’t say this is bad and I totally respect the cultural importance of it, but I still prefer the ice creamy version,” Catherine Bernard, from France, told AP as she tasted a traditional acai berry bowl in downtown Belem on Thursday. Indigenous people in the Amazon have cultivated the acai berry for hundreds of years. The nutrient-rich fruit is blended into a thick liquid and served at room temperature with a sprinkling of tapioca flour. Tainá Marajoara, an activist and owner of a restaurant, told AP: “The acai coming from Indigenous people is the food when there’s no food. It was never a drink or an extra. It can be the main course for us.” Marajoara’s restaurant at the Cop3- pavilion charges 25 Brazilian reais ($5) for a bowl, about the same as bowls in other parts of Brazil that use industrially processed and sweetened acai cream, often with toppings. 6.00pm GMT World must "honour 1.5C", small island states insist Small island states have described the 1.5C limit for global heating as “a lifeline” and demanded that the world honours it, amid increasing gloom that the symbolic target has already been breached. “Small island states are here to demand we honour 1.5,” Toiata Apelu-Uili, mitigation coordinator for the Alliance of Small Island States (Aosis), was quoted as saying by the Reuters news agency. “It is not a political slogan. This is a lifeline for our survival, for our small islands. We’re here because our survival, our people, our lives are not negotiable.” Apelu-Uili, who travelled for two days to get to Belem from Samoa, spoke at a side event on day one of Cop30, where representatives of small island states offered delegates a start reminder of what failure at the climate talks looks like. “Hurricane Melissa slammed into Jamaica a week-and-a-half ago and every single Jamaican now knows the word catastrophic,” said UnaMay Gordon, a former director of climate change for the Jamaican government and adviser to the Caribbean Community Climate Change Center, which coordinates climate action. The strongest ever storm to hit Jamaica left dozens dead and caused billions of dollars worth of damage, roughly equivalent to 28% to 32% of last year’s gross domestic product, according to the island’s prime minister. “We lost cultural heritage, 300-year-old churches are lost. A part of our identity was lost with it. People are hurting,” Gordon told reporters. Scientists say that breaching 1.5C would lead to several irreversible changes, like melting ice caps driving faster sea level rises of the kind that supercharged the winds driving Hurricane Melissa. Antonio Guterres, the UN secretary general, last week described its breaching as a “moral failure and deadly negligence”. Updated at 6.39pm GMT 5.45pm GMT Hello this is Damien Gayle, once again taking the reins on the Guardian’s live coverage of the Cop30 circus in Belém, Brazil, with thanks to Ajit for bringing you through the last few hours. As ever, if you have any suggestions about what we should be covering on here please do feel free to drop me a line at damien.gayle@theguardian.com. 5.03pm GMT Here are a few photos of campaigners protesting today at Cop30. They include calls for a “just transition” away from fossil fuels, feminists demanding climate justice, and a push to get oil and gas lobbyists out of UN climate talks. 4.43pm GMT For the first time in the history of these annual UN climate talks, the US has not sent a single official delegate, an analysis by Carbon Brief has confirmed. The US is in rare company at this year’s Cop summit in Belem, with only Afghanistan, Myanmar and San Marino also sending no delegates to the Amazon. Carbon Brief drew the numbers from the provisional lists of delegates published by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The lack of US representation is in line with the Trump administration confirming it would send no high-level officials to the talks, after the president had lambasted concerns over the climate crisis as a “con job” and a “hoax.” Trump has spent recent months cajoling other countries to purchase US oil and gas, weakening their climate policies in order to do so. Despite the American absence, there has been nervousness in Belem that the administration will attempt to try to derail aspects of the climate talks by putting pressure on other countries from afar. Overall, Cop30 is among the largest ever of the climate summits in terms of delegates, second only to Dubai in 2023. More than 56,000 people registered to come to Belem, near the mouth of the Amazon river, despite worries about exorbitant accommodation costs. The figures are so far provisional, as some registered delegates will have not ultimately made the trip. The UNFCCC will release the final list at the end of the conference. Updated at 4.53pm GMT 4.22pm GMT In the run-up to Cop30, the Guardian published a series of articles looking at the ten biggest polluters of greenhouse gas, and their plans to clean up. Here’s a piece my colleague Jonathan Watts wrote in September about China, which according to an analysis published today has plateaued its emissions. Chinese power took on an old-fashioned hue in the past week with a huge military parade, a gathering of former allies Russia and North Korea, and President Xi Jinping’s defiant vow not to be intimidated by bullies. That display reminded many of the cold war, but it captured only a fraction of China’s far greater modern influence, primarily built on a formidable economy, dramatic advancements in renewable energy, and a willingness to engage globally with the greatest crisis facing humanity: climate breakdown. In that sense, the tanks, cannon and missiles that filed past Tiananmen Square may well prove less important in reshaping the world order than the wind turbines, solar panels and electric cars that are churning out of Chinese factories on to fields and roads all over the planet. They are the reason China has already won the battle for the energy of the 21st century. If history is any guide, the country that dominates energy usually dominates economics and politics, which is why it is not just old war allies that are cosying up to Beijing. Narendra Modi, the president of longtime rival India, also visited China last week for the biggest ever meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation along with dozens of other regional leaders. The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, led a delegation to Beijing this summer to coordinate climate policy. The Brazilian executive secretary of Cop30 will visit next week with a similar mission, knowing the success or failure of the annual climate summit now depends on China more than any other nation. Read the full story here. 3.25pm GMT 'Ciao, bambino!' - Paris climate agreement architect on US withdrawal “Ciao, bambino!” That was the message Christiana Figueres, former executive secretary of the United Nations framework convention on climate change, had for the US upon its recent exit from the Paris Climate Agreement. The world’s largest historical emitter also chose not to send a delegation to the negotiations. “I think it actually is a good thing,” Figueres said about the US’s absence from the talks at a press conference on Tuesday. Concerns about backdoor US influence at the talks are high, particularly in light of its role in derailing a global carbon fee on shipping at an international maritime meeting last month. There, the Trump administration threatened to impose sanctions and visa restrictions on nations that supported the deal, even reportedly menacing some country’s officials during coffee breaks. Since US negotiators won’t be present at the climate conference, “they won’t be able to do their direct bullying,” Figueres told the Guardian. Even if the US attempts to influence the fights, she said it won’t be successful because so many countries have realised climate action is in their best interests. “Honestly, the decarbonisation of the global economy is irreversible,” she said. “Momentum is building into the point where it is simply unstoppable, with or without the United States.” Updated at 3.31pm GMT 2.53pm GMT If you worry about your carbon footprint but still find yourself tossing out mouldy bread or expired milk, you are not alone. Just 30 countries attending COP30 include food loss or waste in their national climate action plans, a new analysis has found, missing out on what its authors call a “huge opportunity” to cut planet-heating pollution. The most recent estimates from the UN Environment Program suggest a staggering 8-10% of greenhouse gas emissions come from food that is never even eaten. Food ends up in the bin at every stage of the supply chain - from farms to warehouses to supermarkets to kitchens – but little effort has been spent tackling food loss and waste. The Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP), the nonprofit that carried out the analysis, is pushing for greater action of food loss and waste at COP30 today, together with two other NGOs, the Global FoodBanking Network and ReFED. “Reducing food waste is one of the fastest, most practical ways to cut emissions, ease pressure on supply chains, and make better use of the resources we already have,” said Catherine David, CEO of WRAP. The group found small progress since they carried out the analysis last year, with six more countries having made commitments to tackle food loss and/or waste. In total, just seven countries - United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Uruguay, Cambodia, Chile, Colombia and Indonesia - have committed to reducing both food loss and waste. The UK is the only country in Europe to address either of the issues, with a commitment to reduce food waste. “To build a truly sustainable food system, we must rethink how we value food, from farm to fork and beyond,” said David. 2.23pm GMT Chinese emissions flatline, analysis finds China’s carbon dioxide emissions have been flat or falling for 18 months, analysis reveals, adding evidence to the hope that the world’s biggest polluter has managed to hit its target of peak CO2 emissions well ahead of schedule. Rapid increases in the deployment of solar and wind power generation – which grew by 46% and 11% respectively in the third quarter of this year – meant the country’s energy sector emissions remained flat, even as the demand for electricity increased. Interactive China added 240GW of solar capacity in the first nine months of this year, and 61GW of wind, putting it on track for another renewable record in 2025. Last year, the country installed 333GW of solar power, more than the rest of the world combined. The analysis by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (Crea), for the science and climate policy website Carbon Brief, found China’s CO2 emissions were unchanged from a year earlier in the third quarter of 2025, thanks in part to declining emissions in the travel, cement and steel industries. The findings come as global leaders gather in Brazil for Cop30, which is taking place against a backdrop of increasing urgency in the fight against the climate crisis. China’s president, Xi Jinping, did not attend the leaders’ summit at the UN climate conference, but the Chinese delegation are present for the talks. Xi’s US counterpart, Donald Trump, also did not attend and has not sent a negotiation team. Read the full story here. 1.55pm GMT Sometimes it is easy to lose sight of what climate negotiations are really about. This is Paul Gilbert’s moving story, as told to my colleague Sandra Laville. My mum rang me to tell me there was water coming into the house. She sounded fine, she wasn’t panicking, just wanted to let me know so I wouldn’t worry. But when I rang her back later, the telephone was dead. When we eventually got into the house the next day, I found the phone downstairs near her body. It was floating in the water next to her; the flood waters had come in a torrent in less than two minutes from ankle to waist height. My mum, Maureen Gilbert, had lived in her house in Tapton Terrace, Chesterfield, for 83 years, her whole life. I was born there 49 years ago. These houses have been up standing for 120 years, and in all the time my mum lived there, we had never had any floods until 2007, when the water probably got up to about 4ft. But this time there was nearly 6ft of water in the house. I had visited her in the morning, after the flood alert was made, and left about 12 noon. I wasn’t unduly worried; I glanced at the river levels as I left. By 1.20pm she rang me when I was home to tell me there was water coming in. I said to her: “Are you upstairs?” She said she was just getting her stuff together to go upstairs. I told her to flip the electrics off and go upstairs; she has a kettle and everything up there, and I would ring her back after some calls I had to make. I made a telephone call to sort out my daughter coming home from school as she was being released early. Then I rang Mum back – it was really just a few minutes later but the phone was dead. It took me six hours to get across Chesterfield back to the terrace. It was chaos, water everywhere, the roads were gridlocked. It was 6.45pm when I got back to her house. Read the full story here. Updated at 1.58pm GMT 1.23pm GMT Hello, this is Ajit Niranjan taking over the blog for the next few hours. If you’re in Belém and have something to share - or if you’re a reader elsewhere with requests for what we should cover at Cop30 - just drop me an email on ajit.niranjan@theguardian.com. 12.59pm GMT Climate campaigners last night confronted agribusiness lobbyists in a protest at the AgriZone, an area outside the Cop30 summit venue sponsored by Nestlé and Bayer. The campaigners, part of the Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice, were protesting against Brazil’s having allowed industrial agriculture companies to set up shop at the summit. They pointed to evidence showing that industrial agriculture is a main driver of deforestation in the Amazon and produces a third of global greenhouse gas emissions. The numbers of lobbyists at Cop summits has grown in recent years. Last week the Guardian reported that more than 5,000 fossil fuel lobbyists had attended the climate talks since Cop26 in Glasgow. “Climate spaces must stop being complicit with all forms of extractivism creating the crisis,” said Erika Xananine Calvillo Ramirez, of the Stop Financing Factory Farming Coalition. She added: The agribusiness has been responsible for the water crisis in the Ngiwa Valley of Tehuacan region in Mexico, and they must stop greenwashing their image at COP30. Andrea Echeverri, of the Global Forest Coalition, said: The AgriZone is nothing more than a huge greenwashing space. While social organizations and other mortals usually compete to be heard in spaces in the Blue Zone and the Green Zone, agribusinesses have a huge space dedicated to dazzling negotiators and convincing them that they are not major polluters but rather the saviors of the planet. The globalized agri-food system focused on livestock does not fulfill its purpose of feeding the world because it is designed to produce money, not food. Inside the AgriZone, large companies, think tanks, and supposedly independent research centers are disguising their model with their “climate-smart” models, their smart seeds, their digitization, and their metrics, while they are producing a food and agricultural crisis and a countryside without peasants, and without memory and diversity. 12.25pm GMT Ethiopia set to host Cop32 in 2027 Cop32 will be hosted in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, Reuters reports. The news agency says it has been told by André Corrêa do Lago, the Cop30 president, that countries had agreed in principle to hold the 2027 edition of the UN climate summit in the east African nation. The choice still needs to be formally adopted, in a process which is expected to take place on Tuesday, but which Reuters reported that sources said would pass without a hitch. If it is confirmed, it means that the host of Cop32 will be decided before the host of Cop31 has been confirmed. Both Australia and Turkey are competing to host the 2026 summit, with Australia making its bid in partnership with the Pacific Islands, which are considered to be among the world’s most vulnerable places to climate change. COP summits rotate around the world’s regions. Ethiopia launched its bid in September, and it was unanimously selected by the Bureau of African Countries despite a rival bid from Nigeria. 12.14pm GMT Hello, this is Damien Gayle at the helm of day two of the Guardian’s Cop30 liveblog coverage. If you have any suggestions for things we could be covering from this year’s climate talks in Belém, Brazil, then send me an email to damien.gayle@theguardian.com. 12.14pm GMT Negotiations begin at Cop30 after agenda agreed Thunder, lightning and torrential rain tore down on the Cop30 conference centre in Belém on the opening day yesterday, but the climate gathering has so far avoided the political storms that often shake the early phases of the annual talks, writes Jonathan Watts, the Guardian’s global environment writer. How long the calm lasts will be clearer over the next two days, when the Brazilian presidency holds consultations with key nations on the items that will be discussed over the coming two weeks. This is a diplomatic sleight of hand that has so far enabled the host to avoid the usual wrangles over the formal agenda, which have often taken several days in past conferences, holding up all other work. Yesterday, however, the agenda breezed through. The tough discussions over contentious items will now be wrangled in small-gatherings with the presidency, while other elements in the huge programme of talks can move ahead. It is an encouraging start for the Cop president, André Corrêa do Lago, who is one of the world’s most respected climate diplomats, having worked on environmental governance since the 1992 Earth summit in Rio de Janeiro – as he has reminded delegates. Tougher battles lie ahead with the global political landscape continuing to create extra obstacles to progress. While many participants say they are glad the United States under Donald Trump has stayed away rather than being a disruptive presence, there is no doubt that any agreements will be weakened by the absence of the world’s biggest historical emitter and wealthiest nation. An alternative US delegation will stage a press conference on Tuesday to demonstrate that many in the country are still in favour of ambitious action. Californian governor, Gavin Newsom, and New Mexico’s governor, Michelle Lujan Grisham, will be among a group of more than 100 political and business leaders representing subnational coalitions America Is All In, Climate Mayors, and the US Climate Alliance. Tuesday’s thematic day covers a gamut of topics ranging from adaptation and the bioeconomy to cities and infrastructure. The hosts stress that this should not just about promises and idea exchange, but concrete policies and implementation. “Each day is intended to connect negotiations with real-world impact, offering a platform where implementation, equity, and urgency meet. Cop30 is where lived experience must translate into urgent climate action”, said Corrêa do Lago. But for the bigger topics of emissions and finance, nations are still setting out their positions. A key debate will be whether delegates can initiate a roadmap to phase out fossil fuels, and whether it will encompass all nations. At Cop28 in Dubai, the world agreed to a transition away from fossil fuels, but this subject was barely mentioned last year at Cop29 in Baku. In preparatory meetings this year, Saudi Arabia has tried to push the subject off the Cop30 agenda. But Brazilian president Lula da Silva has given strong signals to his negotiating team that this crucial issue, which must be at the heart of any effective climate action, needs to move forward in Belém. “We need a road map so that humanity … can overcome its dependence on fossil fuels,” the veteran centre-left politician said at yesterday’s opening session. If this idea is to have substance, it will need to be mandatory for all nations, but many of the big petroleum-producing countries will resist this. Brazil, which is one of the world’s top 10 oil and gas producers, is an ideal country to push this forward. The question is how far it is willing to go. A roadmap for the entire world would mark genuine progress. A voluntary arrangement in which some countries could opt out would be little more than greenwashing The host hopes civil society will help to push ambition. Unlike the past three Cops, which were held in countries with varying degrees of authoritarian government, the Brazilian authorities are actively encouraging street demonstrations. Corrêa do Lago has stressed that these are essential to raising ambition inside the conference centre. Indigenous groups and NGOs have been more visible at Cop30, helping to balance out the armies of lobbyists that have dominated recent summits. A “people’s summit” will be held on Thursday and Friday, a global youth rally will take place on Friday, and the biggest demonstration is scheduled for Saturday. Many leading NGO representatives are lining up behind the call for Cop30 to begin the process of building an exit ramp from the fossil fuel era. “It is shameful that after 30 years of climate conferences we still have no agreed plan to tackle the main driver of the climate crisis: fossil fuel use. Every day without such an agreement is a day lost in the fight against the climate crisis, exposing much of the world’s population to enormous risks. We have all the data and we know the path forward – but we still lack the political responsibility of many decision-makers,” said Marcio Astrini, executive secretary at Climate Observatory Brazil. Saudi Arabia and like-minded nations will be trying to block or dilute these moves by focusing more strongly on the finance issue, which could easily snarl up the conference. That agenda also needs to be resolved to the satisfaction of the many countries in the global south that are already suffering from dire climate impacts. Brazil’s skilled climate diplomats have much work to do in the huddles ahead if they are to navigate a path between these potential storms. Updated at 12.35pm GMT