Leaders Urge Unity as COP30 Opens in Brazil Without US Delegation

The 30th United Nations climate change conference, COP30, opened on Monday in Belem, Brazil, with an urgent call for global unity, and a notable absence from the United States.

“In this arena of COP30, your job here is not to fight one another – your job here is to fight this climate crisis, together,” UN climate chief Simon Stiell told delegates. His message was blunt: progress has been made, but far too slowly. “Lamenting is not a strategy. We need solutions.”

More than 50,000 participants from over 190 countries have gathered in the Brazilian Amazon for the 12-day summit, which comes amid record heat, fires, and floods across multiple continents. A UN review released ahead of the conference found that current national pledges fall dangerously short of the cuts needed to limit global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels — the threshold scientists say marks the line between crisis and catastrophe.

“Climate change is no longer a threat of the future. It is a tragedy of the present,” Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said in his opening remarks. Lula condemned climate denialism as a political weapon. “They attack institutions, they attack science and universities,” he said. “It’s time to inflict a new defeat on the deniers.”

The US decision not to send a delegation drew mixed reactions. The absence aligns with President Donald Trump’s rollback of climate commitments, including the withdrawal from the Paris Agreement and cuts to environmental funding.

COP30 President Andre Correa do Lago suggested Washington’s absence could shift the spotlight.

“The US’s absence has opened some space for the world to see what developing countries are doing,” he said.