COP30 President André Corrêa do Lago:

Prime Minister of Ethiopia, his excellency Abi Ahmed, the chairman of the Commission of the African Union, Sir Mahmoud Youssef, heads of states and government, distinguished leaders, excellencies, it's a great honour to stand before you on African soil and address the second African climate summit, bringing together Africa's leader, and as a sequel of the historic first Nairobi summit.

Africa's unity through the African Union is a gift to the world. When Africa comes together with one voice, the world must listen. As we all know, Brasil has historical human ties with us. People of African descent represent almost 60% of Brazilians and we are extremely proud of it. As President Lula says, Africa is part of our identity.

And I have to say that the show that we had at the opening of this ceremony with these amazing musicians and dancers, as a Brazilian I really wanted to join them on the stage.

Against the background of systemic uncertainty, in which climate urgency interacts with compounding geopolitical and socioeconomic challenges, Brasil is working hard for COP 30 to represent an inflection around three priorities. One, reinforce unilateralism and the climate change regime under the UNFCCC.

Second, connecting the climate regime to people's real lives and the real economy. And third, accelerating the implementation of the Paris Agreement. The incoming COP 30 presidency counts with Africa to secure and safeguard the multilateral climate system. Although imperfect, we know multilateralism is the only way to fight climate change.

And we know some actors would be happy to see multilateralism fail. Together, we can prove them wrong. Together, we can change by choice rather than being imposed change by global warming.

The world needs to fight climate change. The world needs to fight climate change for Africa, because, as was said here before, the contribution of Africa for global warming is absolutely minimal. So, this deeply unfair situation shows climate injustice at the highest level. Africa is rich beyond measure.

This continent has a potential that is extraordinary, but the realities of today are already extraordinary. There is a paradox of abundance and deprivation that is a challenge to all to confront. I believe that the leaders here present have the power to rewrite.

Special needs and circumstances are a scientifically legitimate demand and it is also an ethical imperative. The increased vulnerability to climate impact will hamper the development of most countries of Africa and also of the continent of where Brazil is, Precisely when their peoples are progressing towards improving their standards of life.

We cannot allow climate change to hinder the right to development of the people. Challenges of climate change are challenges of developments in all its dimensions. The five principles embodied in the 1992’s Convention: mitigation, adaptation, finance, technology, and capacity building.

We know we need to reform the multilateral financial architecture and remove barriers and address disablers faced by developing countries in finance and climate action, including the high cost of capital, the limited fiscal space, the unsustainable debt levels, the high transaction costs, the conditionalities for accessing climate finance. We must progress in mainstreaming climate into investment and finance.

I must acknowledge here his excellency the president of Kenya, William Ruto, because of the Nairobi declaration which together with the bridge town initiative that prime minister Mia Motley, who was here yesterday, are inspirations for minister Babayeva and I to prepare the Road Map from Baku to Belem. On Saturday, on the special event on the special circumstances of Africa, we heard from the Ethiopian Minister of Planning and Development that Africa cannot be seen only as a victim of climate change, but as a provider of solutions.

The Prime Minister, this morning, in the exceptional speech, has also mentioned so many of the solutions that Africa can bring to the continent and to the world. As I heard this week from many leaders, Africa is not waiting. The examples are shining.

I think that Ethiopia, with its investment in energy mix that is not only clean, but also resilient, and we have the amazing initiative of the Green Legacy initiative aimed at planting 50 billion trees in Ethiopia, is an inspiring example for us all.

A just and inclusive energy transition on the continent is looking ever more like an opportunity to create jobs, distribute wealth, and generate income in particularly for the youth. We refer to just energy transitions in Brasil, because we must recognize that every country, every region have to have its own path.

And in Brasil, at COP 30, we are absolutely ready to embrace many of the priorities of Africa and a very special focus will be given to Mission 300 and Clean Cooking at COP 30.

As we are preparing a COP in a tropical forest, we will also have many things regarding the forest. We must make sure that forests are seen by the world as solutions to many of the problems that were caused by other countries. In that context, we must have mechanisms that deal with the three great challenges we have with forests, which is fighting deforestation, which is also restoration of forests, and obviously the conservation of forests.

In that context, we need many instruments, and Brasil is going to strengthen the ideas surrounding the Tropical Forest Forever Facility that it is promoting.

But adaptation, how can we not talk about adaptation, a key priority for COP 30?

The adaptation agenda will focus not only on scaling finance, advancing the global goal on adaptation, but integrating resilience across all sectors of development. Climate shocks already cost the global economy hundreds of billions annually, making it urgent to mainstream adaptation into all economic instruments, from planning and budgeting to trade and investment framework.

By investing in adaptation, we safeguard infrastructure, protect communities, and unlock opportunities for a sustainable. In my first letter, as COP president designate, I invited international community to join hands in what we call a mutirão.

Mutirão is when everybody gets together with the same objective, but each one doing what they know how to do and doing it by themselves. In the run up of COP 30, we wanted to mobilize all actors in this global mutirão, government, civil society, private sector, indigenous people, local communities, all together to enhance climate action.

The Brazilian delegation this week in Addis Ababa, included the ministry, the Minister of Environment, myself as President designate, but also the CEO of COP 30, also the high-level champion, the youth champion. So, we brought everyone that is going to prepare COP30 to Africa to listen to all the dimensions that Africa wants to see included in COP30.

One of the many reasons that we go back to Brasil very excited about we can do is because we are preparing an action agenda that is designed to receive the solutions that Africa wants to present to the world. So, this is an invitation to all sectors of the African countries of this extraordinary continent to come to Brasil.

We need concrete answers to climate change. And we have taken the approach of building upon all the other presidencies of COPS have made before us. So, we need to have a granary of solutions, and I am sure that the world will be surprised by what countries like Brasil and the continent of Africa can present.

We want COP to be a COP of implementation. But why this moment is a COP of implementation? Because we have already negotiated a lot. We can already implement a lot. As we continue to negotiate, as we continue to have papers, we will have action to show.

Excellency, ladies and gentlemen, President Lula wanted since the beginning, since the first moment, to bring the cop to the heart of the Amazon. He wanted to show the world the reality of the forest that everyone loves, but very few actually know. The Amazon shares the African paradox.

One of the world's richest nations, and one of the richest regions in Brasil, and at the same time, unfortunately, with all its natural resources, it is a region that has the poorest indicators in Brasil. I am sure that all the things that unite Brasil and the African continent will be very clear at COP30.

We know that together with Africa, we are totally convinced that we can make an exceptional COP 30. Thank you very much.