The Amazon region will be at the center of global attention beginning on Nov. 10, when the Brazilian city of Belém hosts the United Nations Climate Conference (COP30). The Brazilian government had high hopes that Pope Leo XIV would attend the event—a plan that ultimately did not materialize—but members of the local church, especially representatives of Amazonian communities, have been working hard to make their voices heard.

“For years, the peoples of the Amazon have been persistently, through their presence and organization, carving out spaces to be consulted in these international processes,” said Dario Bossi, M.C.C.J., an adviser to the National Conference of Bishops of Brazil. Father Bossi is a member of the Latin American ecumenical network Iglesias y Minería, which reviews how mining interests affect human rights and the environment.

According to Father Bossi, since the U.N.’s Glasgow conference—COP26—in 2021, groups representing Indigenous people have emerged as among the most organized and active participants among civil society groups. The Catholic Church has been supportive of Indigenous communities, both formally—through documents and statements submitted to global authorities—and through its engagement with and support for national popular movements.

“The church is present and will take part in the activities of the summit in Belém,” Father Bossi told America. “We have made specific appeals to governments in an effort to influence decision-making. The church has extensive experience with processes like the COPs—we have issued statements and open letters, participated in events and communicated directly with COP presidents.”

He also mentioned that Catholic leaders are taking part in the People’s Summit, a parallel event that brings together thousands of civil society representatives engaged with the climate agenda. On Nov. 15, the movement will organize a Global March for Climate Justice, “a call from the peoples of the Amazon and the world for social, territorial and environmental justice.”

International cooperation required

The Holy See is represented in Belém by a delegation led by Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican secretary of state. On Nov. 7 Cardinal Parolin read a statement to COP30 delegates from Pope Leo, urging the world community to work together to address the global crisis.

“In these difficult times,” the pope wrote, “the attention and concern of the international community seems to be mostly focused on conflicts among nations.” But, he said, “there is also an ever growing awareness that peace is also threatened by a lack of due respect for creation, by the plundering of natural resources and by a progressive decline in the quality of life because of climate change.”

These are challenges that “endanger the lives of everyone on this planet and therefore require international cooperation and a cohesive and forward-looking multilateralism which puts the sacredness of life, the God-given dignity of every human being and the common good at its center.”

“Regrettably, we observe political approaches and human behaviors that go in the opposite direction, characterized by collective selfishness, disregard for others and short-sightedness,” Pope Leo wrote.

“In the midst of a world that is in flames, as a result of both global warming and armed conflicts,” he wrote, “This Conference should become a sign of hope, through the respect shown to the views of others in the joint endeavor to search for common language and consensus, while putting aside selfish interests, bearing in mind the responsibility for one another and for future generations.”

The Brazilian government, which is presiding over the conference, has outlined the summit’s main themes in six key areas: setting more substantial goals for Nationally Determined Contributions, or N.D.C.s, commitments made by individual countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions; adaptation policies to address climate change; climate financing for developing countries; investments in renewable energy and low-carbon technologies; preservation of forests and biodiversity; and climate justice, including evaluating and setting policy for the social impacts of climate change.

In recent statements, Pope Leo has spoken in harmony with principles outlined by Pope Francis in the encyclical “Laudato Si’,” a document that marked a milestone in church teaching as the first to focus primarily on environmental concerns and the “care for our common home.”

“It is necessary to move from gathering data to caring, from environmental talk to an ecological conversion that transforms both personal and community lifestyles,” Pope Leo said on Oct. 1, during an event marking the 10th anniversary of the encyclical. “One cannot claim to be a disciple of Jesus Christ without sharing his gaze upon creation and his care for what is fragile and wounded.”

Present at that event, held in the Vatican territory of Castel Gandolfo, was Brazil’s minister of the environment, Marina Silva. “We already have the technical answers,” she said during a keynote address, “what is lacking is the ethical commitment to use technology and knowledge in service of confronting climate change and combating inequality, so that we may build a prosperous, just and sustainable world. It is incoherent to say we love the creator while destroying creation. The encyclical ‘Laudato Si’’calls us to make this integration.”

Pope Leo XIV also expressed his full support for ecclesial and social organizations advocating for climate justice. “Society, through nongovernmental organizations and intermediary associations, must put pressure on governments to develop stricter regulations, procedures and oversight,” he said. “If citizens do not keep watch over political power—at the national, regional and municipal levels—it will be impossible to counter environmental harm.”

Protecting Indigenous rights

According to César Eduardo Piscoya Chafloque, an adviser for Celam, the Center for Pastoral Action Programs and Networks of the Latin American Episcopal Council, the solutions proposed at climate conferences should not be limited to “technical and financial adjustments” but must also integrate the worldviews and practices of local peoples and communities, ensuring the protection of their rights.

“Pope Leo XIV is renewing the concept of integral ecology rooted in justice and the idea of ecological conversion,” Mr. Piscoya told America, referring to the church’s growing commitment to environmental justice. It is “a profound call that entails a personal, communal, cultural and moral transformation—one that must also penetrate political and economic structures.”

As a church, he added, “we defend the sovereignty of Indigenous peoples and traditional communities over their territories, recognizing that these lands are sacred and cannot be exploited or expropriated.” Catholic activists also advocate for the binding participation of communities, civil society and faith-based organizations in decision-making processes.

According to Mr. Piscoya, it is the church’s role to emphasize the insufficiency of current international commitments to fight climate change. “COP30 is taking place at a moment of extreme gravity,” he said. By 2024, the average global temperature had risen to 1.55°C above pre-industrial levels—“an unprecedented warming,” Mr. Piscoya said. “The acceleration of this process is undeniable: It took nearly a century [1920 to 2015] to reach 1°C, but just 10 years [2015 to 2024] to climb to 1.55°C.”

Father Bossi likewise noted an opportunity for the church at COP30 to critique the false solutions frequently proposed by public authorities and corporations. “Too often, technical solutions are presented with a ‘green’ facade but are not truly effective,” he said, adding that these proposals often replicate the same “predatory extractivist model” that created the climate problems the world is facing.

A visible example of this contradiction lies within the Brazilian government itself, which on one hand seeks to present the country as a beacon of the green economy, while on the other hand is preparing to begin oil exploration in the Amazon. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and his Ministry of Energy—currently led by Alexandre Silveira—plan to drill for oil in the Amazon River Basin, one of the most biodiverse regions in the world, even after strong resistance from Brazil’s own Ministry of the Environment, led by Ms. Silva. Despite its own technicians urging against it, the Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources, the government agency responsible for issuing environmental licenses, succumbed to political and economic pressure and authorized the start of oil prospecting in one of the most biodiverse areas on the planet.

The technical solutions presented by governments often “fail to question the uncontrolled growth in global energy consumption,” Father Bossi said. “What we are witnessing [in the world] is not a real energy transition from fossil fuels to renewables, but rather the addition of one model on top of the other. The fossil matrix is not being reduced, only supplemented by new sources.”

In his view, since the United States twice withdrew from the Paris Agreement—once during the first Trump administration and again when President Trump returned to power in 2025—global efforts to curb climate change have been significantly weakened. “The United States has also boycotted other dimensions of building global multilateralism, such as all the initiatives for defense and health prevention led by the United Nations, in general causing a consistent weakening of the U.N.’s institutional framework,” Father Bossi said.

Relying too much on nationally determined contributions to reducing greenhouse gas emissions is not as effective as a shared strategy, he explained. But as the United States steps back from a leading role in addressing the crisis, other countries—China, European Union states and Brazil—may see an opportunity to step up at COP30 and other summits. And alliances between countries left out of the biggest decisions may emerge in regional or multilateral contexts as well. “This is our hope, even though we are very disappointed [about the U.S. withdrawal],” he said.

Above all, both Father Bossi and Mr. Piscoya believe that the defense of human dignity—especially that of the weak and the poor—is a value inspired by the life and teachings of Jesus, as described in the Gospel, and repeatedly emphasized by the popes, in particular since “Laudato Si’.”

“When the church speaks of the climate crisis, she recognizes that this is not merely a technical problem, but an existential one—of justice, dignity and care for our common home,” Mr. Piscoya said. “She calls for placing the common good above profit and prioritizing the poor over corporate interests.”

Father Bossi welcomes Pope Leo’s decision to revisit concepts already articulated in the teaching of Pope Francis, demonstrating the continuity between their pontificates. “The church can no longer afford to be indifferent to this issue,” he said. Its active participation in the negotiations at COP30 toward firm climate commitments could prove “decisive for the future of the planet,” he said.

Correction: Due to an editing error, an earlier version of this report misattributed a statement from Pope Leo XIV read by Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin to Cardinal Parolin.

Filipe Domingues is a Brazilian journalist who reports on religion, environment and economics.