At COP30 in Belém, themes of access and power are juxtaposed in stark and symbolic contrast. Snaking, uneven lines divide places and spaces: a surging brown river separates city and forest. The streets roar with shining SUVs while poverty-stricken people sleep on the street, hidden under pieces of broken plastic. This was a COP of visceral contrast. A military tank parked like a giant, deadly beetle at the Blue Zone entrance, while the colorful and diverse international climate crowd filed past. I couldn’t help but hear the unspoken questions hanging in the humid air.

Who gets a seat at these negotiation tables, and who must stand outside in the baking heat?

Why are so many Indigenous leaders protesting on the wrong side of the fence while fossil fuel lobbyists flood the summit’s air-conditioned halls with all the confidence of economic might?

It didn’t take long for the physical manifestation of these themes to arise. On Tuesday, November 11, towards the end of what had been our first day of filming (I was there making an independent climate documentary), the heavy, dull thudding of military boots reverberated through the Blue Zone. Shouts of “move, move, move!” electrified the otherwise staid air as we watched a group of military police run past, pushing what looked to be a trolley full of walkie-talkies. Shortly afterward, another policeman was seen being escorted away, a small bandage over a fresh cut on his face, which was ashen and afraid. The sight of blood changed the atmosphere like the snap of a whip. Something was happening. Updates on our phones soon told us a group of Indigenous protesters had forced their way through the entrance of the Blue Zone, literally kicking down the front door to clash with event security. As we followed calls to exit, we passed a line of military officers, arms linked, forming a human chain blocking the entrance.

We later found out that the Indigenous protesters had been calling for land rights. “We want our lands free from agribusiness, oil exploration, illegal miners, and illegal loggers,” said an Indigenous leader named Gilmar, from the Tupinamba community of the Tapajós River in Brazil. “We can’t eat money,” he had said.

Now, as we near the end of the summit, we—the press—are receiving the draft decision text, entitled “Global Mutirão: Uniting Humanity in a Global Mobilization Against Climate Change.”

The text frames COP30 as the “COP of Truth,” focusing on reaffirming the Paris Agreement and the 1.5°C goal. It highlights progress in renewables and calls for greater international cooperation, as well as re-emphasizing the need for scaled-up climate finance.

But whose truth is this? Because there is one huge, glaring omission that renders all the rest mere bluster and rhetoric.

There is no explicit mention of fossil fuels in the text. What happened to the agreement we made in Dubai at COP28, where the world came together to transition away from fossil fuels?

This so-called Global Mutirão appears to be a political umbrella decision that’s ripped full of holes. Nowhere in the text do we read the words “fossil fuels,” “coal,” “oil,” “gas,” “phase-out,” or “phase-down.” How can this be? I’m genuinely shocked, as I’m sure many others are. It makes one wonder: are we all looking at the same planet?

At the beginning of this COP, I asked myself: “What will COP30 mean for climate justice in 2025?”

I always felt there would be no black and white answer. Even to say the solutions lie in grey areas would be to allude to a tableau of blended hues. Rather, what we’re seeing is a vivid, complex, and often violent patterning of contradictions and opposing forces: hope and indifference; bravery and cruelty; empathy and unabated greed.

The picture painted at this moment seems almost abstract in its lack of cohesion, like a bizarre planetary Rorschach inkblot test. But the intentionally misleading image belies its true meaning. What we’re seeing are the toxic stains of oil addiction that irrevocably mark the canvas of our collective future, and this draft text seems to me a clear diagnosis of the profit-driven schizophrenia of the Corporate Power Bloc. Because the science is overwhelmingly clear, and backed by increasingly alarming personal experiences of a changing world. According to the Planetary Boundaries framework, six of the nine markers of planetary health have been exceeded, and fossil fuels are the single largest driver of this crisis. Yet, any mention of phasing out fossil fuels is conspicuously absent from the COP30 Global Mutirão draft text. This perpetuates the existing destructive systemic forces of large fossil-linked companies because it means their business models remain legally and politically intact.

This COP30 feels like the same play on a different stage, where the themes of oppression, exploitation and exclusion are interwoven in a perverse rendition of David and Goliath, but with a narrative arc where the giant always wins. It’s the Groundhog Day version of a climate nightmare. The irony is we are not even fighting for the planet’s future. The earth will survive; it has burned before, 200 million years ago, subsumed by flames and slowly reborn. No, this is about us. The crisis is not planetary, but human. The question is whether we can save ourselves from ourselves, and in the process, protect the only place we can ever call home.

COP30 is not over, and as I write this on the evening of the 22nd November, 2025, there is still a chance for the text to be revised. Many, including EU and island states, have rejected the draft deal, calling for stronger commitments to a tangible road map away from fossil fuels. What happens in these last hours of the negotiations remains to be seen. But, regardless of the outcome, one thing has become clear: as a collective humanity, we must speak out louder in opposition to an outdated and dangerous system that is causing an existenial threat to a shared, livible future. We must denounce political and corporate inaction and abuse. We cannot accept a lack of accountability from those who run—and ruin—the world. We must continue to use the only weapons we have: our choices, our voices, our hearts, and our stories. Let history know that there were many of us who stood up and spoke out against this draft text, saying “This is not good enough!”

COP30, we still have time. Don’t let us down.