Dispatches from Belém: To Be Seen and Heard at the COP

You know that level of brain-frazzled where your thoughts jump from one to the next and it feels like you’ve got a hundred tabs open in your mind but can’t reach any of them? That’s where I’m at right now.

It’s been another extremely long, but very beautiful day here at COP30 and I just don’t know where the time goes. One minute it’s 7 AM and I’m waiting for an Uber, the next it’s 5 PM and I’m not sure where these thousands of photos came from. Everything is moving in a constant blur, but one civil society action cut through the noise: a call to tax the rich.

Here’s the thing. We spend a lot of time asking individuals to make changes—use public transport, eat less meat, recycle more. And yes, individual action matters, especially when it builds collective norms for things we should be doing anyway.

But the climate crisis? It’s not being driven by average people.

According to Oxfam, the world’s 50 richest billionaires generate more carbon through their investments, private jets, and mega-yachts in just over 90 minutes than the average person emits in their entire lifetime.

And it gets worse. Nearly 40% of those investments are tied to polluting industries like oil, gas, mining, cement, and shipping. Since 2015, the world’s richest 1% have increased their wealth by $34 trillion—enough to eliminate global poverty 22 times over.

So yeah, I totally understand why a group of young activists demonstrated in the corridors with chants to ‘Tax The Rich’, ‘tax luxury flights’, and ‘Make Polluters Pay’.

Because what we’re talking about isn’t just wealth, it’s power—to pollute without consequence, to shape policy in boardrooms instead of parliaments, and to profit while the planet burns. Their carbon and financial footprints are systemically outsized, and their influence stretches far beyond where it should.

A global wealth tax could raise $1.7 trillion every year. Taxing polluting investments could bring in another $100 billion. That’s funding for adaptation, clean energy, climate justice, all the things we urgently need.

If we’re looking for real change, redistributing wealth isn’t radical—it’s necessary.

Indigenous peoples are the custodians of many of the planet’s remaining intact ecosystems. They live in direct relationship with the lands they protect and increasingly those lands are under threat. From agribusiness to oil exploitation to illegal mining and logging, Indigenous territories are targeted for resource extraction that not only undermines climate goals, but actively displaces the very communities best positioned to safeguard them.

And while Indigenous peoples have long been central to environmental protection, their rights and voices have rarely held equal weight in political negotiations. That’s why having the COP in the Amazon was so symbolic—in a way, it brought the negotiations to the people, not the other way around.

And you feel their presence everywhere. In the feathers, the beadwork, the paint. In the way colour moves through the space, vibrant reds reaching toward the sky, palms stained deep blue, ceremonial dress walking alongside suits and security passes. It’s grounding, and powerful, and a reminder that what’s at stake here isn’t just policy, it’s culture, memory, knowledge that stretches far beyond the walls of any negotiation room.

These days just get wilder by the minute. Whether it’s the absolutely sweltering heat, the constantly changing schedule, the rooms that are impossible to find, or the kilometre-long runway of a corridor that seems to lead to the ends of the Earth, #COP30 is delivering on all kinds of intensity.

I felt behind all day. Nearly every session on my schedule changed—either the room or the time—and I was constantly scrambling to catch up. At one point I was on the wrong side of the venue just as a session was about to start and had to sprint the entire way. I arrived breathless, just in time, and thought how appropriate the session was: Off Track.

That’s the title of the 2025 Emissions Gap Report by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), and the message is clear: when it comes to securing a liveable planet, we are off track.

Here’s how it works. The report measures the gap between where our emissions are headed under current pledges and policies, and where they need to be to stay below 1.5°C or even 2°C. How did we do? Not so great.

If every new pledge on the table was met, we are headed for 2.3-2.5°C of warming. Based only on current policies, it’s more like 2.8°C. To stay below 1.5°C, we need to cut global emissions by 55% by 2035.

So indeed, we are off track.

But as UNEP executive director Inger Anderson said, “We should not and cannot despair—we must become even more determined.” And she’s right, because for as bad as this sounds, turning this around is totally doable.

Before the Paris Agreement, we were headed for 3–3.5°C of warming. In just 10 years, clean energy has surged. Solar prices have dropped by 90%, wind by 70%. Renewables are now cheaper than fossil fuels in most parts of the world. The plan works, it’s just that we’re not moving fast enough.

Sure, it won’t be easy, but it is absolutely possible.

And I know this because, well, that was kind of my day too. Behind schedule, a bit out of sorts, but somehow the work still got done. Maybe not perfectly, but certainly with purpose. And sometimes, I guess that’s what progress looks like. Awkward, sweaty, and a little frazzled, but moving forward anyway.