Belém, Brazil – In a betrayal of Indigenous Peoples, climate justice movements and civil society, COP30 has been a profound failure. Instead of bold commitments to phase out fossil fuels and protect Indigenous Peoples, ecosystems and biodiversity, governments doubled down on carbon markets, biofuels, techno-fixes, and dangerous and risky geoengineering schemes.
Carbon markets are being used to legitimize geoengineering schemes like Bio Energy and Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS), Direct Air Capture (DAC), marine Carbon Dioxide Removals (mCDR), which do not address root causes of the climate crisis and pose grave risks to ecosystems, Indigenous rights, fisherfolk and local communities, and biodiversity.
In what has been dubbed as the “Peoples COP” and “COP of Truth”, commitments to fight the climate crisis have been wanting, and a slew of false solutions have been pushed once again as a new form of colonialism and continued extractivism. From side events to pavilions and negotiating rooms, COP30 has been entrenched with profit-driven carbon markets and their lobbyists, with at least 20 events in pavilions and side events dealing with or promoting geoengineering, be it solar radiation modification or carbon dioxide removal scams. Earlier this week CIEL released that 531 Carbon Capture and Storage lobbyists were roaming the halls of COP30 and Kick Big Polluters Out revealed that 1 in 25 attendees at COP30 was a fossil fuel lobbyist.
HOME’s recently relaunched manifesto HOME Alliance Manifesto Against Geoengineering: Our Home Is Not a Laboratory makes it clear that Mother Earth is not a testing ground for geoengineering experiments. Launched last week, the manifesto reiterates that we must reject geoengineering, defend mother earth, and advance real climate justice solutions.
Reactions from HOME Alliance Members
Aakaluk Adrienne Blatchford, Geoengineering Outreach Organizer, Indigenous Environmental Network said:
“Climate mitigation can not be rooted in false solutions driven by extractive industries that continue to perpetuate destruction of Indigenous lands and displacement of the People who steward them. Climate solutions must be led by People that continue to live in symbiosis with our lands, water and air. In ceremony. In healing. We are demanding that our People be put in the forefront of an Indigenous led Just Transition that moves away from these colonial structures to ensure a healthy Mother Earth and Father Sky for all, for the future of our children. We demand our voices be heard by the United Nations, not just with performative actions by checking off boxes, but creating seats at the decision making tables for our knowledge to be embraced as is. Geoengineering is a false solution that cannot have a seat at the table in this or any other COP.”
Jana Uemura, Climate Campaigner, Global Forest Coalition said:
“Different COP, same old story. The UNFCCC needs to be fundamentally reformed for it to retain even an illusion of legitimacy. There is no way that this process is even capable of ending deforestation, much less steering the world away from catastrophic climate change, equitably or otherwise. The corporate lobbyists must be kicked out immediately, and big polluters face up to their moral responsibilities now.”
Mohammed Usrof, Executive Director, Palestinian Institute for Climate Strategy (PICS), said:
“COP30 has made one truth unmistakably clear: the same governments and corporations selling carbon markets and geoengineering as ‘solutions’ are the ones enabling climate militarism, surveillance, and environmental warfare. Our investigation into the US-Israeli firm Stardust Solutions revealed how geoengineering is already entangled with defence ministries, intelligence-linked venture capital, and technologies that can be weaponised against besieged populations like Palestinians in Gaza. This is not climate action — it is a dangerous extension of colonial power and a chain reaction that we cannot allow to happen. As we outline in PICS’ Recognise, Resist, Rebuild Manifesto, the struggle for climate justice is inseparable from dismantling militarism, colonial extraction, and the false solutions now dominating COP30.”
Lili Fuhr, Fossil Economy Program Director at the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), said:
“Fossil fuel and carbon capture lobbyists have captured and compromised the UNFCCC process, filling negotiation hallways and even taking seats on national delegations. They are delaying the phaseout of fossil fuels while pushing false solutions like Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) and highly speculative geoengineering technologies marketed as atmospheric ‘carbon removal.’ The world doesn’t need fossil-fueled tech fantasies that protect big polluters and Silicon Valley billionaires. It needs a future grounded in renewables, accountability, and justice, and a climate process with a robust conflict-of-interest policy that keeps polluters out.”
Nnimmo Bassey, Executive Director, Health of Mother Earth Foundation said:
“COP30 erupted with flames in the halls and fires in the streets, yet negotiators still could not confront the real inferno driving the climate crisis; fossil fuels and the dangerous false solutions built to shield them. The forceful entry of Indigenous peoples demanding lands free from agribusiness, oil extraction and mining revealed the truth the COP keeps evading; those most affected remain shut out of decisions about their own survival.
The world cannot claim climate action while indulging carbon markets, geoengineering fantasies, and financialization schemes like the TFFF that convert forests, lands and skies into commodities for speculators; these are not solutions, they are escape routes for polluters.
Fossil lobbyists flooded the venue and turned a critical moment into a theatre of delay; the Mutirao draft avoided the hard issues and left blank spaces where courage should stand, a troubling display of political timidity in an age of escalating fires, floods and rising authoritarianism.
If COP30 taught us anything, it is that we cannot negotiate our way out of a burning planet while clinging to the very systems that set it ablaze; we insist on a clear global commitment to phase out fossil fuels, public and grant-based climate finance, people centered adaptation, and the rejection of geoengineering and carbon trading illusions. There can be no ‘implementation COP’ without real solutions, and no climate ambition without justice.”
Mar Zepeda Salazar, Legislative Director, Climate Justice Alliance said:
“COP30 has been captured by carbon markets and corporate lobbyists, turning what should have been a breakthrough for climate justice into a playground for carbon traders and geoengineering profiteers. Geoengineering, carbon offsets, and techno-fixes are nothing more than profit-driven scams that sacrifice Indigenous Peoples, frontline communities, and Mother Earth. We reject these dangerous and unproven experiments on our lands and insist on real climate and community-led solutions that are rooted in justice not corporate manipulation.”
Dylan Hamilton, False Solutions Coordinator, Alliance of Non-Governmental Radical Youth (ANGRY) said:
“It is a myth that the climate crisis can be ‘solved’ through the exact same systems that caused it. Treating the natural world as a tradable commodity, or the laws of physics as a party we can negotiate with, is a betrayal of this process and condemns millions to not only suffer climate breakdown, but to further have their lands stolen and sacrificed.”
Coraina de la Plaza, HOME Alliance Coordinator, said:
“COP30 has been, once again, a showcase of false solutions, where carbon markets and other false solutions like dangerous geoengineering schemes are paraded as climate action while real solutions, including the equitable phase out of fossil fuels, are sidelined. Instead of protecting Indigenous Peoples, ecosystems, and frontline communities, governments have handed the stage to lobbyists and profiteers.
Communities around the world are already implementing genuine, grounded solutions. The massive march on November 15 and the powerful Peoples Summit showed where true climate leadership lies: with Indigenous Peoples, frontline movements, and civil society standing shoulder to shoulder. Climate justice and real solutions begin with people, not polluters, and with solutions rooted in care, sovereignty, and resilience.”
Gary Hughes, Co-Director / Americas Program Coordinator, Biofuelwatch said:
“Our organization has watched from a distance as grandiose statements have been made at COP 30 about the importance of responding to the climate crisis, yet it is obvious that talk remains bigger than action. As a full-spectrum paradigm of false solutions is paraded in front of the world under the auspices of global climate talks Biofuelwatch remains grateful to the international civil society community that has joined the HOME Alliance to speak out against the promotion of dangerous speculative geoengineering technologies as a response to climate change”.
Kirtana Chandrasekaran, Friends of the Earth International said:
“Multilateralism means nothing so long as corporations are rolled out the red carpet and invited to write the rules in the conference halls. 1.5 stands no chance whilst these corporations and rich governments work hand in hand to block progress on any meaningful action whilst promoting false solutions. We stand on the door of the Amazon and yet the response we are given to the climate and biodiversity crises is more schemes that commodify nature like the Tropical Forest Forever Facility. Instead, we need to protect forests for their intrinsic value, and centre the rights of the Indigenous Peoples and local communities that are its guardians.”
Kaveri Choudhuri, ETC Group said:
“Corporations use the language of sustainability to avoid real emissions cuts. COP30 saw these same tactics again and now, alarmingly, is being turned towards our oceans—pushing untested, high-risk technological ‘fixes’ instead of genuine climate action. The UN and governments should uphold the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) moratorium on geoengineering and apply the precautionary principle on geoengineering under the London Convention and London Protocol. We demand the exclusion of all false ‘solutions’ from the UNFCCC platforms, especially the ones developing under the Art 6 of the Paris Agreement.”
Additional Information:
- HOME Alliance manifesto in multiple languages
- Press Release: At COP30 Civil Society Groups Warn Geoengineering Is a Risky Delusion
- Press Release: At COP30 and Peoples Summit, Movements Declare Geoengineering Is An Illusion That Threatens Our Future
- Watch HOME Alliance COP30 press conference
- Press Release: Stardust’s Geoengineering Scheme Is a Militarized, For-Profit Threat to Global Climate Justice, PICS Warns
- Opinion: Entrenching a new era of climate colonialism: Carbon Dioxide Removal, carbon markets and Nature Based Solutions at COP30
- Geoengineering Projects Tracker
