Opinion: COP30 Should Unite The Crises The World Still Fights Separately

The United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP30, will take place in Belém, Brazil, from 10 November to 21 November.

The Brazilian Amazon Rainforest in 2017. // CREDIT: iStock

Today, November 10, COP30 officially opens in Belém, at the gateway to the Amazon Rainforest – the planet’s green heart and a symbol of both vulnerability and hope. Here, in the world’s largest rainforest, which shapes the climate across much of South America and is central to the global carbon cycle, world leaders must confront a crisis that has already surpassed its limits. The summit begins at a decisive moment, as countries submit their updated climate plans under the 2015 Paris Agreement. The accord requires nations to present new or strengthened “nationally determined contributions” (NDCs), national plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, every five years. According to the UN’s 2025 Emissions Gap Report, data collected ahead of COP30 show that slow global action to cut planet-heating emissions will push temperatures well beyond the 1.5°C target, at least temporarily. Financing also remains a major challenge. At COP29 in Baku, countries agreed on a goal to mobilise 1.3 trillion US dollars annually by 2035, but concrete action is still lacking. In the lead-up to COP30, Brazil’s negotiators have emphasized the need to integrate climate, nature, development, and social justice into the international agenda. The summit offers a chance to turn the commitments of the Paris Agreement from rules into action, including laying out a roadmap for the UN’s new global finance goal. Financing is particularly crucial, since nature – which itself mitigates the climate crisis – still receives only a small share of climate funds. The question is whether the world will succeed in breaking free from a logic that continues to reward isolated approaches, where climate, nature, and development are treated as separate policy tracks.

The loss of nature is not only a tragedy in itself, but also an economic and climatic risk. More than half of the world’s GDP depends on intact ecosystems, and the degradation of natural capital can have enormous consequences. Investing in nature should therefore be common sense. For climate action to truly make a difference, nature-based solutions must be prioritized equally with other measures, and funding must reach those who actually protect nature on the ground. Encouragingly, there are, however, small signs of change: Brazil has proposed a permanent fund whose returns would finance tropical forest conservation, with part of the resources directly allocated to Indigenous Peoples. It's time to move beyond separated approaches. The climate crisis does not stand alone. According to recent research, seven of nine planetary boundaries have now been exceeded – including those for biodiversity, land use, and freshwater. Planetary boundaries indicate how much pressure the Earth can withstand before its systems change so fundamentally that our basis for life is threatened. Despite clear scientific connections, we continue to address these challenges separately – as if they were isolated spreadsheets.

Climate financing often flows in one stream, nature financing in another, and development aid in a third. Even the Sustainable Development Goals, meant to provide a global, holistic sustainability framework, are often treated in parallel practice, with focus placed on individual goals rather than the whole. The result is that holistic initiatives capable of addressing multiple crises at once still struggle to secure long-term and stable financing.

Intact ecosystems are the planet’s safety net. They store carbon, regulate climate and water, and strengthen resilience against extreme weather. Listing everything nature does for us would require an article of its own. Research shows that nature-based solutions, including the preservation of tropical rainforests, could provide about one-third of the necessary CO₂ reductions by 2030 – and at a fraction of the cost of technological alternatives. Yet, only a few percent of global climate financing go toward nature-based solutions. This says much about us as a species: we prefer to invent our way out of crises rather than change behaviour and make room for the nature that absorbs CO₂ on its own. The true transformation is not about technology but about our relationship with nature and the life that makes our planet unique.

The people who actually protect and depend on nature are also overlooked in financial systems. Indigenous peoples and other local communities, often hit hardest by climate change, manage some of the planet’s most intact and biodiverse ecosystems – areas that absorb enormous amounts of CO₂. Yet they, too, receive only a few percent of global climate financing. When these communities gain real access to resources and rights, they preserve forests and reduce pressure on nature – and thereby on the climate. At the same time, they serve as strong models for sustainable local development. Investing in their stewardship is both socially just and effective for nature and climate.

That COP30 is taking place in the Amazon is symbolic in itself. The region holds both immense biological diversity and immense challenges – from deforestation and CO₂ emissions to inequality and social vulnerability. Here, world leaders should be reminded that nature, climate, and development are inextricably linked. The summit could become the place where climate and biodiversity agreements are united in practice – where financing and policy finally reflect this connection. If we invest in what binds us together – in nature and in the people who protect it – COP30 could mark the beginning of the systemic change we all need.