‘Make Polluters Pay’: Greenpeace joins over 40,000 marching in Belém, calling for climate, forest action at COP30

BELÉM, BRAZIL, Saturday 15 November 2025 — Greenpeace Australia Pacific joined an estimated 40,000 people in the Global Climate March today in Belém, the end of the first week of the COP30 climate summit.

Photos and videos of the Global Climate March are available in the Greenpeace Media Library.

The Global Climate March was organised by civil society organisations and Indigenous Peoples groups from around the world. Activists carried messages demanding ‘Respect for the Amazon’ and to ‘Make Polluters Pay’, using a giant climate polluters ‘bill’ showing projected loss and damage attributed to top oil and gas corporations[1]. 

The figure includes Australian gas multinational Woodside, whose climate damage bill was calculated at over US$ 110 billion (AUD $168 billion) since the Paris Agreement was signed ten years ago. Research compiled by Greenpeace in 2024 showed the emissions from Woodside’s Burrup Hub gas project in WA, which includes its planned Browse gas field, was 125 times the annual emissions of Pacific nations combined.

Shiva Gounden, Head of Pacific at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, said: “As we’ve just seen from the devastation caused by Typhoon Fung-Wong that barrelled through the Philippines, the costs of the ongoing failure to confront our fossil fuel addiction is overwhelmingly clear.

“Fossil fuel corporations like Woodside are making huge profits from doubling-down on gas extraction and blocking climate action, while ordinary people around the world pay the price. 

“At a time when the UN warns how dangerously off course we are from the 1.5°C target, Woodside plans to drill for more dirty gas underneath Scott Reef off the coast of Western Australia as part of its Browse project, currently undergoing federal approvals. 

“It’s time to make polluters pay for the destruction they are causing, to people and our planet, driven by greed. There is no scenario where new fossil fuels are compatible with a 1.5°C world — our lives and livelihoods are at stake.”

Carolina Pasquali, Executive Director at Greenpeace Brazil, said: “We are tens of thousands here today, on the streets of Belém, to show negotiators at COP30 that this is what people power looks like. 

“Yesterday we found out that one in every 25 COP30 participants is a fossil fuel lobbyist, proportionally a 12% increase from last year’s COP. How can the climate crisis be solved while those creating it are influencing the talks and delaying decisions? The people are getting fed up – enough talking, we need action and we need it now.”

In Belém at COP30, Greenpeace Australia Pacific is calling on the Australian government to:

Keep the 1.5C Paris Agreement goal alive by halting new fossil fuel projects, committing to a fast, fair phase out of fossil fuels including exports, and revising Australia’s NDC to a science-aligned target.

Ensure more grant-based climate finance for mitigation, adaption, and loss and damage. 

Introduce a polluters pay mechanism that would unlock climate finance, and ensure fossil fuel corporations pay their fair share for climate damage.

Support action to protect forests and biodiversity, including a new 5-year Forest Action Plan to fulfil the goal of ending deforestation and forest degradation by 2030.

-ENDS-

Notes to Editor:

[1] The quantification of economic damages since 2015 was provided to Greenpeace International by Prof. James Rising of the University of Delaware and Dr. Lisa Rennels of Stanford University. The analysis uses data from the Carbon Majors Database and the Social Cost of Carbon (SCC) methodology. The SCC was used by former US administrations and policy analysts to assign a dollar value to future damages from an additional ton of CO₂ between the year of its emissions through to the year 2300. 

Emissions data for the oil and gas companies was provided by the Carbon Majors Database, which in turn sources emissions data from publicly available company reports.

For more information or interviews contact Kate O’Callaghan on +61 406 231 892 or kate.ocallaghan@greenpeace.org

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