From DW News.
Heads of state are gathering on Thursday and Friday in the Brazilian city of Belem for a Global Leaders Summit ahead of the UN COP30 climate conference. This year’s summit is taking place in the heart of the Amazon — a vulnerable region critical to climate stability — as pressure mounts to curb rising emissions and global temperatures driving deadly extreme weather around the world. Germany and the UK are among the fewer than 60 nations likely to send heads of state. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will also attend.
Leadership more important than ever
While the leaders meeting isn’t generally expected to produce concrete climate solutions, Johan Rockström, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, said it is crucial in setting the direction of COP negotiations. "There wouldn’t have been a Paris Agreement without the heads of state leader summit first." He says the presence of leaders such as then German chancellor Angela Merkel and US president Barack Obama was crucial to facilitating the 2015 landmark treaty under which signatories agreed to try and limit temperatures to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels. Negotiators will be looking at the leaders’ summit to give a "north star" of where to aim in coming negotiations, says Rockström. Geopolitical tensions, multiple wars, economic uncertainty due to US tariffs as well as President Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris Agreement and rollback of clean energy policies have all created a challenging environment for this year’s talks.
#COP30 #ClimateSummit #Belem2025
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