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COP30 beyond the Documents

This piece is part of a collection of Anthropology News articles on Climate Governance. Click here to read other articles in the collection.

20 November 2025. The eve of the final day of COP30 in Belém do Pará. The heat was intense. I was in the Country Pavilion in the Blue Zone, an area reserved for official delegations to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Suddenly, I saw a crowd of people running and shouting for everyone to leave the tents. I stood up and ran. Thick black smoke was billowing through the pavilion. What would happen to COP30, the world’s largest climate summit? What did that fire represent?

The heat had already left its mark on the whole COP experience in Belém. Inside the tents, it mingled with the constant flow of people and the profusion of events. Meetings and schedules proliferated by the minute.…