When Cop30 convened in Belém, deep inside the Amazon, the world’s attention turned once again to negotiations, emissions pledges and political manoeuvring. The global stage was set against one of Earth’s most biodiverse landscapes and some of its most vulnerable communities, yet the conversation still leaned heavily toward geopolitics rather than people.

Inside the crowded halls of the UN climate summit, Cop30, human stories were everywhere. Posters showed survivors of recent hurricanes, farmers battling crop loss and Indigenous leaders fighting for the survival of their territories. But these voices rarely made it into the mainstream narrative.

Climate change is often framed as a scientific or diplomatic issue, but before it becomes environmental or political, it is profoundly human. The way we communicate about climate change during global summits and in everyday life needs to reflect this reality through stories.

Across developing world and increasingly in developed countries, climate change shapes daily routines in disruptive and often painful ways. In Karachi, Pakistan, a mother lies awake through stifling heat, worried her toddler will struggle to breathe during the next power cut.

In Kingston, Jamaica, survivors of Hurricane Melissa describe “homes that no longer feel like themselves”. In informal settlements in Nairobi, Kenya, neighbours share water during heatwaves because municipal supplies have run dry.

These are the intimate forms of environmental grief that rarely surface in international negotiations, even though many communities

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