Wajã Xipai, an indigenous journalist, raised in the Yupá village, in the territory of Xipai, in the Amazonian state of Pará, offers a wonderful reflection on attending Cop30. He noted that everyone was running about excited, always in a hurry. He gets carried away with the pace, the urgency, then realises that he ‘can’t let myself be accelerated’. His work and writing isn’t rushed or fast-paced. Cop30 makes him fear urgency, the talk of ‘the future, of goals, of funding’. He reflects in the pace of his upbringing, the slow growth of trees and plants. ‘The forest understands time as a pact between beings’ but at Cop30 time ‘is consumed’:

And I think: how is it possible to save the planet without relearning the rhythm of the earth? Without heeding the rhythm of the rains, the seeds, the rivers? The rush within those corridors slows our efforts to halt climate collapse.

Serres thought too follows the multiple rhythms and scales of rivers creating small ponds, streams, waterfalls, lakes and passages to the sea.

18 November, The Guardian.