A Chronicle of COP30: Where the Amazon Speaks and the Guardians Stand Watch
By Mariana Alves Tavares, Program Advisor WD2026, Women Deliver
Curupira is a guardian. In the folk stories told across the Amazon, he walks barefoot, with blazing hair and feet turned backward to confuse hunters who enter the forest with greed. He protects life by disrupting paths of destruction. He warns, he punishes, and he shelters. At COP30, held for the first time in the heart of the Amazon, his presence was everywhere. Not only as the official mascot, but as a reminder that this land is alive, that this forest has agency, and that its protectors have names, faces, and struggle.
Arriving in Belém, Brazil, meant arriving in a place that breathes for the world. The humidity pressed against our skin, the heat intensified by the climate crisis itself, and the heavy rains falling almost daily reminded all of us why the Amazon is a rainforest. For many, it was an abstract idea. In Belém, it became physical.
A Conference of Contrasts
Belém and its population welcomed the world with generosity and solidarity. Yet, inside the blue zone, another reality emerged. The contrast between the urgency outside and the spectacle inside was jarring. From the sponsored welcome kits with skin products to the water cans branded by corporations, everything resembled a corporate trade fair more than a climate conference. Having attended several UN high- level events, international conferences, and trade fairs, nothing prepared me for the surreal mix at COP, where multinational companies launched green products and governments showcased investments as if competing for market share. The question kept returning to me. What space am I in? Who is this conference truly serving?
Inside this setting, the gendered realities of the climate crisis often risked becoming background noise, overshadowed by the spectacle of corporate displays and elaborate country pavilions.
Those of us working on gender and climate could see how little space was given to the daily experiences of girls and women, from unpaid care and loss of income to rising risks of gender-based violence and disrupted access to sexual and reproductive health care. Every year at COP, it feels like we must speak louder to ensure these experiences are not forgotten.
If multilateralism is in crisis, COP30 revealed both its fractures and its possibilities. Brazil aimed to demonstrate leadership in climate diplomacy by positioning this as the COP of implementation, and it opened its doors to a historic mobilization of civil society. The country brought the largest Indigenous delegation ever recorded. Activists protested freely, and grassroots voices were present in ways that had been restricted in previous COPs hosted in countries with tighter civic space. Yet, this progress was overshadowed by disparities in access. Lobbyists entered pavilions with ease, while Indigenous groups without accreditation protested outside the gates. The images were clear. A climate conference that was born to regulate polluters had become, once again, a marketplace where some of the largest environmental offenders promoted themselves as sustainable champions, while those facing the sharpest gendered and racialized impacts struggled to be heard on their own terms.
One example was especially painful. Days before COP began, Brazil marked ten years since the Mariana dam collapse in Minas Gerais, one of the worst environmental disasters in the country’s history. The impacts remain irreversible. Local biodiversity was destroyed. Thousands lost their livelihoods. Women faced increased gender-based violence, limited access to sexual and reproductive health services, and immense obstacles in securing reparations. Yet, one of the companies involved was inside COP30 presenting itself as a model of green transition and corporate responsibility. If Curupira guards the forest, this would be exactly the kind of entity he would block from crossing his territory.
A Cry for Gender and Racial Justice
At the gates, voices refused to be silenced. Indigenous protesters said to the media, in a cry that echoed into the blue zone: “Our forest is not for sale. Where is justice for us? Where is the world that says it protects territories and the Amazon? The COP does not speak for us. The COP speaks for the interests of countries and companies that destroy.” Their words summarized a tension that defined this COP.
A gathering meant to protect the planet risked becoming complicit in its destruction. A destruction that women have been holding the line against for generations.
This tension also shaped the negotiations. The final agreement avoided recognizing the need to phase out fossil fuels. Major producing countries resisted and boycotted key efforts. Even language that had been accepted in previous years became a battleground. The global rise of anti-rights movements and denialist rhetoric was visible in every room. Wealthy countries that had once supported ambitious commitments shifted positions, creating a wave of regressions that shook the core of climate multilateralism. Such rollbacks are never abstract — they translate directly into threats to health, safety, and livelihoods, especially for those dependent on climate-sensitive resources such as girls and women.
The Gender Action Plan (GAP) negotiations also reflected this trend. The debate was not simply technical. It was political and symbolic. It was about which bodies count and which identities remain erased in climate policy. Some states insisted on removing basic human rights language, including mistakenly reducing the importance of access to sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) to abortion only. Others opposed explicit recognition of gender-diverse people. Foundational rights language included in the Lima Work Programme on Gender was not carried into this sister mandate due to pressure from a growing conservative bloc of States.
At the same time, there were meaningful advances. For the first time, a COP document recognized the disproportionate impacts of climate change on people of African descent. The new GAP includes explicit references to “women and girls of African descent” and, for the first time in COP history, recognizes Afro-descendant communities in core climate negotiation documents. This represents a historic step for movements that have fought for this recognition, a milestone for racial justice in global climate policy that cannot be overlooked.
These negotiations exposed how deeply gender, race, and power are intertwined in climate policy, and why feminist tools like the Global Feminist Playbook are essential for challenging the systems that decide whose bodies and realities are acknowledged in global agreement.
Beside the New GAP, there was also a significant victory for workers and civil society. The creation of the Belém Action Mechanism, known as BAM, was one of the most meaningful outcomes of the conference. BAM will operate as a global platform to coordinate support, share practices, and mobilize resources for just transitions. This places fairness and social dimensions at the center of national climate planning.
The last days of COP were tense. Delegates negotiated through the night. Civil society monitored every line of text. On Thursday morning, flames rose above the venue during a fire incident that caused no human casualties but partially damaged the area where country and corporate-sponsored pavilions were hosted. The symbolism was impossible to ignore. For those who grew up with folk stories from the Amazon, it felt as if Curupira was signaling his disapproval. He has fire on his head. He appears when the forest is threatened. He warns those who ignore its pain, reminding us that the forest sees what happens inside and outside the negotiation rooms. He warns those who harm and strengthens those who defend.
Leaving Belém was leaving with a mix of concern and conviction.
Concern because the forces opposing climate justice and human rights are coordinated and expanding. Conviction because the resistance is just as organized and refuses to accept the erosion of rights. Indigenous women, young Black leaders, LGBTQIA+ activists, quilombola communities, and many others on the frontlines of climate collapse continue to demand a future where climate solutions do not reproduce the inequalities that spaces such as COP were meant to address.
From the Amazon to Naarm
As COP30 unfolded, it became impossible to ignore the voices missing from the negotiation halls. At Women Deliver, we have been imagining how to help fill this gap, including through our conversations with the UNFCCC about hosting a COP Pavilion at the Women Deliver 2026 Conference (WD2026). The Conference will be a space to carry these discussions forward, with strong representation and commitment from those who protect forests, oceans, and women’s rights. It will be an international gathering that prioritizes regional engagement and honors the leadership of First Nations, ensuring their voices are present with power, deep respect for their land, and recognition of their Elders.
Just as Indigenous communities in Brazil raised their demands at COP30, WD2026 in Naarm, (Melbourne), Australia, offers a chance to connect these struggles across continents. Brazil and Australia share histories shaped by colonization, where Indigenous and First Nations peoples were the first custodians of the land. WD2026 will create space to listen to and learn from the peoples of the Pacific and First Nations communities, whose leadership is essential as we confront the forces that privilege the powerful while attempting to silence those who protect the planet.
Naarm will watch us coming together at WD2026, carrying the energy of the Feminist Playbook, a collective declaration co-created with partners to articulate our shared vision for gender equality and justice. The Playbook calls us to unite across movements and defend our rights. It is a living map of the journey ahead: naming what must change, challenging systems that were never built for girls and women and gender diverse people, and taking concrete steps toward a just, equal, and climate-resilient world. It seeks to redefine the very power structure and systems we saw at play in Belém.
Perhaps Curupira, with his fire and his reversed footsteps, reminds us of two things. First, that the path ahead is not linear. Protecting the planet and our rights asks for more than negotiated words. It calls for courage, imagination, and the persistence to center women, traditional communities, and all those who experience the deepest impacts of the climate crisis. As long as we move alongside them, Curupira will walk with us, guiding, unsettling the powerful and the greedy, always defending life in the forests and beyond.
