Maureen Santos, from FASE
The People’s Summit for Climate Justice will conclude its program on November 16 in Belém, after five days, with the delivery of a final declaration to the COP30 president, Ambassador André Corrêa do Lago, and other authorities. The document will mark the end of the gathering, which will have been shaped by debates, marches, and plenaries with the participation of social movements, national and international organizations, and traditional communities.
The event will begin on the 12th with a boat parade on the Guamá River, ending at the campus of the Federal University of Pará (UFPA), the territory of the People’s Summit. More than 20,000 people are expected to take part in activities combining cultural celebration and political mobilization.
It is expected that the People’s Summit will become the world’s largest mobilization for social and climate justice, bringing together more than 1,100 movements.
In the following days, the university will host the so-called “interlinked” activities, including workshops, dialogue circles, people’s tribunals, and assemblies. These are organized around six axes of convergence, built over two years of plenaries. Among the expected themes are land, territory, and “sea-territory”; food and people’s sovereignty; a just, popular, and inclusive transition; climate and environmental justice; solidarity and internationalism; democratization and strengthening of social participation; grassroots solutions against environmental racism, commodification, and financialization of life; the leadership of women and urban peripheries; the right to the city; and a new multilateralism, among many other causes.
On Saturday, November 15, a march of peoples from around the world is planned through the streets of Belém, with the participation of Indigenous, quilombola, and traditional community leaders, unions, and urban and rural social movements, along with representatives from various countries. All will march for rights, equity, climate justice, the defense of the democratic rule of law, and for a dignified future on a healthy planet.
After so many activities, the People’s Summit will end with a final declaration developed throughout the synthesis plenaries. The closing will include a great Amazonian banquet with foods from the region and from other Brazilian biomes—an occasion designed to celebrate healthy and agroecological food.
The People’s Summit in Belém is expected to be the largest popular mobilization for social and climate justice in the world, bringing together more than 1,100 organizations and movements from Brazil and across the globe. The gathering seeks to establish itself as a counterpoint to false solutions and to the silencing of popular voices in the face of the far right and corporate capture of multilateral negotiation spaces.
Maureen Santos is a member of the Political Committee of the People’s Summit
*Article originally published in the COP Hub / Climate Observatory
