The COP-30, held between November 10th and 21st in Belém, Pará, reinforced the urgency of treating climate, biodiversity, and desertification as indivisible agendas. During various technical sessions at the Conference, representatives from governments, multilateral organizations, and research institutions highlighted that achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement and the Global Biodiversity Framework depends on reducing habitat loss, combating deforestation, and restoring ecosystems. The debates also showed that fragmented policies have produced insufficient results, which is why the Conference emphasized the need for structuring policies and coordination instruments among environmental agendas.
In this sense, COP-30 marked the adoption of the document “Global Mobilization: Uniting humanity in a global mobilization against climate change,” approved at CMA.7 (7th session of the Conference of the Parties to the Paris Agreement). The text formally recognizes the interdependence between climate, biodiversity, and ecosystem integrity, highlighting the urgent need to comprehensively and synergistically address the interconnected global crises of climate change, biodiversity loss, and land and ocean degradation, as part of the strategy to keep the temperature increase within the 1.5°C limit, as determined by the Paris Agreement.
The document also emphasizes the importance of accelerating adaptation and mitigation actions, based on the best available science, and calls on all actors—governments, the private sector, local communities, and indigenous peoples—to cooperate in implementing the commitments foreseen in national plans and targets.
One of the central announcements made during COP-30 was the Pact for Synergy among the Rio Conventions, launched by the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change (MMA). The aforementioned Pact organizes guidelines for the Union, States, and Municipalities to simultaneously incorporate commitments from the United Nations Framework Conventions on Biological Diversity (CBD), Climate Change (UNFCCC), and Combating Desertification (UNCCD).
The initiative establishes priorities such as: (i) alignment of national goals; (ii) strengthening of monitoring and transparency systems; and (iii) integration of sectoral policies related to forests, land use, water resources, and sustainable development. According to the Ministry of the Environment (MMA), this is an effort of institutional coordination to make planning and implementation actions in these three areas more efficient.
In the same context, the MMA presented the Synergistic Landscapes Map during COP30, a tool designed to indicate regions of the country where climate, biodiversity, and desertification control initiatives can be coordinated to generate greater effectiveness. Furthermore, a Working Group was established to continue these actions.
Finally, it is worth mentioning that COP-30 also dedicated attention to the oceanic dimension of the environmental crisis, highlighting studies presented by scientific institutions that indicate increasing acidification, loss of biodiversity, and impacts on coastal zones. Discussions emphasized that marine ecosystems play a relevant role in global climate regulation, which requires greater integration between policies for forests, water resources, fisheries, and marine conservation.
Bianca Oliveira Begossi | bianca.begossi@nascimentomourao.adv.br
Partner in the Environmental and Regulatory Law area.
Evelini Oliveira de Figueiredo Fonseca | evelini.fonseca@nascimentomourao.adv.br
Partner in the Environmental, Regulatory and Biodiversity Law area.
