‘Trump doesn’t represent us’: US activist groups to push for climate action at Cop30 in Brazil | Cop30
DDespite historic environmental setbacks under a president who withdrew the United States from a key international climate treaty – and recently called global warming “the greatest scam ever perpetrated on the world” – US civil society groups say they are preparing to push for bold international action on climate at a major UN conference next month.
“This is a really important moment to illustrate that Trump does not represent all, or even the majority, of us,” said Collin Rees, U.S. program manager at the environmental nonprofit Oil Change International, which will attend the annual U.N. climate conference, known as Cop30..
The negotiations will take place in the Brazilian city of Belém, near the Amazon delta. It is expected to bring together delegations from almost every government in the world to discuss the implementation of the 2015 Paris climate agreement.
Trump, who began the process of withdrawing the United States from the Paris agreement on his first day in office, is not expected to send a delegation to the negotiations. But hundreds of U.S. activist organizations plan to attend, despite many logistical challenges and high lodging costs in a region with limited tourism infrastructure.
“Yes, the federal administration has changed dramatically…but the real American climate movement is still here,” said John Noel, deputy climate director at Greenpeace US.
The conference will take place against a backdrop of growing awareness that the vast majority of the world’s population – up to 89%, according to a recent study – want more to be done to tackle the climate crisis, but wrongly assume that their peers do not. In the United States, the world’s largest historical emitter, three-quarters of respondents said their government should do more. But Donald Trump has pushed the country in the opposite direction.
Since returning to the White House in January, Trump has placed dozens of fossil fuel allies in his cabinet. He has also launched broad attacks on climate and energy policies, as well as the development of renewable energy, despite data showing that most Americans support the energy transition and the growth of carbon-free energy. And the president has taken steps to dismantle climate research conducted by a range of US agencies, which recent polls show is highly unpopular, even with Republicans.
Trump officials have also demonstrated animosity toward multilateralism. During the negotiations, activists will be on alert for a potential announcement that the president intends to withdraw the country from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, a 1992 treaty that serves as a framework for intergovernmental climate policies.
But in Belém, Noel said, U.S.-based activists plan to “reassure our comrades and colleagues around the world that there is still a strong movement in the states to keep up the pressure around various forms of climate action.”
This will involve pressuring world leaders to commit to ambitious emissions reduction and climate adaptation programs with vigorous and realistic plans to achieve them.
“We need to show the rest of the world that the administration’s attack on climate is unpopular,” said Jean Su, director of energy justice at the Center for Biological Diversity, who will attend Cop30.
The Trump administration’s anti-climate stance puts it out of step with many governments around the world who have realized that environmental action can bring economic benefits.
More than 100 countries, for example, have been able to reduce their fossil fuel imports thanks to the growth of renewable energy, saving them $1.3 trillion since 2010, according to the International Energy Agency. The development of wind, solar and other carbon-free energy sources has also created millions of jobs. And many countries in the South are increasing their sales of electric vehicles, which reduces fuel and maintenance costs.
“There are different trends that show that the rest of the world continues to work to make its economy more resilient for a more prosperous future, and that a prosperous future cannot happen without taking climate into account,” said Yamide Dagnet, senior vice president for international work at the Natural Resources Defense Council, based in Washington DC.
Unlike the United States, other countries are also showing increasing interest in international climate negotiations. Colombia offered last month to host the first-ever international conference for phasing out fossil fuels in April 2026, after countries pushing for a fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty called for such a meeting.
At Cop30, climate activists will work to support governments that have taken such actions and encourage more officials to follow suit. And they will aim to highlight climate actions taking place in the United States at the local and state level, such as the successful fight for laws requiring polluters to pay for climate damages in Vermont and New York last year.
“We want to shine a light on these ‘polluter pays’ mechanisms and emphasize that they can be won and that other states are considering them,” Noel said. “And Cop presents a good opportunity to commercialize these solutions.”
The Trump administration is urging the courts to overturn these policies, and while it won’t officially participate in them At U.N. negotiations in November, climate groups say the administration could also try to pressure countries not to take ambitious international climate action.
This is something officials did as recently as last week: the U.S. derailed the enactment of a global carbon tax on shipping at an international maritime meeting as Trump called the plan a “new global green scam” on social media. Washington also threatened to impose sanctions and visa restrictions on countries that supported the deal.
“If there is a real inflection point and the United States views fossil fuel interests as somehow constrained, it’s not hard to imagine that there will be some type of statements from the administration trying to color the negotiations from afar,” Greenpeace’s Noel said.
The United States worked to block strong international climate policy well before Trump took office. He refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol in 1997 and, more recently, has underfunded international climate finance, opposed text to phase out fossil fuels, and worked to obstruct demands to phase out fossil fuels.
“The United States…has historically been a bad faith actor on climate action and the greatest obstacle to meaningful progress,” said Rachel Rose Jackson, research director at Corporate Accountability. “He has failed time and time again to do his fair share; the only difference now is that his evil intentions are on public display for all to see more clearly.”
Jackson said she expected that even without an official delegation, the United States would still have its “tentacles all over the UN climate negotiations,” working on the sidelines with other participants such as the EU and Canada to “orchestrate its great escape from climate action.” And they still control the purse strings.”
U.S. activists can provide an important counterweight to this type of pressure, activists say, from the halls of official Cop30 negotiations and from expected protests nearby in Belém. The protests are expected to be the largest seen at a COP conference in years.
“These actions can help put pressure on negotiators,” Rees said. “And they can also help build grassroots movements, build the power and confidence to go back to national capitals, provincial capitals or state-level capitals and continue that advocacy from the bottom up.”
Su, of the Center for Biological Diversity, said Cop30 offered a “powerful” opportunity to show the world that climate action is not only necessary, but also popular. Although activists are under no illusion that the negotiations will be the “pinnacle of democracy,” she said they will be an important moment to exercise the right to free assembly – a right guaranteed in both Brazil and the United States.
As experts – and Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva – warn that the United States and other countries are heading toward authoritarianism, Cop will allow activists to push for “people power,” Su said.
“During this dark time,” Su said, “this kind of physical collective showing humanity couldn’t be more important.”
