Muted global business turnout at COP30 reflects subdued mood

Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for free

Business attendance at the UN COP30 climate summit in Brazil is expected to be far narrower than in past years and dominated by big Brazilian groups and multinational companies with Latin American operations.

The numbers of top overseas executives is hobbled both by the logistical constraints of the Belém location, at the gateway to the Amazon, as well as political pressure on climate action since the election of US President Donald Trump.

A handful of chief executives of major corporations were at pre-COP events in Brazil’s financial capital São Paulo last week, with many international groups sending chief sustainability officers or regional heads to a series of sustainable investment conferences.

They included ExxonMobil chief executive Darren Woods and Spanish infrastructure group Accionas executive chair José Manuel Entrecanales, as well as the chief executives of São Paulo-based meatpacking giant JBS, Gilberto Tomazoni, and the state-controlled Banco do Brasil’s CEO Tarciana Medeiros.

Among the most senior global finance executives was Zurich Insurance chair Michel Liès and Natalie Adomait, the chief operating officer of Brookfield Asset Management’s renewable energy arm. while BlackRock, JPMorgan, Bank of America and HSBC sent either regional heads or sustainability executives. Tech sector speakers included public policy and LatAm heads for Amazon and Meta, as well as the Google chief sustainability officer Kate Brandt.

Alicia Argüello, global head of sustainability at Hitachi Energy, which is building a $200mn transformer factory in Brazil, said the relatively low turnout of chief executives may have reflected that corporate climate goals had already been largely set and businesses were getting on with those plans.

“It’s the time for implementation and the mandates are there, the commitments are there, now they need to happen,” she added.

In business there was now greater discussion of energy security and affordability, not sustainability alone, said Argüello. “Energy security is becoming top of the list. But the climate emergency is not going away.”

Despite the fracturing of global climate action consensus since the Trump election, many of the delegates reported a positive atmosphere at the business conferences.

Dana Barsky, global head of sustainability strategy and net zero at Standard Chartered, said engagement between public and private sectors had improved significantly in the past five years at COPs

“It means we have a level of trust and working relationships so we can get more done through public-private partnerships,” she added. “[It] is really key to unlock capital mobilisation.”

A senior executive from another global bank said he was in São Paulo to see clients. Many companies were still pushing ahead with climate-related plans, he added, even if with less fanfare than before.

“I’m here because I want to do business,” he said. “I don’t see many examples of organisations saying ‘we were going to do this, and now we’re not’ . . . It’s just about getting on with it.”

One Japanese executive said he was pessimistic before travelling to Brazil, but had become more optimistic after seeing the Brazilian government’s efforts: “After coming here, the narrative is very different.”

There were also a handful of Brazilian nature-related start-up companies hopeful of developing carbon credits, which the government was aiming to boost.

One Europe-based investor, who was a veteran of about a dozen COPs, said he skipped the event this year, blaming confusion about where the business community would meet and the high cost of accommodation.

He added there were “mixed messages” about whether the business community should go to Belém at all. “All the finance guys are in São Paulo,” he added. Another senior UK-based investor said he had planned to go to São Paulo, but instead sent a more junior colleague.

In a letter to heads of state ahead of COP30, 35 business organisations representing more than 100,000 companies called on governments to urgently realign public finance and policy incentives with the clean energy transition.

María Mendiluce, the head of the We Mean Business Coalition, said there was evidence the real economy was accelerating towards clean energy. “The data shows business and markets are moving ahead of politics, and now governments need to step up.”