![\"People](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/1762897450_42_4552.jpg\")
People inspect the damage in the aftermath of Hurricane Melissa, in Black River, Jamaica. Photograph: Raquel Cunha\/Reuters<\/p>\nWorld must “honour 1.5C”, small island states insist<\/p>\n
Small island states have described the 1.5C limit for global heating as \u201ca lifeline\u201d and demanded that the world honours it, amid increasing gloom that the symbolic target has already been breached.<\/p>\n
\u201cSmall island states are here to demand we honour 1.5,\u201d Toiata Apelu-Uili, mitigation coordinator for the Alliance of Small Island States (Aosis), was quoted as saying by the Reuters news agency.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is not a political slogan. This is a lifeline for our survival, for our small islands. We\u2019re here because our survival, our people, our lives are not negotiable.\u201d<\/p>\n
People inspect the damage in the aftermath of Hurricane Melissa, in Black River, Jamaica. Photograph: Raquel Cunha\/Reuters<\/p>\n
Apelu-Uili, who travelled for two days to get to Belem from Samoa, spoke at a side event on day one of Cop30<\/a>, where representatives of small island states offered delegates a start reminder of what failure at the climate talks looks like.<\/p>\n \u201cHurricane Melissa slammed into Jamaica a week-and-a-half ago and every single Jamaican now knows the word catastrophic,\u201d said UnaMay Gordon, a former director of climate change for the Jamaican government and adviser to the Caribbean Community Climate Change Center, which coordinates climate action.<\/p>\n The strongest ever storm to hit Jamaica left dozens dead and caused billions of dollars worth of damage, roughly equivalent to 28% to 32% of last year\u2019s gross domestic product, according to the island\u2019s prime minister.<\/p>\n \u201cWe lost cultural heritage, 300-year-old churches are lost. A part of our identity was lost with it. People are hurting,\u201d Gordon told reporters.<\/p>\n Scientists say that breaching 1.5C would lead to several irreversible changes, like melting ice caps driving faster sea level rises of the kind that supercharged the winds driving Hurricane Melissa. Antonio Guterres, the UN secretary general, last week described its breaching as a \u201cmoral failure and deadly negligence\u201d.<\/p>\n Share<\/a><\/p>\n Updated at\u00a013.39 EST<\/p>\n Key events<\/p>\n Show key events only<\/p>\n Please turn on JavaScript to use this feature<\/p>\n We\u2019re going to wind up the blog for the day now. After the conference reached agreement on the agenda, the notable events today included:<\/p>\n Kayapo chief Raoni, Brazil\u2019s most prominent indigenous leader, has urged the country\u2019s government to empower indigenous peoples to preserve the Amazon rainforest<\/p>\n Removing carbon from the atmosphere will be necessary to avoid catastrophic tipping points, one of the world\u2019s leading scientists Johan Rockstr\u00f6m has warned<\/p>\n California will prioritise green tech and climate, governor Gavin Newsom told Cop30<\/p>\n Small island states have described the 1.5C limit for global heating as \u201ca lifeline\u201d and demanded that the world honours it<\/p>\n For the first time in the history of these annual UN climate talks, the US has not sent a single official delegate, an analysis by Carbon Brief has confirmed<\/p>\n \u201cCiao, bambino!\u201d was the message Christiana Figueres, former executive secretary of the United Nations framework convention on climate change, had for the US<\/p>\n And Cop32 will be hosted in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, Reuters reports.<\/p>\n It\u2019s been a pleasure and we look forward to seeing you all tomorrow!<\/p>\n Share<\/a><\/p>\n Updated at\u00a016.01 EST<\/p>\n Dharna Noor<\/p>\n More than 100 people gathered outside the Cop29 venue on Tuesday evening calling for an end to Israel\u2019s siege on Gaza, reports my colleague Dharna Noor.<\/p>\n \u201cStop, stop ecocide,\u201d they chanted. \u201cStop, stop genocide.\u201d<\/p>\n At the UN climate talks, some activists are calling for Israel to be removed from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. \u201cA state committing genocide and apartheid cannot participate in the UNFCCC negotiations without threatening their credibility,\u201d one activist said, noting that UN bodies have said Israel is committing genocide<\/a> in Gaza.<\/p>\n The organizers also called for an energy embargo on Israel, blocking the fuel that sustains the country. As of November 10, the latest figures from the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza, confirm that at least 69,ooo people have been killed. Two thirds of Gaza\u2019s farmland<\/a> has been destroyed by Israeli forces.<\/p>\n Many at the protest said they had been directly impacted by Israel\u2019s war on Gaza. \u201cThe Israeli regime has killed my entire father\u2019s side of my family and has displaced my entire mother\u2019s side,\u201d said Mohammed Usrof of the Palestinian Institute for Climate Strategy.<\/p>\n Organizers said they were not permitted to have the protest in the halls of Cop29. This has not deterred the movement, said Jamal Juma of the Boycott Divest Sanctions movement and Stop the Wall Coalition.<\/p>\n \u201cOur voice is louder than their voice,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Share<\/a>This drone view show one of the Char islands gradually vanishing into the Brahmaputra River because of erosion. Photograph: Sam Jahan\/Reuters<\/p>\n Meanwhile, in case you missed this powerful piece yesterday, Reuters reported<\/a> on how land erosion is affecting people in Bangladesh.<\/p>\n Every year, hundreds of families in northern Bangladesh\u2019s Kurigram district face the same fate. As riverbanks collapse, people lose not only their homes but also their land, crops, and livestock. The Brahmaputra, Teesta, and Dharla rivers \u2014 once lifelines for millions \u2014 have become unpredictable, eroding land faster than ever before.<\/p>\n The chars \u2014 sandy, shifting islands scattered across the country\u2019s northern plains \u2014 are among the most fragile places in Bangladesh. Families rebuild again and again, only for the river to take everything they have.<\/p>\n People carry parts of the house belonging to Nurun Nabi, 30, to load onto a boat, after he was forced to relocate to another island due to erosion caused by the Brahmaputra River, in Kurigram, Bangladesh Photograph: Mohammad Ponir Hossain\/ReutersShare<\/a><\/p>\n It appears there has been some kind of mix up and Gavin Newsom, the California governor, won\u2019t actually be speaking at Cop30<\/a> for another hour or so. Sorry about that!<\/p>\n Share<\/a>Kayapo chief Raoni criticises Amazon infrastructure projects<\/p>\n Brazil\u2019s most prominent indigenous leader has urged the country\u2019s government to empower indigenous peoples to preserve the Amazon rainforest, Reuters reports.<\/p>\n In an interview with the news agency, Raoni Metuktire warned that plans to build infrastructure in Amazon region \u2013 including proposed highways, rail projects and oil wells \u2013 are a direct threat to the forest and its people, and would harm people across the world.<\/p>\n Indigenous leader Chief Raoni Metuktire at COP30 in Belem, Brazil. Photograph: Andr\u00e9 Borges\/EPA<\/p>\n Speaking in his native language of Kayapo, with his grandson translating, Chief Raoni told Reuters:<\/p>\n These projects destroy rivers and lands and they are continuing to do it. I don\u2019t like it. I had said long ago that there will be many very bad consequences for us.<\/p>\n It will be very bad for us. And for you too. You are bringing the consequences upon yourselves.<\/p>\n Kayapo women during an event at Cop30. The Kayapo chief Raoni condemned oil drilling in the Amazon. Photograph: Andr\u00e9 Borges\/EPA<\/p>\n Dozens of indigenous leaders have travelled to Bel\u00e9m for this year\u2019s UN Cop30<\/a> climate summit, which had been billed as the \u201cAmazonian Cop\u201d, with promises of greater representation for indigenous peoples.<\/p>\n A key demand of indigenous groups worldwide is for a greater say in how the lands they live on are managed. Chief Raoni urged Brazil\u2019s government to give legal protections to tribal lands. He said:<\/p>\n I had spoken to Lula when we met before he took office and told him that it was necessary to do it so, that finally my people, my relatives, could have their lands by right.<\/p>\n Raoni also attended the Earth Summit in Rio in 1992. But he told Reuters he had seen no progress in attitudes towards the environment since then. Photograph: Andr\u00e9 Borges\/EPA<\/p>\n He also criticised a number of projects, including a plan to pave a highway through the forest, and a license granted a few weeks ago<\/a> allowing Brazil\u2019s state-run oil company Petrobras to explore for offshore oil 500km from the mouth of the Amazon River.<\/p>\n Raoni is no stranger to international environmental summits. He attended the 1992 Earth Rio Summit, which produced the UN climate treaty under the auspices of which the Cop summits take place. He was downbeat on progress since then.<\/p>\n When there were forests everywhere, I went to that meeting to talk about the forest. I said that our forest had to be preserved. And even so, they continued to destroy everything.<\/p>\n You non-Indigenous people, perhaps you should have listened and thought about your children, thought about your grandchildren, so that the forest can live and contribute to the lives of new generations, of your grandchildren.<\/p>\n Share<\/a><\/p>\n California governor Gavin Newsom will be speaking at Cop30<\/a> in a few minutes.<\/p>\n Embedded at the top of the blog is a live feed of the summit\u2019s session on adaptation, cities and climate innovation, at which Newsom will speak alongside Christiana Figueres, the former UN climate chief.<\/p>\n Newsom is in Belem representing America Is All In and the US Climate Alliance, two organisations trying to keep America relevant in the fight against climate breakdown.<\/p>\n Share<\/a> Removing carbon from the atmosphere will be necessary to avoid catastrophic tipping points, one of the world\u2019s leading scientists has warned, as even in the best-case scenario the world will heat by about 1.7C, writes Jonathan Watts, the Guardian\u2019s global environment writer.<\/p>\n Johan Rockstr\u00f6m of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, who is one of the chief scientific advisers to the UN and the Cop30<\/a> presidency, said 10bn tonnes of carbon dioxide needed to be removed from the air every year even to limit global heating to 1.7C (3.1F) above preindustrial levels.<\/p>\n To achieve this through technological means, such as direct air capture, would require the construction of the world\u2019s second biggest industry, after oil and gas, and require expenditures of about a trillion dollars a year, scientists said. It would need to be done alongside much more drastic emissions cuts and could also have unintended consequences.<\/p>\n Rockstr\u00f6m was among several leading climate experts who spoke at a first public event for the Science Council, which was set up as an advisory body by the Bel\u00e9m Cop30<\/a> presidency.<\/p>\n Share<\/a>A group of women hold up a banner saying “feminists demand climate justice” at the Cop30 climate summit in Belem, Brazil. Photograph: Jonathan Watts\/The GuardianActivists at the Cop30 summit calling for what they call a \u201cBel\u00e9m Action Mechanism\u201d, a proposal to actualise nations’ pledges to protect workers in the transition away from polluting industry. “Though there are negotiations, there are some things that should be non-negotiable,” one activist said. Photograph: Dharna Noor\/The GuardianShare<\/a>California will prioritise green tech and climate, governor tells Cop30<\/p>\n California will continue to prioritise green technology and climate policy, the state\u2019s governor, Gavin Newsom, told delegates at Cop30, in defiance of Donald Trump\u2019s opposition to the green agenda.<\/p>\n \u201cThe United States of America is as dumb as we want to be on this topic, but the state of California is not,\u201d Newsom said, in the first of several scheduled appearances at the U.N. climate summit in Brazil<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd so we are going to assert ourselves, we\u2019re going to lean in, and we are going to compete in this space.\u201d<\/p>\n Gavin Newsom speaking during an event at the COP30 summit on Tuesday. Photograph: Andr\u00e9 Penner\/AP<\/p>\n Newsom, one of Trump\u2019s most strident opponents, who has for months been teasing a run for the White House in 2028, arrived this week in Bel\u00e9m with a message that his state will continue to be a \u201creliable partner\u201d on green policy.<\/p>\n Though California is just one of 50 US states, the size of its economy \u2013 the world\u2019s fourth-largest \u2013 makes it a key player in influencing markets and energy policy.<\/p>\n Newsom is expected to meet with officials from some of the 195 governments taking part in Cop30, as well as a series of subnational leaders, including the governor of Brazil\u2019s state of Para, the location of the summit.<\/p>\n Trump, who has declared climate change a hoax, made withdrawing the US from the Paris Agreement one of his first acts on resuming the presidency at the beginning of this year, and he has not sent a single official to this year\u2019s climate summit.<\/p>\n \u201cThe reason I\u2019m here is in the absence of leadership coming from the United States,\u201d Newsom said at an investors summit in Brazil\u2019s financial hub of Sao Paulo on Monday, according to Reuters. \u201cThis vacuum, it\u2019s rather jaw-dropping.\u201d<\/p>\n Share<\/a><\/p>\n Visitors to the Cop30<\/a> climate summit may have tried the Amazon\u2019s famous acai berry before. But they are likely to be in for a surprise when they taste its authentic preparation in Bel\u00e9m, according to a report by the Associated Press.<\/p>\n The US-based news agency reports that acai bowls served by local vendors in the Amazonian city are served \u2013 true to the dish\u2019s rainforest roots \u2013 unadulterated and without sugar.<\/p>\n Punters more used to the frozen and sweetened acai cream sold in other countries, and elsewhere in Brazil<\/a>, are finding it an acquired taste.<\/p>\n \u201cI can\u2019t say this is bad and I totally respect the cultural importance of it, but I still prefer the ice creamy version,\u201d Catherine Bernard, from France, told AP as she tasted a traditional acai berry bowl in downtown Belem on Thursday.<\/p>\n A woman prepares a large bowl of acai at a market in Bel\u00e9m, Brazil, over the weekend. Photograph: Fernando Llano\/AP<\/p>\n Indigenous people in the Amazon have cultivated the acai berry for hundreds of years. The nutrient-rich fruit is blended into a thick liquid and served at room temperature with a sprinkling of tapioca flour.<\/p>\n Tain\u00e1 Marajoara, an activist and owner of a restaurant, told AP: \u201cThe acai coming from Indigenous people is the food when there\u2019s no food. It was never a drink or an extra. It can be the main course for us.\u201d<\/p>\n Marajoara\u2019s restaurant at the Cop3- pavilion charges 25 Brazilian reais ($5) for a bowl, about the same as bowls in other parts of Brazil that use industrially processed and sweetened acai cream, often with toppings.<\/p>\n A woman feeds acai to her child at a market in Bel\u00e9m, Brazil. Photograph: Fernando Llano\/APShare<\/a>World must “honour 1.5C”, small island states insist<\/p>\n Small island states have described the 1.5C limit for global heating as \u201ca lifeline\u201d and demanded that the world honours it, amid increasing gloom that the symbolic target has already been breached.<\/p>\n \u201cSmall island states are here to demand we honour 1.5,\u201d Toiata Apelu-Uili, mitigation coordinator for the Alliance of Small Island States (Aosis), was quoted as saying by the Reuters news agency.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is not a political slogan. This is a lifeline for our survival, for our small islands. We\u2019re here because our survival, our people, our lives are not negotiable.\u201d<\/p>\n People inspect the damage in the aftermath of Hurricane Melissa, in Black River, Jamaica. Photograph: Raquel Cunha\/Reuters<\/p>\n Apelu-Uili, who travelled for two days to get to Belem from Samoa, spoke at a side event on day one of Cop30<\/a>, where representatives of small island states offered delegates a start reminder of what failure at the climate talks looks like.<\/p>\n \u201cHurricane Melissa slammed into Jamaica a week-and-a-half ago and every single Jamaican now knows the word catastrophic,\u201d said UnaMay Gordon, a former director of climate change for the Jamaican government and adviser to the Caribbean Community Climate Change Center, which coordinates climate action.<\/p>\n The strongest ever storm to hit Jamaica left dozens dead and caused billions of dollars worth of damage, roughly equivalent to 28% to 32% of last year\u2019s gross domestic product, according to the island\u2019s prime minister.<\/p>\n \u201cWe lost cultural heritage, 300-year-old churches are lost. A part of our identity was lost with it. People are hurting,\u201d Gordon told reporters.<\/p>\n Scientists say that breaching 1.5C would lead to several irreversible changes, like melting ice caps driving faster sea level rises of the kind that supercharged the winds driving Hurricane Melissa. Antonio Guterres, the UN secretary general, last week described its breaching as a \u201cmoral failure and deadly negligence\u201d.<\/p>\n Share<\/a><\/p>\n Updated at\u00a013.39 EST<\/p>\n Hello this is Damien Gayle, once again taking the reins on the Guardian\u2019s live coverage of the Cop30 circus in Bel\u00e9m, Brazil<\/a>, with thanks to Ajit for bringing you through the last few hours.<\/p>\n As ever, if you have any suggestions about what we should be covering on here please do feel free to drop me a line at damien.gayle@theguardian.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n Share<\/a><\/p>\n Here are a few photos of campaigners protesting today at Cop30<\/a>. They include calls for a \u201cjust transition\u201d away from fossil fuels, feminists demanding climate justice, and a push to get oil and gas lobbyists out of UN climate talks.<\/p>\n A performer participates in a demonstration near a sign that reads “just transition”. Photograph: Andr\u00e9 Penner\/APDemonstrators protest carrying a sign that reads “feminists demand climate justice”. Photograph: Andr\u00e9 Penner\/APA woman holds a fan with a message that reads “Oil lobbyists out”. Photograph: Adriano Machado\/ReutersShare<\/a> For the first time in the history of these annual UN climate talks, the US has not sent a single official delegate, an analysis by Carbon Brief has confirmed.<\/p>\n The US is in rare company at this year\u2019s Cop summit in Belem, with only Afghanistan, Myanmar and San Marino also sending no delegates to the Amazon. Carbon Brief drew the numbers from the provisional<\/a> lists<\/a> of delegates published by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change<\/a> (UNFCCC).<\/p>\n The lack of US representation is in line with the Trump administration confirming it would send no high-level officials to the talks, after the president had lambasted concerns over the climate crisis as a \u201ccon job\u201d and a \u201choax.\u201d<\/p>\n Trump has spent recent months cajoling other countries to purchase US oil and gas, weakening their climate policies in order to do so. Despite the American absence, there has been nervousness in Belem that the administration will attempt to try to derail aspects of the climate talks by putting pressure on other countries from afar.<\/p>\n![\"Jonathan](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/1762897450_694_Jonathan_Watts.jpg\")
Jonathan WattsJohan Rockstrom, head of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. Photograph: Michael Sohn\/AP<\/p>\n![\"Oliver](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/1762897451_722_Oliver-Milman,-L.png\")
Oliver Milman<\/p>\n