by Ben Wilson

‘Torrential rain. Intense heat. Thunder. Blocked toilets. Flooded walkways. A soaked press centre. Vibrant protests. Street parties. And then, a riot. We’re just two days into COP30, but this is a summit that resembles the glorious chaos of humanity better than any other in recent memory’.

So read one of the daily briefings from Ed King, a long-time observer of the UN climate process whose morning emails to delegates searingly critique these cumbersome and complex negotiations. And that was written before the fire, the flooding that split the conference centre grounds in two, and the wave of colds and viruses that knocked out half the delegation rooms.

This was my seventh COP, (Conference of the Parties, the decision making body of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change), but my first time to visit Latin America. I travelled to Belém knowing the Amazon would offer a different backdrop to what are usually sterile, airport-like spaces – placeless global arenas where you could just as easily be in Bonn, Katowice, or Sharm el-Sheikh. COPs are often designed to feel like ‘non-places’: heavily secured bubbles, insulated from local realities.

Belém could not have been more different.

Every afternoon, just after lunch, the Toro arrived – the daily torrential rain so loud it drowned out every conversation. ‘Toro waits for no one’ a Brazilian colleague whispered to me one day, as the Head of the Holy See Delegation had to pause his presentation while the daily downpour became deafening on the conference centre rooftop. For thirty minutes a day, much diplomatic theatre was silenced by the sound of the Amazon sky emptying itself onto the conference centre roof.

It was impossible to forget where we were.

Dr Ben Wilson is SCIAF’s Director of Public Engagement

Photo: The Caritas delegation at Belém.  Ben is standing on the left.