Cop30 live: conference centre evacuated as fire breaks out

UN secretary-general António Guterres earlier used speech at Belem summit to urge countries to find compromises in final hours of negotiations

Inside the halls of Cop30 you see people from all around the world, and it can be easy to forget that there are many people who remain unrepresented.

On Thursday morning, Magne Tony was standing with compatriots from French Guiana outside the entrance to the conference centre, trying to push pieces of paper into the hands of arriving delegates and observers headed: “Our Amazon is dying”.

The main problem is that France are in 9,000 kilometres from Amazonia, from South America, and they’re taking decisions. [But] they don’t really know what is the problem really. They’re taking the decisions from their own mind and the problem is that they’re far from reality.

That’s why we decided to alert the people in the world about [our] problems: water coming up, getting enough to eat, more heat – in some parts of French Guiana, people don’t have water.

These crises, a consequence of Western capitalist madness, primarily affect the most vulnerable: women and communities dependent on forests and rivers. But they also concern all of humanity: French Guiana is part of the Amazon, a regulator of the global climate and essential to planetary balance.

We remind you that French Guiana is the last colony in South America without self-determination. We will not be able to protect our environment or guarantee our food and energy self-sufficiency, essential for our collective survival, as long as decisions are made in Paris without consulting the affected communities or taking into account local specificities.

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Source: www.theguardian.com

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