DOES THE AMAZON SPEAK OR BECOME A STAGE? CHALLENGES OF REPRESENTATION AND CLIMATE JUSTICE AT COP 30

Abstract

This article falls within the field of sociolegal studies and offers a critical reflection on the intersection of climate justice, political representation, and human rights in the Amazon. Using the selection of Belém do Pará as the host city of COP 30 as a point of departure, it questions whether the event will bring about a real shift in how Amazonian peoples are heard and included, or whether the region will continue to serve merely as a symbolic backdrop for global decisions detached from local realities. The objective is to investigate the limits and possibilities of social participation and political representation of Indigenous peoples, riverside communities, quilombolas, and urban peripheries in both the preparatory process and decision-making spaces of the conference. The research adopts a qualitative approach, grounded in an interdisciplinary bibliographic review of academic texts in environmental law, human rights, political ecology, and climate justice. The findings indicate that, despite the symbolic relevance of hosting COP 30 in the Amazon, structural barriers persist that hinder the protagonism of historically marginalized subjects. The study concludes that without the effective inclusion of these peoples, the conference risks reinforcing exclusionary logics beneath the rhetoric of sustainability, thus compromising its transformative potential in the field of socioenvironmental justice.