Climate choices aren’t just individual actions. Sometimes actions in groups, like voting, petitions and protests, can have a far larger impact than one person can have alone.

A top UN climate official demanded Brazilian authorities immediately develop a plan for addressing security lapses, soaring temperatures, flooding and other poor conditions at the COP30 conference in the city of Belém.

Marching to the beat of pounding sound systems, thousands of climate protesters have been bringing their message to the gates of the COP30 climate talks in Brazil. Chanting and singing "free the Amazon",

An Indigenous group attended the opening ceremony of the People’s Summit offsite from the COP30 climate conference, while other people walked along the river at sunset in Belem, Brazil. Jose Rivera prayed before an image of the Virgin Mary painted on a tree in Armero,

Prior to COP30, Brazil and nine other tropical countries joined the Intergovernmental Land Tenure Commitment, or ILTC, a global initiative to recognize Indigenous land tenure and rights to defend against deforestation and provide a potential backstop on the ground to support efforts like the TFFF.

A Canadian anti-whaling activist who has dodged arrest in Japan for more than a decade vowed at COP30 in Brazil to continue fighting for marine protection – taking aim in particular at deep-sea mining and Norway’s krill industry.

At COP30 in Belem, countries have rallied behind proposals for a roadmap to transition away from fossil fuels.

Roughly half of Brazil’s grasslands show some degree of degradation, according to University of São Paulo researcher Carlos Eduardo Cerri, who studies carbon emissions in agriculture. Degradation occurs when cattle overgraze, stripping away vegetation that protects the soil and allows it to store carbon.