Brazil appoints veteran diplomat as COP30 President

Brazil appoints veteran diplomat André Corrêa do Lago to lead COP30, set for November 2025 in Belém, Amazon.

Brazil has appointed veteran climate diplomat André Aranha Corrêa do Lago to lead this year’s COP30 UN climate summit.

Corrêa do Lago has been working with sustainable development-related issues since 2001. He has been Secretary for Climate, Energy and Environment at Brazil’s foreign ministry and Brazil’s chief climate negotiator since 2023 when President Lula da Silva returned to power. He has published books and articles on sustainable development and climate change. As a career diplomat, he served as Brazilian ambassador to India and Japan. 

His appointment came just a day after Donald Trump said the US would withdraw from the Paris agreement, the landmark UN accord aimed at limit the global temperature rise. 
The first time a United Nations Conference on Climate Change will be held in the Amazonian city of Belém between November 10 and 21, 2025.

Brazil’s Minister for the Environment and Climate Change Marina Silva said in last December that COP30 will be “a milestone” in reinforcing Brazil's role in the global climate agenda, which “will exercise its leadership and its recognized capacity for dialogue and negotiation so that we leave Belem with more ambitious results.”

“The consequences of COP29 challenge us to build a more ambitious conference focused on results. This requires leading by example, promoting regional and global coordination so that we can take a historic step forward in tackling the climate crisis,” she said. 

Before his appointment André Corrêa do Lago noted that, even though the result of COP29 was far short of what was needed, but it was important to reach an agreement.

“We are not a country that needs donations. We need investment. We think that, unfortunately, when it comes to talking about finance, rich countries forget the measure of urgency regarding climate change. They talk a lot about urgency when they talk about targets, initiatives and Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). But when it comes to talking about finance, the element of urgency is kind of forgotten. This is serious, because we know that we only have a few years ahead of us to do what is necessary to prevent us from exceeding 1.5ºC,” he pointed out.  
The minister noted that the work ahead of COP30 will be built on decades of negotiations and commitments, such as the Paris Agreement, COP28 in Dubai and COP29 in Baku. “The most important thing for each of us is the balance of the chain of life on Earth, the balance of the planet. By COP30, our goal will be to align NDCs that are ambitious enough to achieve the 1.5ºC mission,” she pointed out.

At COP30, Brazil is going to address such issues as the role of tropical rainforests, the protection of essential biomes, and development of a model that respects the rights of indigenous and traditional peoples. Brazil will strive to increase international support for the implementation of policies for environmental preservation, sustainable development and combating the degradation of ecosystems, said the government’s statement.

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