There’s a message in holding the November 6–11 international summit on climate change at Belém, Brazil. The confabulation among nations on the state of the environment, or Conference of Parties (COP30), has been convened at the gateway of the endangered Amazon rainforests, the world’s largest, 5.5 million square kilometres of tropical forests threatened by logging and mining.

Unfortunately, Belém is not as exciting as Paris or Egypt’s seaside resort of Sharm El-Sheikh. The conference is seeing a tepid response, with only a few dozen world leaders making the trek to this Latin American outpost. Leading lights from some of the most important and populous nations are absent — India, the US, China and Russia.

The Donald Trump-led United States and China are sceptics on climate change goals,

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