Hora Cero
junio 16, 2025
COP30 has begun in the heart of Brazil. The Conference, which brings together global leaders and experts to address adaptation strategies and solutions to the impacts of climate change worldwide, represents an opportunity to highlight the challenges facing different regions.
In Central America, environmentalists and land defenders are demanding international responsibility and more ambitious commitments, fair participation from all sectors, and strengthening at the local level.
There is a serious lack of commitment from the major powers; only 37 of the 196 countries that signed the Paris Agreement—a treaty now in its tenth year—have submitted concrete proposals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, as Carolina Amaya of the Salvadoran Ecological Unit (UNES) pointed out in an interview with HoraCero. According to her, when the powers with the greatest climate responsibility fail to meet their quotas, the consequences are evident in the most vulnerable territories.
Various studies, such as the report State of the Region, carried out by the State of the Nation Program in Costa Rica, reveal that Central America is one of the world’s most vulnerable territories to the effects of climate change, a region that is experiencing its most complex and dangerous moment in terms of its social, economic, environmental and political development since the armed conflicts of the 1980s.
“As environmental organizations, we have a demand for these developed powers that created the crisis, that are responsible for the crisis, but whose impacts we experience in countries like ours. They must take responsibility, they must take advantage of the fact that the planet is giving us time to adopt a climate ambition that is consistent with science and in line with what the most vulnerable populations, territories, and states demand in the face of the climate crisis,” she said.
Amaya believes that development based on the use of fossil fuels is a failure. Its greatest proof is climate change and the consequences being experienced in various regions. She sees an urgent need for not only an energy transition, but a comprehensive one; a shift towards other development models from the perspective of the peoples of the Global South.
“We want to emphasize that this is not a problem we, as people of the Global South, have created, nor is it a problem created by the Central American region, and therefore, the demand must be directed outward. But we also want to highlight that there are proposals at the national level and in local territories focused on resilience and the protection of ecosystems as a way to survive the impacts of climate change.”
Fossil fuels (coal, oil, and gas) are the biggest contributors to global climate change, as they represent more than 75% of global greenhouse gas emissions and almost 90% of all carbon dioxide emissions. As these gas emissions blanket the earth, they trap the sun’s heat, leading to global warming and climate change, which are altering weather patterns and disrupting the balance of nature, putting all life on earth at risk.
COP30 takes place within the framework of the tenth anniversary of the Paris Agreement, the climate treaty agreed upon in 2015 that seeks commitments from the signatory states to prevent the planet’s temperature from rising more than 1.5°C. However, the nations’ commitments have barely moved the needle; countries are still falling short of the goal of keeping warming below 2°C. Furthermore, a rise above 1.5°C is expected, while global warming projections for this century now range from 2.3 to 2.5°C, according to the sixteenth edition of the Emissions Gap Report.
Financing will be one of the critical points in the negotiations, says Victor Campos, director of the Central American Association Humboldt Center (ACCH), who underlines the obstacle that the lack of sufficient financing represents to face the losses and damages caused by Climate Change.
“What the global north is offering is truly insufficient to address all the losses and damages suffered by the most vulnerable countries on the planet. Another important issue is that each country must submit its Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), which are the mechanism by which climate change agreements are fulfilled. We hope that countries will make much more ambitious commitments than they have so far,” he stated.
In this regard, a report by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) concludes that forests remain significantly underfunded: annual investment needs to increase from $84 billion in 2023 to $300 billion in 2030 and $498 billion in 2050, leaving an annual gap of about $216 billion.
Campos insists on transparency in the use of funds by Central American countries and on the urgency of strengthening their capacity to address complex issues in negotiations, amidst the political crises that hinder regional dialogue in these types of meetings.
“The authoritarian trend in the region makes this dialogue impossible, and to the extent that there is no dialogue, there is less strength to carry out those proposals for an international consensus, where our economies are so small that they do not have the specific weight to directly influence the negotiations.”
Organizations are calling for greater attention to be paid to the most vulnerable populations facing the impacts of climate change in regions like Central America, where there has been very little progress in environmental rights, recognition of land defenders, and a deadly environment for their work. This, coupled with a lack of funding, presents new challenges to be discussed at COP30.
Flory Yax, from the Maya Quiché people of Guatemala, criticizes the lack of equitable participation of the countries invited to the Conference. She also calls for recognizing and strengthening the efforts of communities, women, and Indigenous peoples.
“Historically, women in general, but specifically indigenous women, have always been promoting life… We are not only talking about defending the land, but about everything that the territory contains, seeing ourselves in an interdependent system… We are promoters of well-being, promoters of life, and we must constantly reclaim that,” she emphasized.
Yax insists that the solutions lie in a holistic vision that promotes not only survival, but a good life for present and future generations, hand in hand with the sustainable management of natural resources, far removed from extractivism. “Individual effort is important, but the power of the collective is fundamental to preserving life and a life of well-being… Our aspiration is not to survive; we aspire to have a good life for ourselves, for our families, and for our community.”
Months before the start of COP30, various demonstrations from the territories rose to demand real commitments and concrete actions in the face of the climate crisis.
From Mexico to Brazil, the Mesoamerican Caravan for Climate and Life brought together indigenous communities, peasants, and nature defenders from Central America and Mexico, carrying clear demands: respect and recognition of ancestral territories, real climate justice, immediate withdrawal of fossil fuels, direct financing to people affected by Climate Change, and effective participation in decision-making.
The Caravan departed from southern Mexico and made 13 stops in Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, until arriving in Belém, Brazil, on November 6, “where we will raise our voice within the framework of the UN Climate Change Conference (COP30) and in the midst of this Civilizational Crisis that threatens our future with a global collapse,” they stated in a press release.
Emulating the effort of the Global Sumud Flotilla that brought the solidarity of the peoples to Palestine, indigenous organizations and peoples embarked on the Amazon Flotilla, a vessel that traveled from Ecuador to Brazil on a symbolic journey to demand, as a new paradigm, placing the Amazon at the heart of the fight for climate justice and putting an end to the use of fossil fuels.
The Amazon Flotilla Yaku Mama arrived in Belém on November 9th. At a press conference, Lucía Ixchiú, from the Maya K’iche’ community of Guatemala, who accompanied the flotilla, emphasized that climate change cannot be achieved without the participation of everyone. “We need the participation of all sectors to stop climate destruction. It is the Earth that saves us,” she said.
“This journey is an act of resistance and empowerment that links the climate crisis to its colonial and extractive roots, positioning the peoples who have contributed least to it as the most affected. It is an urgent call to COP30 to recognize that true climate justice is born in the land, flows with its rivers, and is sustained by those who care for it,” she concluded.
These efforts serve as a reminder that the answer still lies with Indigenous peoples, who have always been present, caring for nature and the land, yet they continue to be sacrificed by the capitalist and extractive system that destroys the environment and communities. Both mobilizations concluded that political commitments must translate into just actions, decentralized funding, and a community-based approach.
