Opening of the People’s Summit in Belém reaffirms the participation of the people in the climate struggle

By Rafael Zan / MAB    

This Wednesday morning (November 12) marked the official opening of the People’s Summit for Climate Justice, held on the campus of the Federal University of Pará (UFPA) in Belém. The event, which is part of the Popular COP, organized by social movements as a parallel space to COP 30, arises as a direct response from the people to closed negotiation processes that historically exclude those affected by dams, Indigenous peoples, riverside dwellers, quilombola communities, women, urban workers ,and youth from the Amazon and throughout Brazil.

Amid drums, songs and flags waving under the Amazonian sun, the opening reaffirmed that the Amazon is not just a territory of impact: it is a territory of voice, science, culture and resistance. UFPA, which hosts the meeting, has once again become the stage for a global call for justice and a call that comes from the riverbanks, from occupations, from villages, from quilombos and from urban peripheries.

As a popular gathering that brings together a delegation of 1,200 MAB activists from all regions of the country, the Summit symbolizes the urgency of putting the people back at the center of decisions that shape the future of climate, water, and life.

What is the People’s Summit? 

The People’s Summit is an international space for mobilization, education, and resistance, collectively built by social movements in defense of territories, democracy, and life. More than a parallel event, it stands as a popular counterpoint to the official COP negotiations, questioning their historical distance from the populations that suffer most from the climate crisis and almost never find a space to speak: those affected by dams, Indigenous peoples, quilombola communities, riverside dwellers, peasants, urban workers, and marginalized youth.

Here, the debate does not originate in offices or closed reports: it arises from the riverbanks, from occupations, from communities, from quilombos and villages. It is a space where the word returns to its place of origin, the grassroots, and where each concrete experience of pain, resistance, and collective creation is transformed into a political horizon.

At the Summit, the denunciations against dams, mining, petroleum, waterways, deforestation, and all the models of exploitation that fuel the climate crisis meet with proposals built by the people themselves: popular energy, agroecology, food sovereignty, water defense, territorial justice, and new ways of living in balance with nature. It serves as a gathering place which reaffirms that real climate solutions can only emerge from those who live, resist, and reinvent the world from their own territories.

Right at the opening, the rector of UFPA highlighted the importance of the university as a living territory of social movements:

“UFPA is a people’s university that produces science in collaboration with quilombola communities, Indigenous peoples, ribeirinhos (riverside dwellers), and all traditional populations of the Amazon. We are proud to be the largest university in the Pan-Amazon region and the third largest public university in Brazil, and we reaffirm: no knowledge is superior to another. Without education, without health, without human rights, without welcoming Indigenous peoples, quilombola communities, traditional populations, and the LGBTQIA+ population, there is no climate justice.”

A COP made with heart and soul: the strength of the people in motion

The opening of the Summit was marked by reflections on the collective effort to build a People’s COP amidst the structural difficulties of the Amazon. Representing allied movements, Ivan Gonzales, Member of the Political Commission of the People’s Summit, and also Political Coordinator of the Trade Union Confederation of the Americas (CSA), a continental trade union organization representing the central unions of 21 countries – from Argentina to the United States – delivered a powerful speech on inequality, resistance, and organization:

“The People’s Summit is built through hard work and sacrifice. Comrades are arriving from afar without even having their food guaranteed, but we are here to show that we depend on the planet, and not on this capitalism of death. Those who are at COP 30 don’t know who we are, but we will continue here, beyond Belém, in every place where there is struggle and hope. We send our solidarity to the peoples who resist in Congo, Nepal, Palestine, and so many other territories,” concluded Ivan.

During the closing ceremony, Guilherme Boulos emphasized that attempts to discredit the people have been a constant strategy of sectors that profit from environmental destruction:

“Some believe that popular participation is just a charade, but COP ends in a few days; what remains is the social mobilization. To confront the climate crisis, we have powerful enemies: the oil companies, predatory agribusiness, mining that devastates territories. Therefore, it is essential to have youth, rural areas, cities, women, Indigenous people, quilombola communities, all standing up. You are the protagonists in the real fight against the climate crisis.”

A beginning that points to the future 

With the strength of the grassroots, the popular delegations, and the collective commitment to climate justice, the People’s Summit began its work reaffirming a principle that resonates in every corner of the Amazon: no ecological transition will be just without the people. The first day already showed that this is not a meeting of observers, but of protagonists, people who know the climate crisis in their bodies, in the land, on the riverbank, in the electricity bill, in the lack of food, and in the dignity denied by large-scale projects and corporate power.

Over the next few days, UFPA (Federal University of Pará) will transform into a vibrant territory of dialogue and confrontation. There will be assemblies that bring together experiences of resistance, workshops that weave together traditional and popular knowledge, rituals that affirm the spirituality of the people, debates that challenge the energy model, cultural presentations that celebrate collective memory, and international collaborations that build new paths of planetary solidarity.

All this with the Amazonian people, their waters, their struggles, their ways of life at the center of the world. MAB (Movement of People Affected by Dams) remains present, firm, and necessary, because those affected do not ask permission to exist. They enter, occupy, denounce, and propose. Where the people organize, the future is born. Where the people raise their voices, history changes direction. And that is what the Summit has been announcing from the very first moment: a just transition begins here, in the territories, in the communities, in the hands that insist on rebuilding Brazil and defending life.