Amsterdam, Netherlands – Greenpeace demands world leaders agree on a global response plan at COP30 as a new major UN report warned the global temperature is projected to rise to 2.3-2.5°C above pre-industrial era global temperatures, putting the Paris Agreement limit of 1.5°C at risk in the short-term.
The UNEP Emissions Gap Report 2025 warned the world is heading towards “a serious escalation of climate risks and damages” due to a lack of ambition and action, and reports the multi-decadal average of global temperature rise will exceed 1.5°C, at least temporarily, requiring faster and bigger cuts in emissions to minimise the overshoot.[1]
Jasper Inventor, Deputy Programme Director, Greenpeace International said: “How many warnings do we need? The time is now, but our leaders are asleep at the wheel, on a collision course to more devastating storms like Hurricane Melissa, human suffering, economic damages and climate injustice.”
“Warnings of a 1.5°C overshoot must be a rallying call for action and yet 2035 climate action plans have failed to bridge the ambition gap. We’re still only inching forward on cutting our emissions despite the demands of people and communities around the world.”
“We have the renewable energy solutions and we are making progress, but emissions are still rising, the transition away from fossil fuels is too slow, and national climate action plans are barely moving the needle. It’s time for G20 countries, above all developed countries, to grab the wheel and really lead the transition, starting at COP30, where a global response plan to accelerate action must be agreed.”[2]
The Emissions Gap Report 2025 predicted global temperatures to reach 2.3-2.5°C by the end of the century, down from 2.6-2.8°C last year. Since the adoption of the Paris Agreement 10 years ago, temperature predictions have fallen from 3-3.5°C, but faster action is required.
Similar to the UNFCCC’s NDC synthesis report, the UNEP also warned new 2035 climate action plans will have insufficient impact in reducing emissions, especially due to the intended US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, and called on G20 nations to display climate leadership.[3]
A new Greenpeace International report, Toxic Skies: How Agribusiness is Choking the Amazon, reveals how fires linked to industrial agriculture are turning the forest’s air toxic during the dry season. The findings are a stark warning that the Amazon’s crisis is not only about trees. It is about the air millions of people breathe, and the health of our shared planet.
When the sun rises over Porto Velho, on the edge of the Brazilian Amazon, it does not pierce through the mist. It struggles through the smoke. For months each year, the air fills with the haze of fires deliberately set to clear forests for cattle or to renew pasturelands. What was once the world’s greenest ecosystem often breathes air contaminated with higher levels of toxic particles than Beijing, São Paulo or Santiago, according to the report.
What the study found
Researchers monitored air quality in two Amazonian cities, Porto Velho (Rondônia) and Lábrea (Amazonas), combining satellite and ground-based data. The results are alarming:
During the record-breaking fire season of 2024, levels of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) exceeded WHO daily health guidelines by more than 20 times.
Even in 2025, a year with far fewer fires, the air still exceeded the guidelines by over six times.
Between 2019 and 2024, the annual average pollution in Porto Velho was higher than in major global megacities, largely driven by sharp increases in PM2.5 levels during the fire season.
Around 75% of burned areas around Porto Velho in 2024 are used as pasture for cattle production, showing that most fires are linked to grazing land use.
More than half of the total burned area in 2024 in the Amazon biome falls within a 360km radius around the facilities of Brazil’s largest meatpacker, JBS. Meatpackers such as JBS do not effectively prohibit and monitor the deliberate use of fire in their supply chains – leaving meatpackers exposed to the risk of indirect or direct supply chain links, including through maintaining business relations, with farms in burned areas.
This is not a natural disaster. It is a business model that profits from destruction and public suffering.
The Amazon’s fires are not acts of nature. They are deliberately lit to clear forest or renew pastures for cattle. And, behind every statistic are human stories. Hilda Barabadá Karitiana, from the Karitiana Indigenous Territory near Porto Velho, describes how her community lives with the smoke:
During the dry season, the air becomes thick with smoke. Even when the fire is far away, we feel it. Sore throats, constant coughing, and irritated eyes. It affects everyone.
– Hilda Barabadá Karitiana
For people like Hilda, the smoke is not just a seasonal nuisance. It is a public health emergency. Exposure to high levels of PM2.5 causes respiratory infections, heart disease and asthma, especially among children and older adults. The air itself has become an agent of crisis.
Debunking Myths
✘ Fires in the Amazon region occur naturally and are beneficial for the ecosystem.
Fires in the Amazon region are caused by human activity and are highly destructive to the rainforest ecosystem.
✘ Fires in the Amazon happen because of logging.
Vast areas of the Amazon biome are set on fire to make way for cattle ranching.
A turning point before COP30
This year’s COP30, hosted in Belém, on the edge of the Amazon, will be the first UN Climate Summit held inside a tropical forest. It is an opportunity to put Amazonian voices and air quality at the centre of global climate negotiations and to demand that governments and corporations act.
Chief Zé Bajaga, from the Caititu Indigenous Territory, says:
Here in the Amazon, we face invasion, fires and pollution from companies that profit while our land burns. Those who destroy for money must be held accountable.
COP30 should deliver an action plan to implement the UNFCCC’s 2030 target to halt and reverse deforestation and forest degradation of the world’s forests. It’s time to turn commitments into action.
Governments must urgently regulate the agricultural and financial sectors to ensure their alignment with the Paris Agreement, the Global Biodiversity Framework, and the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
Governments must ensure the transition to truly ecological and just food systems, an end to deforestation, and the reduction of emissions associated with agriculture, including methane.
World leaders must ensure funding for real solutions to protect and restore forests by providing finance directly accessible to Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities.
The Amazon’s toxic skies are not inevitable. They are the product of political choices and economic greed. As world leaders prepare for COP30, this is the moment to act.
Fires in the Amazon region are caused by human activity and are highly destructive to the rainforest ecosystem.
Respect the Amazon