Mobilizing in Defense of the Planet, from Climate Week to the COP30 People’s Summit

Reports are rolling in from our partners and allies across the Caribbean in the wake of Hurricane Melissa, reinforcing that frontline communities continue to bear the brunt of the ever-intensifying climate crisis. Their stories evoke painful memories of climate disasters past, along with powerful lessons of solidarity, mutual aid, and resistance.

If ever there were a moment of things coming to a head in terms of the multiple crises upon us, now feels like that moment. This has been the sentiment of recent social movement mobilizations across the globe, in which the focus has been on building power toward the systemic transformation that is so urgently needed.

A critical milestone in this power building was the recent Nyéléni Forum held in September in Sri Lanka, where more than 700 social movement representatives gathered not only to chart out the next steps for the food sovereignty movement, but also to build cross-sectoral global resistance in the face of rising authoritarianism and militarism.

The next stop in this process is the People’s Summit toward COP30, an autonomous space that will run parallel to the UN COP30 in Belem in the Brazilian Amazon. The Summit is expected to bring together 10,000-15,000 social movement and civil society representatives, who will work collectively around four major axes. The Summit is also the venue for the launching of the Common Political Action Agenda coming out of the Nyéléni Forum.

Social movements see the location of the COP30 and the People’s Summit in Brazil as strategic both for Brazil being home to some of the world’s largest and most vibrant social movements as well as home to a wide variety of extractivist projects in the Amazon and other ecologically critical zones such as the Cerrado.

The yearly UN Conference of Parties is framed as building global cooperation for “bold action” on climate change. In the face of oil and gas extraction, deforestation, and the outright denial of the climate crisis, COP can seem like an alternative and path forward. But movements know they need to oppose both right-wing denialism and a liberal form of extractivism that’s dressed up as climate action.

Some of these extractive projects are being carried out under the banner of “climate smart agriculture,” carbon credit schemes, and other schemes recognized by social movements as false solutions that are in fact exacerbating the climate crisis rather than addressing it. Calling out false solutions and advancing true alternatives grounded in social and ecological justice will thus be a main thrust of the People’s Summit.

Building Momentum Toward Belem at Climate Week in NYC

Grassroots International is honored to accompany these social movements processes vital to the future of the planet and to all of us. Having participated in Nyéléni, we will join our social movement partners in bringing the energy from Sri Lanka into Belem, where we will be supporting the People’s Summit and related processes in a variety of ways.

As part of the momentum building process toward the COP30 People’s Summit, we joined with both domestic and international partners and allies for a series of events during Climate Week in New York City in late September. These included a powerful event entitled “Frontline Movement Exchange: On the road to Brazil – People’s Summit & COP30” as well as a day-long gathering on “Grassroots Campaigns in Defense of Land, Forests & Food Sovereignty.”

The Frontline Movement Exchange featured two of our long-time partners from Brazil, the Landless Workers Movement (Movimento dos Trabalhadores Sem Terra, MST) and Movimento dos Atingidos por Barragens (Movement of People Affected by Dams, MAB). Both MST and MAB are among the Brazilian movements at the helm of organizing the COP30 People’s Summit, and MAB is also involved in a major gathering just prior to the summit bringing together people affected by dams and other extractive projects from across the Americas and the globe – which is happening as we write.

The gathering on Grassroots Campaigns in Defense of Land, Forests & Food Sovereignty featured another of our Brazilian partners, Rede Social de Justiça e Direitos Humanos (Network for Social Justice and Human Rights in Brazil), together with several US allies. Among the topics covered was the Campaign to Stop Land Grabs, focused on the role of the retirement fund TIAA in driving climate change through buying up vast swaths of Brazil’s farmland for use in fossil fuel-intensive industrial production. TIAA’s practice of land grabbing while claiming to its shareholders to uphold social and environmental principles is an example of the corporate greenwashing that social movements criticize the COP meetings for reinforcing – and that the COP30 People’s Summit seeks to expose.

Movements Gather in Belem to Kick off the COP30 People’s Summit

As movements from across the globe converge in Belem for the People’s Summit, which officially starts tomorrow, Grassroots International is on the ground accompanying our partners from the Caribbean, Latin America, and West Africa, and beyond. By building an alternate pole and popular pressure from the ground up, we can strengthen real democracy against authoritarianism and real solutions to the climate crisis.