The world’s media carries extensive coverage ahead of the official opening of the COP30 UN climate talks in Belém, Brazil, later today. The Associated Press says the talks, on the “edge of the Brazilian Amazon”, were expecting to see “leaders pushing for urgency, cooperation and acceleration”, but adds that the US will be absent. The newswire quotes André Corrêa do Lago, president-elect of COP30, writing in a letter to negotiators yesterday: “Either we decide to change by choice, together, or we will be imposed change by tragedy…We can change. But we must do it together.” It says do Lago “emphasised that negotiators engage in ‘mutirão’, a Brazilian word derived from an Indigenous word that refers to a group uniting to work on a shared task”. The Guardian previews “Brazil’s unorthodox approach” to the summit and says: “Host uses Indigenous concepts and changes agenda to help delegates agree on ways to meet existing climate goals.” Brazil’s O Globo says the summit will host 60,000 people.

BBC News carries a preview of COP30 asking: “[D]oes the summit still have a point?” Another Guardian article is headlined: “Rich countries have lost enthusiasm for tackling [the] climate crisis, says COP30 chief.” It reports that do Lago “says countries should follow China’s lead on clean energy”. Agence France-Presse says host-nation Brazil “face the daunting task of keeping global climate cooperation from collapsing”. The Press Association reports: “The latest UN climate talks kick off this week with countries hoping to drive forward action in the face of a major breakdown in global consensus.” The Financial Times trails its extensive COP30 coverage and a related editorial on its frontpage (see comment below). Another Financial Times article is titled: “Muted global business turnout at COP30 reflects subdued mood.” The Guardian explains the “main issues” at COP30. The Guardian also carries a “COP30 jargon buster”, as well as articles looking at the impact of the recent International Court of Justice ruling on the COP and the “balancing act” for Brazil hosting the COP.

Agence France-Presse says the EU’s carbon border tax (CBAM) “is becoming a flashpoint” at COP30. It explains: “Several countries including China, India and Bolivia are targeting the carbon border tax in their request to include ‘unilateral trade measures’ on the agenda at COP30, which opens Monday in Brazil.” The Economic Times also looks at the “struggle to agree on [the] agenda” for COP30. [Carbon Brief’s Dr Simon Evans has posted a thread on Bluesky explaining the “agenda fight” looming over COP30.]

MORE ON COP30

• Agence France-Presse and Reuters report on Indigenous participation at COP30, while Agence France-Presse also reports that the Taliban has not been invited.
• Bloomberg, the Associated Press, Reuters, Euronews and Press Association carry explainers on what the summit is all about. Reuters also has a piece on the latest climate science ahead of COP30.
• The New York Times, Climate Home News, Associated Press, Reuters, Sydney Morning Herald, Sky News and CNN are among those publishing retrospectives on how things have changed in the 10 years since the Paris Agreement.
• The Week, CNBC, Washington Post, Financial Times, New York Times, Politico and others publish articles on the absence of the US from COP30. The Associated Press says: “Trump’s energy secretary slams UN climate conference in Brazil, where US absence is glaring.”
• The Guardian reports that more than 100 US leaders from states and cities will attend COP30 “as Trump stays away”. The Guardian also reports: “How thousands of fossil fuel lobbyists got access to UN climate talks – and then kept drilling.”
• The climate-sceptic Daily Mail reprises a theme it seeks to search out every year at COP by claiming that “high-class sex workers…are targeting…COP30”.

Some 250 million people have been “forcibly displaced” globally over the past decade as a result of “climate-related disasters”, the Guardian says, covering a report from the UN refugee agency (UNHCR). It continues: “Floods, storms, drought and extreme heat are among the weather conditions driving conflict and displacement, alongside slow-onset disasters such as desertification, rising sea levels and ecosystem destruction, which are threatening food and water security.” The newspaper quotes the UN report calling climate change a “risk multiplier” and says it has “exposed and compounded existing inequalities and injustices”. It adds: “Three-quarters of refugees and other displaced people now live in countries facing high or extreme exposure to climate-related hazards, with repeated displacement becoming increasingly common.” Agence France-Presse covers the report under the headline: “UN says refugees stuck in vicious cycle of conflict and climate.”

The Philippines was hit overnight by Typhoon Fung-wong, killing at least two people and displacing more than 1.4 million others, the Associated Press reports. It was the 21st storm of 2025 to hit the Philippines, Reuters says. BBC News reports: “The country’s meteorological service warned of destructive winds and ‘high-risk of life-threatening’ storm surges from the ‘very intense’ typhoon. Fung-wong – known locally as Uwan – comes days after earlier storm Kalmaegi left nearly 200 people dead.” It adds: “Climate change is not thought to increase the number of hurricanes, typhoons and cyclones worldwide. However, warmer oceans coupled with a warmer atmosphere – fuelled by climate change – have the potential to make those that do form even more intense. That can potentially lead to higher wind speeds, heavier rainfall and a greater risk of coastal flooding.” Nikkei Asia, the South China Morning Post and Washington Post also have the story.

MORE ON EXTREME WEATHER

• A tornado killed six and injured 750 on Friday in a town in southern Brazil, Agence France-Presse reports. The Associated Press, CNN and Bloomberg have the story.
• Reuters, the Associated Press and Agence France-Presse report on three deaths due to rough seas and high winds in Spain’s Canary Islands.

• The Associated Press: “Iranian capital faces water rationing and evacuations if it doesn’t rain soon, president warns.”
• The Guardian says England is “facing drastic measures due to extreme drought next year”. BBC News says the UK just recorded its “warmest ever Bonfire night”.
• The New York Times reports on how, after the recent Hurricane Melissa “tore through Jamaica”, those with rooftop solar “got their power back almost immediately”.
• Reuters: “New Zealand authorities send extra fire planes to battle 1,100-hectare wildfire.”

There is ongoing coverage of last week’s leaders’ summit in Belém ahead of COP30. AFP reports: “Earth can no longer sustain a development model based on intensive use of fossil fuels responsible for planet-harming emissions, Brazil’s president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva told a climate summit [on] Friday.” It quotes Lula saying: “Earth can no longer sustain the development model based on the intensive use of fossil fuels that has prevailed over the past 200 years.” The Associated Press says: “Officials from countries most vulnerable to global warming offered searing dispatches of life on the front line of a warming planet Friday, as world leaders gathered on the edge of the Amazon rainforest for the annual United Nations climate talks.” The New York Times also notes how “leaders at global climate summit highlight the rising toll of global warming”. It adds: “The US is one of the few countries in the world not attending the summit.”

Bloomberg reports: “The European Union and China agreed to join Brazil in a coalition aimed at improving collaboration on carbon markets – one of the main innovations the South American nation is bringing to COP30.” It adds that the coalition, announced on Friday, also includes the UK, Canada, Chile, Armenia, Zambia, France, Mexico and Germany. The outlet explains: “The initiative seeks to bring countries together to align practices and standards in carbon markets.” Le Monde says that heads of state at the summit “defend collective climate action against ‘extremist forces’”. BusinessGreen says that $5.5bn was pledged at the summit for the Tropical Forests Forever Facility (TFFF).

The Times reports comments on the sidelines of the summit by the UK’s energy secretary: “International talks in Brazil to curb climate change will prove doubters wrong and show that most countries are shifting towards clean energy, Ed Miliband has said.” The Guardian adds: “Tackling the climate emergency is one of the key issues that could turn the tide against hard-right populists across the world, the UK’s energy secretary has said.” It quotes Miliband saying: “We’re not going to give up and the progress that we’ve already made should give us heart…Giving up would be a total betrayal. Defeatism never took a single of a fraction of a degree of global warming. It never created a single job. It never did anything.”

MORE ON LEADERS’ SUMMIT

• In a frontpage article, the Sunday Times says Prince William “tells big business to ‘step up’ in climate battle”. BBC News and the Times also report on the prince.
• The Observer carries a feature noting how UK prime minister Keir Starmer was at the leaders’ summit in Brazil, under the headline: “Save the planet? Today’s centre-left leaders have more pressing concerns.”
• Sky News notes how the leaders of China, the US and India – the world’s top three emitters – were absent from the summit.
• The Guardian reports on “six world mayors defying climate-sceptic populist leaders”.

The UK chancellor Rachel Reeves has been “told that cutting funding for home insulation at the budget would risk the UK’s climate goals and hurt low-income households in a joint intervention by energy firms, fuel poverty charities and environmental groups”, the Guardian reports. The Press Association reports that “cutting VAT and energy efficiency programmes would be the wrong way” to cut energy bills, according to the thinktank Green Alliance. It adds: “Removing renewables subsidies, reducing system costs and introducing efficiency standards for landlords, could cut the typical household’s annual fuel bill by £178 by 2030.” The Daily Mail carries misleading coverage of the Green Alliance recommendations, which it incorrectly says includes “scrapping renewable subsidies”. [The Green Alliance says these subsidies should be paid for out of general taxation, rather than via energy bills.] The Daily Telegraph promotes the views of British Gas boss Chris O’Shea saying the “upfront investment” in upgrading the UK’s electricity grid “raises major concerns about affordability”.

MORE ON UK

• The Guardian interviews Darren Jones, chief secretary to the prime minister: “Jones insisted Labour was not rowing back from its green promises.”
• Bloomberg says the Hinkley Point C new nuclear project “braces for more delays”. The Financial Times says the head of the project’s developer, EDF, “has vowed to speed up the delivery of new nuclear reactors”.
• The Sun carries a hit piece on Prof Emily Shuckburgh, recently appointed chief scientific adviser to the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero.
• The Guardian: “UK banks still committed to climate goals, Bank of England executive insists.”
• In a frontpage story, the Daily Telegraph quotes shadow energy secretary Claire Coutinho calling efforts to cut emissions from the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) as “insanity”. The Daily Telegraph also carries an editorial attacking the “NHS’s spectacular net-zero waste”.
• As part of its campaigning against the BBC, the climate-sceptic Daily Telegraph claims, without providing evidence, that the BBC’s editorial guidelines and standards committee “has decided to review its climate and energy policy reporting”. The Daily Telegraph also carries what it claims is a “catalogue of corrections” of BBC climate reporting.

China’s National Energy Administration (NEA) has issued a notice on “promoting the integrated development of coal and new energy”, by building wind and solar in mining areas, reports industry news outlet BJX News. The notice calls for promoting “clean-energy substitution” in coal areas and advancing “renewable energy-based heating and cooling”, according to China Electric Power News. International Energy Net carries the full text of the document. Officials from the NEA say that China has been “strengthening the clean energy supply and promoting green transformation in the coal industry” in recent years to accelerate clean-energy development based on local conditions, according to the transcript of the press conference for the release of the notice covered another BJX News report.

MORE ON CHINA

• Geng Shuang, China’s deputy permanent representative to the United Nations, has said at a meeting of the UN Security Council on climate and security issues that China is “globally recognised as the country with the strongest determination, the most vigorous actions” on tackling climate issues, reports state news agency Xinhua.
• China Daily reports that China’s “new energy” storage capacity has exceeded 100 gigawatts (GW) as of September, according to Song Hongkun, deputy director of the NEA.
• Chinese official data shows rare-earth exports increased by 9% in October from September, Reuters reports, adding that it is the first month-on-month increase after “three straight months of declines”.
• Bloomberg: “EU warns it lacks near-term power to sway China on rare earths.”
• Sky News says that the “majority of the growth in China’s green technology exports” in recent years has been to developing countries.

An editorial in the Financial Times says of the UN climate talks beginning today that “pDonald Trump’s opposition to climate efforts and commitment to boosting fossil fuels creates one of the most difficult global contexts the event has faced”. It continues: “There are signs, however, that some leaders are ready to exploit the disarray and join forces in climate ‘coalitions of the willing’. They should do whatever they can to resist the pressure from Washington.” The newspaper concludes: “Now that goal [of limiting warming to 1.5C] is at death’s door, the task of delegates in Belém is to keep the COP process alive. Clumsy and cumbersome as it is, the world has no alternative.”

The Financial Times also carries a special report on climate change with comments from columnists Pilita Clark arguing the Paris Agreement “is not perfect but don’t write it off” and Martin Wolf saying “Trump’s climate denial must not halt global progress”. Adair Turner, chair of the Energy Transitions Commission, writes that “electrification is the key to energy efficiency”. Articles in the special report include: a “big read” on adaptation and pieces on the Baku to Belém “$1.3tn climate finance ‘roadmap’”; how geopolitical tensions “loom over” COP30; Brazil’s “plans to make the Amazon pay”; the “slow to take off” new UN carbon market under Article 6 of Paris Agreement; China’s efforts to decarbonise heavy industry; Trump’s “clean-energy cuts”; India’s “grid deadlock”; the EU’s “rift over carbon border tax revisions”; South Africa’s “push…for fairer funding”; the “unravel[ing]” of finance-sector climate alliances; and the “climate backlash”.

MORE COP30 COMMENT

• Politico carries a comment article by COP30 CEO Ana Toni and former UN chief Ban-Ki Moon, making the case for a strong outcome on adaptation, which they say has “never been more vital for our survival”.
• An editorial in the Sydney Morning Herald says Australia “should abandon” its bid to host the COP31 climate talks next year.
• The Observer publishes a letter from the “Planetary Guardians”, including former UN climate chief Christiana Figueres, urging COP30 attendees: “[L]et this be the moment when the world finally unites around a plan to transition away from fossil fuels within the next two decades”.
• An editorial in the state-supporting Global Times says the choice of the COP30 summit to use Chinese EVs as its official cars “reflects China’s efforts to promote a green, low-carbon transition and deep involvement in global climate governance”.
• For the Daily Telegraph, columnist Ambrose Evans-Pritchard writes under the headline: “The COP30 summit won’t save us, but technology just might.”
• On the eve of the COP30 talks, the Times hands its “weekend essay” slot to Prof Dieter Helm, to reprise the arguments he has been making against renewables and climate summits for more than a decade.

An editorial in the Guardian reflects on recent extreme weather events, including Hurricane Melissa that devastated Jamaica and Typhoon Kalmaegi that killed nearly 200 in the Philippines and Vietnam. It says: “The increasing ferocity and frequency of tropical storms imposes an unbearable burden on countries including Jamaica.” It concludes: “The failure to keep within the agreed 1.5C target…is a ‘moral failure’ and one that reinforces profound injustices…Donald Trump’s withdrawal of the US from the climate process was a setback, but other governments must not use it as an excuse. Instead, they must recognise that, as well as transitioning away from fossil fuels and towards green energy, they have a shared responsibility to address global heating’s consequences. The countries hit hardest by the climate crisis must not be left to deal with it alone.”

MORE COMMENT

• For the Backchannel Substack, Roberta Boscola, climate and energy lead at the World Meteorological Organization, writes about the need for “rigorous climate science” under the headline: “Why climate intel is key to national security.”
• For Climate Home News, Stephanie Pfeiffer, CEO of the Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change, writes under the headline: “Investor action is crucial to maintaining progress on deforestation risk.”
• An editorial in the Financial Times explores “how to curb China’s grip on rare earths”, arguing that the “world will need to band together and innovate”.
• For the Guardian, columnist George Monbiot argues that Bill Gates’ recent “essay denouncing ‘near-term emissions goals’ at COP30 mostly argues the case for letting the ultra-rich off the hook”.
• An editorial in the climate-sceptic Sun on Sunday once again makes a personal attack on UK climate secretary Ed Miliband, describing him as a “blinkered zealot”.
• The Daily Telegraph carries its usual range of climate-sceptic commentary, from columnists including Isabell Oakshott and Dia Chakravarty.

This edition of the Daily Briefing was written by Simon Evans, with contributions from Henry Zhang and Wanyuan Song. It was edited by Leo Hickman.

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