The PSTU and the IWL-FI are in Belém denouncing the farce of COP 30
Capitalism's role in the climate crisis demands a revolutionary socialist response for true environmental justice.
Since November 10, the 30th United Nations Conference on Climate Change 2025, known as COP 30, has been taking place in Belém (PA), in the Amazon region of Brazil. The UN’s policy, along with the Brazilian government and other States, to hold the event in the Amazon region, away from the large megacities, aimed to give a “democratic” veneer to a conference that, like its predecessors, serves merely as a theater to express insincere concern and empty promises in the face of impending capitalism-driven disaster.
What is on display in the capital of Pará, however, is precisely the opposite of the image that the UN would like to project: the marginalization of indigenous peoples, activists, and social movements, while representatives of power and large capitalists entrench themselves in shady negotiations, filled with lobbies from agribusiness, foreign oil companies, and mining companies. The city has been militarized through a GLO (Guarantee of Law and Order), a measure from the Lula Government that places security in the hands of the Armed Forces, imposing true martial law in the area.
The spaces dedicated to “official” negotiations were confined to an area called the “Blue Zone,” protected by a strong security scheme. The absurdity reaches the point where agribusiness itself, one of the main responsible for deforestation and the genocide of indigenous peoples, has its own space, called the “Agrizone,” conceived by the CNA (National Confederation of Agriculture and Livestock) and funded by big farmers and the State.
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“The loggers and the miners are destroying everything that exists in the forest,” says chief Raoni
Resistance and mobilization
Parallel to COP 30, however, the People’s Summit also took place, an independent event bringing together indigenous peoples, social movements, and activists from various countries around the world. It is a space where PSTU and the International Workers’ League (IWL-FI) have been actively working, alongside CSP-Conlutas, denouncing the farce of COP 30, and all the fake, “green capitalist” solutions to climate change that do not identify capitalism as the heart of the problem of the climate catastrophe that deepens every day. The delegation of PSTU and IWL-FI includes, among other important leaders, the serengeiro (rubber worker) Osmarino Amâncio, successor to Chico Mendes in the great struggles for the defense of the forest and the environment against murderous and predatory agro-extractivism.
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Osmarino Amâncio: “For us, forest peoples, green capitalism is a tragedy”
On October 11, indigenous peoples and social movements participating in the Global March for Health and Climate occupied the Blue Zone, denouncing the environmental impact and attacks on indigenous territories, and were harshly repressed by security forces. The scenes of indigenous people being beaten in a place that was supposedly meant for discussion in defense of their interests exposed the cynical, farcical nature of this conference. After the incident, the UN sent a letter to the Brazilian government demanding more “security” at the location, which was promptly complied with.
On the following day, a large “boat rally” took place, officially opening the activities of the Peoples’ Summit, where nearly 200 vessels sailed on the Guamá River. The PSTU and IWL-FI activists participated on the boat dedicated to denouncing the genocide of the Palestinian people and in defense of a free Palestine, from the river to the sea. The activists demand an energy embargo on the State of Israel, including a ban on the sale of oil that, today, has Brazil fueling the tanks that kill Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
On the same day, the 12th, a welcoming plenary was held at the countryside headquarters of the Union of Construction Workers of Belém (affiliated with CSP-Conlutas) for activists and indigenous peoples, quilombolas, and riverside communities arriving for the activities of the Peoples’ Summit. Construction workers led a major strike in September that halted construction work, including that of COP 30, for two weeks, denouncing the stark social inequality in the city and gaining international attention.
On the 13th, the PSTU participated in the panel “COP 30 is a mechanism of capital to legitimize the destruction of the Amazon,” organized by CSP-Conlutas. The debate featured the participation of Osmarino, as well as Raquel Tremembé, an indigenous leader from Maranhão who was the vice on the presidential ticket of PSTU led by Vera in the last elections, among other representatives of indigenous peoples and activists.
“Social movements and self-organization: what is the climate solution?” was another panel on the 14th, which featured the participation of Jeferson Choma from Opinião Socialista and the channel Ecologia Marxista (watch the panel here). On the 15th, a large United March for the Climate took place, officially closing the activities of the Peoples’ Summit.
The participation of PSTU and IWL-FI
The PSTU’s action around COP began well before the start of COP 30. The strike that shook Belém in September and threw into question the entire hosting of the event, and which denounced the super-exploitation of construction workers, was led by militants of the party and CSP-Conlutas.
At the Peoples’ Summit, the PSTU raised the banner that “the environmental catastrophe is capitalist” and that, therefore, “the solution must be revolutionary and socialist,” uniting workers and laborers with indigenous peoples, quilombolas, and riverside communities. In addition, the party advocates for the Palestinian people and the necessity of the international struggle of the working class and oppressed peoples against capitalist barbarism.
With a delegation composed of militants from the city and from various other parts of the country, the PSTU disseminated a special publication for COP 30 (download here in Portuguese), taking up the whole debate about the roots of the environmental and climate crisis, the role of the Lula government in deepening this process, and proposing the only possible solution: socialism. The party’s youth group, Rebeldía, held a presentation meeting of the PSTU to a new generation that increasingly sees itself without prospects in the face of the deepening climate crisis.
The capitalist class that governs the world has systematically failed to confront climate change, and continues to peddle the same empty promises and false solutions to the crisis. We need a class-conscious program to fix this mess, and it’s going to take the combined, coordinated actions of organized workers, indigenous people, and other oppressed people on the frontlines of climate disaster to put it into action. The PSTU’s efforts to bring unions and activists together to speak out against the farce of COP and capitalist-led climate strategies, combining mass rallies together with strikes and press coverage, are a vital example of the kind of organizing needed all over the world to stop climate change and stop capitalism.
