Hosted in the heart of the Amazon, COP30 delivered a hollow compromise shaped by absent superpowers

President Lula of Brazil had a vision of hosting the 30th conference of the parties in the Amazon, in Belem, in part to raise awareness, allegedly, about the dying state of the Amazon and deforestation more generally. He declared that this COP must be the “COP of implementation.” All this with prior knowledge that the world’s biggest economy, the US, would be sitting this one out. If we set Lula’s aspiration of 

mounts to nothing more than the Urdu word “bheek”, or a “handout” in English. Even with that, however, the details as to how this “bheek” will be implemented remain unclear. Adaptation financing is in and of itself, to some extent, from natural adaptation mechanisms such as wetlands, rainforests, and mangroves, which are all actively being logged for the wood industry, or are being decimated for urban infrastructure projects. At the same time, there’s no way to ensure that any funds that will be received by developing countries will be used for their intended purpose, considering that many developing countries are corrupt or dictatorships, who could easily pocket any financial assistance intended to reach