COP30, Climate, Trump, Gaza and More:
Ex-Colombian Enviro Minister Susana Muhamad
Any Goodman / Democracy Now!

BELEM, Brazil (November 19, 2025) — Climate change refers to long-term shifts in temperatures and weather patterns. Human activities have been the main driver of climate change, primarily due to the burning of fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas.

At the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Belém, Brazil, we sit down with Colombian environmentalist Susana Muhamad, who served as Colombia’s minister of environment and sustainable development from 2022 to 2025. Muhamad discusses the U.N.’s mandate to mitigate the acceleration of human-caused climate change and condemns the powerful, diverting influence of the fossil fuel lobby.

Muhamad, who is of Palestinian descent, also responds to the United States’ attacks on boats in the Caribbean and to the ongoing Israeli genocide of Gaza. “These are not issues that are not correlated,” she says. “Humanity can do better. [We] can be very proactive and productive in shifting this situation of climate crisis, rather than continue investing in arms, in armies and in defense.”