When Brazil’s President Lula chose Belém - a coastal city close to the mouth of the Amazon River - to host the UN climate conference of Cop30, he did so to ensure that the world’s largest rainforest would be both symbolically and literally at the heart of discussions.
The focus could not be more timely: the world lost an average of almost 11 million hectares - an area the size of Iceland - of forest each year over the past decade, according to the recent UN Global Forest Resources Assessment, while another recent report has found that the world is well off-track from meeting a pledge signed by more than 100 countries at Cop26 in 2021 to halt or reverse deforestation by 2030.
