Lula touts 'COP of Truth' in Brazil as UN warns emissions too high

5/11/2025 7:11

With a U.N. report warning that worldwide carbon emissions remain too high to halt global warming, Brazil’s president said on Tuesday that this month’s U.N. climate change summit in the Amazon would be a "COP of Truth" and offer real solutions.



Despite three decades of global negotiations, countries will not

prevent warming from exceeding 1.5 degrees Celsius – the main goal of the Paris Agreement brokered a decade ago. Instead, the world is on track for an

extreme 2.3 - 2.5°C of warming, the United Nations' Environment Programme said on Tuesday.



The forecast assumes countries will fulfill pledges they have made so far to cut emissions. If they fall short, the world will get even hotter.



"This will be difficult to reverse," UNEP said of the 1.5C overshoot, noting that countries would need to move even faster and make even bigger reductions in greenhouse gas emissions to prevent runaway climate change.



Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, whose country hosts COP30 on November 10-21, said failure to deliver on past climate deals – including the Kyoto Protocol and promised climate finance – was demoralizing for people around the world. Speaking with reporters at a naval base in Belem, Lula said

countries must deliver on past promises, rather than making new ones.