Amazonian leaders say capitalism failed

Today's newsletter shares the dark side of capitalism from the perspective of Amazonian leaders. Their message comes as Brazil prepares to host COP30 in November. You can also read the story on Bloomberg.com. For unlimited access to climate and energy news, please subscribe.

The dark side of gold trading

By Yinka Ibukun

A delegation of Amazonian leaders journeyed from the world's largest rainforest to the financial center of London last week to deliver a message: capitalism has failed their home and its inhabitants.

Representatives of the Yanomami, Krenak and Kambeba peoples of the Brazilian Amazon met with leaders in British academia and finance to give first-hand accounts of the hidden devastation behind commodity trading, highlighting the impacts that large, unchecked extraction of natural resources have on Indigenous communities.

"The earth is ill," said Dario Yanomami, vice-president of the Hutukara Yanomami Association, which represents disparate Yanomami communities in Brazil. "For 525 years, we, Indigenous people, have been protecting the land, and now the global society has to protect Mother Nature from being destroyed by the capitalist system."

Dario Yanomami in London, on July 9. Photographer: Betty Laura Zapata/Bloomberg

Amazonian groups' attempts to save forests from Brazil's mining, logging and agribusiness industries have often been met with violence, the representatives said. Yanomami land, in particular, has been ravaged and polluted by illegal mining for gold, as market prices for the commodity have soared to record highs of more than $3,000 an ounce.

The leaders spoke with journalists in Bloomberg's London headquarters as Brazil prepares to host the next United Nations climate talks, COP30, in the Amazonian town of Belem. The summit will draw representatives from nearly 200 countries to discuss action on global warming. The leaders said they are concerned about lending legitimacy to COP meetings as they feel the invitation to Indigenous communities is only "symbolic."

Adana Omagua Kambeba Photographer: Betty Laura Zapata/Bloomberg

"I wouldn't want to participate at COP by just listening in," said Adana Omagua Kambeba, one of the first Indigenous medical doctors in Brazil and a shaman-in-training. "I would like to speak and to actually represent my people," she said.

Ahead of the talks in November, Brazil has championed the creation of a $125 billion fund to compensate tropical countries for preserving forests and pledged that a portion will go to Indigenous communities; but Davi Yanomami, the leader of the Yanomami people, said he hadn't been consulted about the plan.

Skeptics of the idea and market-based solutions like carbon credits include Ailton Krenak, a member of the delegation and author of Ideas to Postpone the End of the World, a book that calls for a rethink of people's relationship to nature.

"The market will not solve the problem it creates," he said. "That would be naivete."

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Photographer: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg

Pricey nights

$1 million

One developed country negotiator said they had been quoted this much for their team of 25 delegates at COP30 to stay in a five-star hotel in Belem that has not yet been built.

Brazil's grand plan

"This will be 'go big, or go home.'"

Razan Al Mubarak

President of the International Union for Conservation of Nature

Brazil's plan to launch a $125 billion forest fund at COP30 has been viewed as "audacious" by experts. It ranks among the largest financial mechanisms ever proposed to help plug the multi-trillion-dollar gap in funding needed to halt climate change and reverse dramatic global losses in biodiversity.

Worth a listen

The world's militaries are incredibly polluting, collectively accounting for some 5.5% of global emissions. Western economies are now gearing up for a big expansion of their militaries, with members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) agreeing to increase defense spending to 5% of their gross domestic product by 2035. That will commit trillions of dollars more to an enormously carbon intensive industry, unless militaries can find a way to reduce their emissions. On the latest episode of Zero, Akshat Rathi asks retired Lieutenant General Richard Nugee, author of the UK Ministry of Defence's climate change report: Can warfare go green?

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Members of the Philippine Navy paddle through floodwaters in the Philippines. Photographer: Norman P. Aquino/Bloomberg

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