Climate protesters seek action at COP30

BELEM, Brazil — Thousands of climate protesters marched through the Brazilian city of Belem on Saturday in a noisy, diverse and peaceful display to demand more action to protect the planet and to vent their anger at governments and fossil fuel industries.

As the first week of the COP30 climate conference limped to a close with nations deadlocked, indigenous people and activists sang, chanted and rolled a giant beach ball of Earth through Belem under a searing sun.

Others held a mock funeral procession for fossil fuels, dressed in black and pretending to be grieving widows as they carried three coffins marked with the words "coal", "oil" and "gas".

"We are here to try to apply pressure so that countries fulfill their promises and we don't accept a regression," Txai Surui, a 28-year-old indigenous leader, told AFP.

Called the "Great People's March" by organizers, the rally comes at the halfway point of difficult negotiations and follows two protests led by indigenous groups that disrupted proceedings earlier last week.

"Today we are witnessing a massacre as our forest is being destroyed," Benedito Huni Kuin, 50, a member of the Huni Kuin indigenous group from western Brazil, told AFP.

"We want to make our voices heard from the Amazon and demand results," he said. "We need more indigenous representatives at COP to defend our rights."

Their demands include "reparations" for damage caused by corporations and governments, especially to marginalized communities.

After a 4.5-kilometer march through the city, the demonstration stopped a few blocks from the COP30 venue, where authorities deployed soldiers to protect the site.

Inside the venue, COP30 President Andre Correa do Lago conceded that the first exhaustive week of negotiations had failed to make a breakthrough and urged diplomats not to run down the clock with time-wasting maneuvers.

"The stakes are too high for us to allow procedural tactics or stalled discussions to stand in the way of progress," he said.

He promised to publish a "note" on Sunday to summarize the positions of parties — a to-do list of sorts for government ministers taking over the negotiations on Monday.

Agencies via Xinhua