Madrid November 12 (Europe Press) –
At the Climate Summit (COP30) in Belem, Brazil, on Tuesday, a group of activists attempted to enter the UN-managed Blue Zone to demand “taxes on billionaires” and protest oil drilling in the Amazon, but were removed by security personnel after clashes.
The demonstrators initially managed to evade police and enter Cidade Park, which had been closed for several weeks to serve as the summit’s headquarters. During the tour, they also addressed Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, saying he was playing a “role” and “destroying the climate” with authorized oil drilling in the Amazon basin.
According to Brazilian newspaper Folha, shaman and activist Nato Tupinamba, who was present at the time of the invasion, declared: “The government is lying, saying the Amazon is okay, and the indigenous people are okay. If we were healthy, we wouldn’t be protesting here.”
Protesters arriving on the city’s streets from the World March for Health and Climate reached an intermediate area between security registration and access to the Blue Zones, where they were evicted after clashing with security guards who had set up two human cordons to separate the entrances to the Blue Zones. Two police officers suffered minor injuries.
A spokesperson for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) said: “Brazil and the UN security team took measures to protect the site, in accordance with all established security procedures. The Brazilian government and UN authorities are investigating the incident. The site is safe and COP negotiations continue.”
Organizers said in a statement that the organizations participating in the Global March for Health and Climate wanted to “make it publicly clear that they had nothing to do with the incident that occurred at the entrance to the COP30 Blue Zone after the march ended,” stressing that “this event was peaceful and public and had been reported to the competent authorities in advance.”
This will be the first time in three years that the COP will be held in a country that openly allows demonstrations, with previous meetings held in Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Azerbaijan.
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