LocationsReflections on COP30
Home, heat, and hope
December 1, 2025
At COP30 in Belém, Brazil, EmpoderaClima hosted events, shared national perspectives and closely followed the gender and climate negotiations.
Photo: Renata Koch Alvarenga
COP30 was special for me in a way no other climate conference has been. It marked 10 years since I first stepped into a UN Climate Conference as an 18-year-old, at COP21 in Paris, the COP that adopted the Paris Agreement and changed the trajectory of my life. Coming back a decade later, now as the Founder of the NGO EmpoderaClima and a Generation17 Young Leader, felt like closing the circle while beginning a new one.
And COP30 didn’t happen just anywhere. It happened in Belém, in my home country, in the beating heart (and heat!) of the Amazon. Walking into the venue and hearing volunteers speaking Brazilian Portuguese, seeing familiar accents and faces, and feeling the warmth of being in Brazil… that was an emotional experience. It made the UN climate process feel local in a way I had never experienced before. COPs are usually places where we chase translation channels and navigate unfamiliar logistics. In Belém, I felt embraced.
What inspired me most was how alive the city was. Many called it the "people’s COP”, and I truly felt that. Belém was blooming, with marches, films, cultural events, youth gatherings, Indigenous mobilizations and civil society actions across the city. For once, climate diplomacy wasn’t happening in a bubble, the city itself was part of the story.
This year was also incredibly meaningful for my gender and climate justice youth-led nonprofit, EmpoderaClima. Because this COP was in Brazil, about 15 young women from our team were able to attend. I can’t express how powerful that was. We hosted events, shared our national perspectives, and closely followed the gender and climate negotiations. As someone who walked into my first COP at 18, when I was still trying to find my community in the climate space, watching our team, confident, prepared and powerful, felt like witnessing the future I once dreamed of.
One of the most historic outcomes was the adoption of the Belém Gender Action Plan (GAP), which will guide gender equality in the UNFCCC from 2026 to 2034. I spent long hours inside the Blue Zone tracking the negotiations, all the way to the final plenary on the last afternoon, after the COP was extended by a day. Seeing the GAP text adopted was incredibly special. It felt like a decade of advocacy, from youth-led interventions to grassroots climate education around Brazil, was crystallizing into something real. Of course, what matters now is the implementation at the national level, and I will be watching closely for ambitious action by countries to mainstream gender in their climate agendas.
The gender and climate justice nonprofit EmpoderaClima was among the many youth-led teams attending COP30 in Belém, Brazil.
Photo: Renata Koch Alvarenga
My experience this year was also shaped by my journey with Generation17, which I’ve been part of since early 2025. It opened many doors for meaningful engagement, from collaborating with UNDP to speaking at events like the We Don’t Have Time Climate Hub in the Media Zone. It allowed me to translate the technical realities of the negotiations into accessible stories for wider audiences. And it reminded me of what a privilege it is to have access to these UN halls. Even with the incredible growth of the youth climate movement, getting a badge for the COP Blue Zone is still far from easy, especially for people from the Global South. That access comes with responsibility, and I carry it deeply.
COP30 also revealed some urgent key gaps. Despite the beautiful energy outside the venue, many Brazilians still don’t know exactly what happens at a UN Climate Conference. And barriers, such as costs, language and passport requirements continue to shape who gets to be in the room where decisions are made. This is a crucial point to keep in mind if we want the climate processes to reflect the world we are trying to save.
This COP didn’t deliver everything I had hoped for. We needed stronger commitments on phasing out fossil fuels and more ambitious, accessible climate finance. Some of the political outcomes still fell short of what frontline communities require to survive and adapt. Progress on adaptation and just transition language was encouraging, but not nearly enough.
With the experience I have gathered by being a part of multilateral spaces and negotiations, I’ve learned that COPs, and their outcomes, are rarely perfect, or even close to what we need for our planet, but they are still essential, because they set policies, shape global expectations and create tools so we can push for implementation.
One of my favourite parts of COPs has always been the people. This year I saw friends I had met when we were teenagers, navigating youth constituencies and learning negotiation rules for the first time. Today, some of them are lead negotiators for their countries. Others work in climate funds, serve on government delegations, or support the COP presidency. Seeing that evolution, that pipeline of youth activists becoming decision-makers, inspired me. It reminded me of why investing in youth leadership matters. Because it works.
I also felt incredibly grateful to reconnect with peers from Belém and across the Amazon region. A few months before COP30, I had been in Belém to host a workshop for women on climate resilience with EmpoderaClima, facilitating a disaster preparedness training with a feminist lens. Returning now, reconnecting with some of the women we trained in high-level climate spaces and witnessing how much the city had been positively affected, made me hopeful that leaving a legacy, beyond the two weeks of COP, is possible.
So, where do we go from here?
For young people: Don’t underestimate your ability to influence. Show up if you can. Learn how negotiations work. We need youth in every corner of the process.
For policymakers: The policies in the Belém Gender Action Plan, and in all the adopted COP30 decisions, must be funded, implemented and measured. Ambition means nothing without resources and accountability.
For climate advocates: Keep connecting the dots between what happens in high-level plenaries and what happens locally. Both are essential.
As for me, I’m carrying the warm Amazonian energy of COP30 into everything I do, from developing climate education and women empowerment programmes at EmpoderaClima to delivering global advocacy through Generation17.
Having COP30 in Brazil was a gift. But its true legacy will depend on what we do next; whether we turn promises into realities, and whether we ensure that young people, especially girls and women from the Global South, are at the centre of national climate policies and solutions.
As former UNFCCC Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres would say, I’m hopeful, outraged and optimistic. And after 10 years in this process, that hope is not naïve; it’s a choice, a strategy, and a commitment to keep showing up.
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