Bengaluru: Indigenous protesters clashing with security officials at the front entrance of the UN climate change conference. And a few days later, blocking the entry to the climate summit. Countries – including India – arguing that a statement of record-breaking temperatures in 2025 was “misleading”. The highest number of fossil fuel lobbyists roaming the halls of the conference.

There’s been a lot happening at the ongoing 30th Conference of Parties (COP30) at Belem in Brazil from November 11 to 15. Here are some highlights:

Indigenous peoples protest at the COP

Something quite unprecedented in the history of COPs happened on November 11. Indigenous demonstrators and their supporters breached security barriers at the main entrance to the COP30 conference hall in Belem and clashed with security officers there. Security officials soon brought it under control, and only minor injuries were reported.

Meanwhile, there have been squabbles over the Tuesday protests at the COP venue. According to reports, Simon Stiell, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, criticised Brazil’s security personnel for “failing to act” on Tuesday night when dozens of indigenous protesters forced their way inside. Brazil, meanwhile, has said that security inside the COP is the responsibility of the UN.

But the indigenous demonstrators’ message came through: that the COP will end but the destruction will continue. That their forests cannot be felled.

Brazil has already come under fire for conducting the COP at Belem, which is located inside the Amazon rainforest. Hectares of rainforest have been destroyed for this, environmentalists have alleged.

And more deforestation looms ahead, with an upcoming 1,000 km-long railway line that will cut through parts of the Amazon. Moreover, Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has also given permission to the country’s largest oil firm to conduct exploratory oil drilling in the sea off the Amazon coast. This happened just three weeks before the COP began at Belem.

According to news reports, Raoni Metuktire, a leader of the Kayapo people of Brazil, said that he supports Lula but that the president must listen to them. He was ready to even give the president a “talking-to” if he ignored concerns over oil exploration near the mouth of the Amazon River, Metuktire said.

On November 14, indigenous people blocked the entrance to the UN climate summit, demanding that the world pay attention to their plight in the Amazon. Around 60 men and women in traditional wear, some even carrying babies, formed a human barricade at the main entrance as tens of thousands of delegates were arriving, AFP reported.

And more protests may be on the cards. A major climate march is scheduled to take place in Belem on Saturday, where indigenous people and civil society groups will demand climate justice and protection of indigenous territories.

On November 12, the Peoples’ Summit kicked off at COP30. As many as 30,000 people from 62 countries are participating in the event where indigenous communities and leaders from Brazil and across the world will speak and interact, per some reports. A flotilla of nearly 200 boats in the Guajara and Guama rivers in Belem marked the event.

Renewables increasing, but emissions still on a rise

Renewables are finally overtaking fossil fuels. The World Energy Outlook 2025, released by the International Energy Agency on November 12 at COP30, shows that renewable energy sources will grow faster than any other energy source in the next ten years – by a huge 40%. Coal is at or close to a peak, oil will follow by around 2030, and gas by 2035. India will be the largest contributor to global energy demand growth till 2035.

And yet, carbon emissions are still on a rise, several reports released over the week at the COP show.

The Global Carbon Budget released on November 13 at the COP shows that fossil fuel emissions are set to rise by 1.1% in 2025. This is a record high. At the current rate, the world’s carbon budget – which is the amount of emissions that can be released before the world hits the 1.5 degrees Celsius warming limit – will be exhausted in the next four years.

The Climate Action Tracker analysed the promises and targets set by nations to cut down on greenhouse gases and thus global warming. Its report released on November 13 shows that the world is still on track for a staggering 2.6 degrees Celsius increase in temperatures. It is an improvement when compared to what the Tracker found in 2015 – a 3.6 degree Celsius rise by 2100. But still we’re nowhere close to the 1.5 degrees Celsius limit that the Paris Agreement aims to curb global warming to.

1,600 fossil fuel lobbyists at COP30

There’s a record number of fossil fuel lobbyists roaming the halls of COP30. A report released by the group Kick Big Polluters Out (a coalition of more than 450 organisations united in demanding an end to the ability of Big Polluters to write the rules of climate action) on November 14 showed that there are 1,602 fossil fuel lobbyists at COP30. This means that one in 25 participants of the COP are lobbyists.

Lobbyists significantly outnumber almost every country delegation at COP30 – with only host country Brazil (3,805), sending more people. The number of lobbyists at COP30 is 12% higher than their number at COP29 at Baku, Azerbaijan.

Adapting to a warming world

As the world warms up, the need for cooling is rising too. A new report by the United Nations Environment Programme released on November 11 at COP30 – the Global Cooling Watch 2025 – has called for affordable and sustainable cooling solutions, because cooling demand could more than triple by 2050 at the current rate of heating.

This would almost double cooling-related greenhouse gas emissions over 2022 levels, pushing cooling emissions to an estimated 7.2 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent by 2050, the report said.

Cooling solutions with a focus on passive techniques and low-energy and hybrid cooling that combines fans and air conditioners that consume little or no power could cut greenhouse gas emissions, save trillions of dollars and expand life-saving cooling access to those who need it, according to the report.

A Global Cooling Pledge already exists. The Pledge aims to reduce cooling-related emissions by 68% by 2050 following a “sustainable cooling pathway”. More than 70 nations have joined this Pledge. India is not part of it.

Action plans and declarations

On November 12, countries signed a declaration to prioritise information integrity in light of misinformation about climate change. Its commitments include supporting a diverse and resilient media ecosystem to make sure there is accurate and reliable coverage on climate and environmental issues. Thirteen countries including Brazil and Canada are members so far.

“Climate change is being weaponised as a wedge issue to polarise entire societies and undermine and disrupt democratic processes,” said Charlotte Scadden, senior adviser on information integrity with the United Nations Global Compact at a press conference at the launch of the initiative in Belem on November 12.

“Without access to reliable information about climate disruption we can never hope to overcome it. Through this initiative, we will support the journalists and researchers investigating climate issues, sometimes at great risk to themselves, and fight the climate-related disinformation running rampant on social media,” said Audrey Azoulay, UNESCO’s director-general, at the launch.

Brazil launched the Belem Health Action Plan on November 13. This is the first international climate change adaptation plan exclusively focused on health. The aim is to set up several actions – such as better health surveillance systems – to help countries prepare their health systems and respond to the health impacts of climate change, especially among the most vulnerable communities.

It is a voluntary framework for countries, international organisations and partners across civil society, academia and other sectors including philanthropy. Philanthropic organisations have already pledged an investment of $300 million to the Plan.

“Health is the most compelling reason for climate action, but for too long, health has been a footnote in climate negotiations,” said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organisation, in a statement. “The Belem Health Action Plan changes that, laying out concrete actions countries can take to build healthier, more resilient communities in a warming world.”

Marina Romanello, who is executive director of Lancet Countdown and with the Institute for Global Health, University College London said that only 44% of countries have costed their health adaptation needs, and that existing finance falls short by billions, Down to Earth reported.

“Each year, more than half a million lives are lost due to heat, and over 1,50,000 deaths are linked to wildfire smoke exposure,” she said at the press conference.

India at COP30

On November 11, India delivered statements on behalf of the Like Minded Developing Countries group, and the BASIC group (Brazil, South Africa, India and China). While registering its support of multilateralism, India also said that “unilateral climate-related trade measures risk becoming instruments of protectionism” and run against the spirit of the climate change Convention. India was referring to the European Union’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM).

The CBAM is basically a kind of carbon tax that the EU imposes on imported products such as iron, steel, cement and fertilisers, that produce high emissions during their manufacturing. As part of this tax, the importer has to purchase certificates to compensate for the emissions produced in the manufacturing or production of these goods.

Now this tax will be operational from January 2026. And if importers do not comply with this, they will have to forgo free allowances that the EU offers for these products.

The concern is that these carbon costs will have to be borne by the developing countries where the products are being manufactured and imported from, while developed countries have already contributed more than their share of emissions globally. India is among the top countries from where the EU imports such products and there are concerns about how this tax will affect the economy.

This carbon tax was a point of discussion and disagreement at the last COP as well.

Negotiations continue

Meanwhile, negotiations continue behind closed doors. These negotiations are one of the most important events at COPs. This is where world leaders and government representatives argue about what goes into agreement texts, including specific words and phrases. Like “phasing out” versus “phasing down” of fossil fuels. Every word matters.

There are several disagreements between member parties on many matters – as there’s bound to be at these COPs. Under negotiations as part of the Just Transition Work Programme, some parties including Like Minded Developing Countries (which includes India) have expressed disagreement about the CBAM on November 13, according to the Earth Negotiations Bulletin, when discussions turned to Unilateral Trade Measures (UTMs).

“The LMDCs lamented proliferation of UTMs such as the EU Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, noting it will divert financial flows from developing to developed countries, hampering poverty reduction and sustainable development efforts, but is estimated to only generate a 0.1% reduction in emissions,” the Bulletin noted.

Countries from the global north (Japan, UK and the EU), however, disagreed.

The Bulletin also showed that India and the Arab group had problems with including a statement about record-breaking temperatures in 2025 in one of the texts. They said it was “simply misleading” and that they could not support including this statement.

This comes even as there is increasing scientific evidence that 2025 will be one of the hottest years since record-keeping began. A recent report by the World Meteorological Organisation (a body under the UN) found that 2025 could be either the second or third warmest year on record.

Small island states, meanwhile, have described the 1.5 degrees Celsius limit for global heating as “a lifeline” and demanded that the world honour it.

Discussions are also ongoing on finalising the 100 indicators for adaptation as part of the Global Goal on Adaptation.

During discussions on climate research – specifically the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s efforts to enhance inclusivity – on November 14, India said that unless Parties come to a shared understanding of what inclusivity means, they cannot agree to any reference to inclusivity.

On November 14, the COP30 presidency confirmed the Ministerial pairings to Parties, one from a developed and a developing country each, to support negotiations in the second week at the climate summit. India and Australia will oversee discussions on technology transfer.a

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