For the original article by Mariana Galdino and Mariana de Paula Published in Nexo Jornal, click here.
In Brazil—as around the world, but especially in the Global South—it is impossible to talk about the climate crisis without addressing environmental racism, gender and class injustice. These are not side issues in the climate debate, but rather structural ones. Neither can we discuss gender-based violence without intersectionality. Although it tragically affects all women, violence is marked by race, sexuality, location of origin and social class.
According to the Ministry of Health, over 60% of reported cases of violence against women in Brazil involve Black women. The 2025 Atlas of Violence shows that over 68% of women murdered in 2023 were Black. Brazil continues to lead the world in the number of trans women killed in 2025, especially young, Black women from the country’s Northeast, according to data from the National Association of Transvestites and Transsexuals. These figures not only expose the State’s complicity in racist and patriarchal violence, but also reveal how overlapping forms of oppression shape the daily lives of Afro-descendant women.
Today, according to the Brazilian Institute for Geography and Statistics (IBGE), 54% of the Brazilian population self-identifies as Black—totaling nearly 113 million individuals. Black women make up around 30% of the population, or almost 60 million Brazilians. In the country’s favelas, home to over 16 million people—more than the population of Portugal—women are also the majority, accounting for approximately 51.7%. These areas face the selective absence of the State, the precarization of life, historical neglect and direct exposure to the impacts of the climate crisis.
Black women face daily water scarcity, extreme heat, food insecurity, limited mobility and the constant threat of extreme weather events such as floods and landslides. Even so, in the face of structural neglect and systemic violence, they are the ones who take the lead in sustaining life in their communities. They mobilize collective responses to environmental and climate crises, ensuring food, care and protection—but they are the last to benefit from care-centered policies and from national and international resources.
The State’s omission in formulating fair and equitable public policies for this group creates additional burdens and reinforces gender and racial inequalities. The care they provide is not by choice—it is imposed—and must be recognized as labor, as a collective responsibility, and as a central issue on the political agenda.
The Paris Agreement now marks its 10th anniversary. Just from 2020 t0 2023, over 80% of Brazilian municipalities experienced disasters associated with extreme weather events—a significant increase compared to previous decades, which experts attribute to the worsening climate crisis. According to Adaptabrasila platform from the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation, over 66% of these municipalities have low or very low adaptive capacity. This means such events continue to be met with a lack of public policy and unequal access to solutions. The climate crisis acts as a multiplier of injustice and social exclusion.
For this reason, we speak of environmental and climate racism: the bodies and locations that have always been the last to be heard and considered, continue to be the first to suffer the impacts. If COP30 is to be a true milestone, it must recognize that there is no climate justice without racial and gender justice. And more than that: these dimensions must not be treated as side issues, but as central and cross-cutting guidelines in the formulation of policies, plans and budgets.
It is urgent that UNFCCC agenda items—such as the Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA), National Adaptation Plans (NAPs), the United Arab Emirates Just Transition Work Programme, and the Gender Action Plan (GAP)—fundamental tools of global climate governance—take into account the world’s unequal realities. The Global South is the most affected by climate changeyet remains the least politically represented in decision-making forums. These mechanisms must recognize the centrality of regional contexts, peripheral voicesAfro-descendant populations and Indigenous peoples, local and traditional communities, women and girls, people of diverse genders, and historically neglected locations.
By hosting the next COP, Brazil has the responsibility not only of being the logistical host, but also of spearheading the conference’s political and ethical leadership. This means ensuring that the road to Belém is built collaboratively, with active listening and the protagonism of civil society organizations, social movements, youth groups, traditional peoples and Black women who have historically built resistance in their locations and have much to contribute to the implementation and improvement of the current structure. An example of this is the Black Women’s Marcha social and political movement that fights racism and violence, and strives for the well-being of Black women in Brazil.
We hope that COP30 represents more than just a transition agenda—that it becomes a milestone of historical reparations and a commitment to a new model of climate governance, grounded in equity and dignity. This requires, among other things, strengthening the production of disaggregated data by race, gender, location, and social class, and ensuring the true inclusion of these populations in decision-making, with real, and not merely symbolic, power.
We have the opportunity not to repeat the mistakes of previous COPsto stand firm and say that Afro-descendant women will no longer be made invisible.
The climate justice that we defend is intersectional, feminist, anti-racist and grassroots. And we hope that Belém, in the heart of the Brazilian Amazonwill be the starting point for this new global pact—a pact that recognizes that impacts are unequal and, therefore, solutions must also be distributed fairly and equitably.
About the Authors:
Mariana de Paula is co-founder and Executive Director of the Decodification Institute (formerly LabJaca), an organization dedicated to data-driven production, communication, and advocacy, focusing on the realities and needs of peripheral communities.
Mariana Galdino is co-founder and Advocacy Analyst at the Decodification Institutestudying law at the State University of Rio de Janeiro (UERJ), and specializing in Project Management at the Getúlio Vargas Foundation (FGV).