COP30: Crowds march outside UN climate talks in Brazil

Marching to the beat of sound systems, thousands of climate protesters have been bringing their message to the doors of the COP30 climate talks in Brazil.

Shouting and chanting “free the Amazon,” protesters in the host city of Belém carried three giant coffins reading Oil, Coal and Gas, flanked by two grim reapers.

Indigenous groups displayed signs saying “the answer is us” as an inflatable elephant and an anaconda made their way through the crowds in the hot sun.

It is the first time since 2021 that protesters have been allowed to demonstrate outside the UN climate talks. The last three took place in countries that do not allow public protest.

“Fossil fuels are still being burned. We know very well what it’s like to live on the front line of climate change,” Brianna Fruean, a climate activist from Samoa, a low-lying island extremely vulnerable to climate change, told the BBC.

“We are here after so many COPS, marching for justice, for the end of fossil fuels,” said Ilan, of the non-governmental organization 350, who lives in Brazil.

Thousands of indigenous communities, Brazilian youth groups and activists joined the march.

Some carried signs reading “demarcation now,” calling for indigenous groups to be granted legal ownership of their territories.

Hundreds of indigenous groups live in the Amazon and are considered by experts to be the best protectors of biodiversity and forests.

Little sister protests have occurred around the world, including the UK.

This comes after protesters carrying signs breached security lines at the summit on Tuesday, with the incident causing minor injuries to two security staff and some limited damage to the site.

Meanwhile, further north in Belém, negotiations continued on Saturday at COP30. Almost 200 countries are coming together to try to make progress in the fight against climate change.

Little progress was made in the first week of talks, although some delegations say they are pushing for an agreed strategy to fulfill past promises to stop using planet-warming fossil fuels.

President Luis Ignacio Lula da Silva of Brazil is hosting the talks and chose the city of Belém to put the world’s focus on the Amazon and indigenous peoples.

But shortly before talks began last week, his government granted Brazil’s state oil company permission to explore for oil at the mouth of the Amazon.