Every Tuesday from April to July 2024, young people from all over Brazil met to take part in the first phase of the Operation COP 2024 Programme, devised by The Climate Reality Project, a global organisation dedicated to finding ways to mobilise young people to tackle the climate emergency. The programme consists of training the next generation of climate leaders through participation in negotiations at the Conferences of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the COPs.

People from different parts of the world gathered in Bonn from 3 to 13 June 2024 for the 60th Session of the Subsidiary Bodies of the UNFCCC, more popularly known as the June climate negotiations, which pave the way for the Conference of the Parties, usually held in November of the same year. After some articulation, I was also present as a researcher at the Interdisciplinary Observatory on Climate Change and as a young activist for climate justice.

After a 14-year hiatus since their last meeting, the signatory countries of the Amazon Cooperation Treaty met again on 8 and 9 August 2023 in Belém, Pará, to establish a new common agenda for regional cooperation for the sustainable development of the Amazon. The Summit’s objectives also included strengthening the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organisation (OTCA) and bringing tropical forest possessing countries closer together in international negotiations

In November 2022, in Sharm el-Sheikh, the countries part of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) agreed on the need to create a “loss and damage” fund. This result was seen by the countries and non-governmental organisations of the South as a historic breakthrough following three decades of resistance from developed countries to negotiating this agenda. Almost eight months later, on 13 July 2023, John Kerry, the US special envoy for climate change, when asked at a congressional hearing whether the US would pay for “climate reparations”, answered categorically: “no, under no circumstances”.

Speeches are more than words, they are expressions of the ideas and interests of the actors who give them, especially when it comes to the president of a nation. By analyzing the content of the discourse of political actors, such as Brazil’s president, one can accurately identify the ideas and the interests behind its political outlook on specific issues.

The eyes of the world community are once again set upon the fight against global warming, thanks to the Climate Summit hosted by the US government. After former president Donald Trump announced Washington’s withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, the United States resumed its leadership position in the climate change mitigation and adaptation movement.

One year after the infamous April 2020 ministerial meeting, in which the Minister of the Environment, Ricardo Salles, defended the tactic of “doing all of it in two shakes (of a lamb’s tail) in matters of environmental policy, Bolsonaro’s speech at the Leaders Summit on Climate, convened by the Biden-Harris administration, took by surprise not only the Brazilian society, but also large segments of the international community. Bolsonaro’s speech referred to achievements and commitments of the Brazilian government that were totally disconnected from the reality of decisions and policies implemented by his administration since he took office in January 2019.