‘Turn game around’: Brazil’s COP30 president-designate invokes football’s spirit

1. ‘Turn game around’: Brazil’s COP30 president-designate invokes football’s spirit

Turn game around’: Brazil’s COP30 president-designate invokes football’s spirit ByJayashree Nandi Mar 10, 2025 07:23 PM IST Share Via Copy Link Brazil’s COP30 President-Designate André Aranha Corrêa do Lago outlined plans in a vision document presented on Monday to revitalise climate efforts amid significant setbacks

New Delhi: Brazil’s incoming COP30 presidency has urged countries to view the November climate summit as a crucial turning point for global action, invoking the football concept of “virada” — fighting back when defeat seems almost certain.

Brazil’s COP30 President-Designate André Aranha Corrêa do Lago. (AFP)

In a vision document presented on Monday, COP30 President-Designate André Aranha Corrêa do Lago outlined plans to revitalise climate efforts amid significant setbacks, including the US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement and disappointing finance commitments at last year’s talks.

“Together, we can make COP30 the moment we turn the game around, when we put into practice our political achievements and our collective knowledge to change the course of the next decade,” the document states.

The summit faces unprecedented challenges as it will be “the first to undeniably take place at the epicentre of the climate crisis,” according to the Brazilian presidency. January 2025 marked the warmest month on record globally, continuing a trend after 2024 became the first calendar year with average global temperatures exceeding 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.

February was the third-highest on record.

Adding to the urgency, the Financial Stability Board – the international body that monitors the global financial system – reported in January that climate shocks can threaten world financial stability. The summit will also be the first hosted in the Amazon, described as “one of the world’s most vital ecosystems, now at risk of reaching an irreversible tipping point, according to scientists.”

COP30, scheduled to be held in Belém in the Amazon region, will coincide with significant climate agreement anniversaries — 20 years since the Kyoto Protocol entered into force and a decade since the adoption of the Paris Agreement.

The Brazilian presidency plans to focus on pushing countries to submit climate plans aligned with limiting warming to 1.5°C and implementing the “Baku to Belém Roadmap to 1.3T” finance framework agreed at COP29, which it describes as “a fulcrum for leveraging finance to low-carbon and climate-resilience pathways in developing countries.”

While acknowledging that NDCs are “nationally determined and hence not subject to multilateral negotiations,” Brazil promised to “stimulate a frank collective reflection on bottlenecks that have been hampering climate ambition and implementation.”

“We will be judged in the future by our willingness to firmly respond to the growing climate crisis,” the document warns. “Lack of ambition will be judged as lack of leadership as there will be no global leadership in the 21st century that is not defined by climate leadership.”

The presidency called for “ambitious NDCs that privilege quality as a follow-up to legal obligations under the Paris Agreement,” urging countries to turn their climate plans “into platforms for a prosperous future that enshrine national determination to contribute and transform.”

Progress has notably slowed this year, with most G20 members including China, India, and the European Union missing the February deadline to update their nationally determined contributions (NDCs) for 2035. Only a handful of countries including Canada, Japan, Brazil, the UK and UAE have submitted updated targets.

These delays follow a contentious conclusion to COP29 in Baku, where developed countries’ offer of $300 billion in annual climate finance by 2035 was widely criticised as inadequate. The amount fell well short of the $600 billion sought by some developing nations.

India led opposition to the finance package, with negotiator Chandni Raina stating during the closing plenary: “We are extremely disappointed. Trust is the basis for all action and this incident is indicative of a lack of trust.”

Further complicating global climate efforts, U.S. President Donald Trump has ordered America’s withdrawal from the Paris Agreement and the rollback of key climate policies. The US is responsible for approximately 20% of historical CO2 emissions between 1850 and 2022, according to the United Nations Environment Programme.

The Brazilian presidency invoked the indigenous concept of “mutirão” — a community coming together to work on a shared task — in its call for renewed collaboration. The document concludes that “2025 must be the year we channel our sadness and indignation towards constructive collective action” while warning that “change is inevitable – either by choice or by catastrophe.”