UN climate conference host Brazil urges nations to negotiate and find solutions to global warming

With a direct letter sent to nations, host country Brazil is shifting the U.N. climate conference into a higher gear.

The letter sent late Monday comes during the final week of what has been billed as a historic climate summit, the first ever in the Amazon rainforest, a key regulator of climate because trees absorb carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that warms the planet.

The letter comes ahead of speeches of high-level ministers Tuesday. Headliners include representatives from influential European countries like Ed Miliband, energy secretary of the United Kingdom, and Deputy Prime Minister Sophie Hermans of the Netherlands. More leaders will also speak from small island states and developing countries like Barbados and Bangladesh, both facing loss of land as seas rise because of climate change.

The letter asks leaders to hash out many aspects of a potential agreement by Tuesday night so that much is out of the way before the final set decisions Friday, when the conference is scheduled to end. Climate summits routinely go past their last day, as all nations come to the negotiating table trying to balance domestic concerns with major shifts needed around the world to protect the environment and cut greenhouse gas emissions.

Brazil’s guidance for the summit, called COP30, is raising hopes for significant measures to fight global warming, which could range from a road map to move away from fossil fuels like oil and coal, or more money to help nations build out clean energies like wind and solar.

For negotiators, Brazil's letter will mean later nights as they seek to strike political bargains across a host of contentious issues.

“There are important concessions we expect from all sides,” said André Corrêa do Lago, COP30 president. "It is said you have to give to receive.”

That Wednesday timeline is “pretty ambitious" and the stakes are high, said Alden Meyer, a senior associate at climate think tank E3G.

“Whether it’s dealing with the impacts of climate change, dealing with increased energy bills and energy insecurity, improving health, creating jobs. Those are the things that people care about. They don’t care about some sub-paragraph in a legal decision adopted here in Belem,” Meyer said. “Brazil, the presidency, has made that very clear since the beginning, that that’s going to be the litmus test.”

He added that the optimistic spirit of the host country “is starting to get a little infectious” and that that is part of building trust and goodwill amongst nations.

“I sense ambition here. I sense a determination,” former German climate envoy Jennifer Morgan said Monday morning.

The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

This story was produced as part of the 2025 Climate Change Media Partnership, a journalism fellowship organized by Internews’ Earth Journalism Network and the Stanley Center for Peace and Security.

Ed Miliband, secretary of state for energy and climate Change of the United Kingdom, speaks during a plenary session at the COP30 U.N. Climate Summit, Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2025, in Belem, Brazil. (AP Photo/Andre Penner)

MUNDANO, a Brazilian artist, uses ashes collected from wildfires as he participates in a demonstration to raise awareness against forest destruction at the COP30 U.N. Climate Summit, Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2025, in Belem, Brazil. (AP Photo/Joshua A. Bickel)

Members of an Indigenous group sell items outside the venue for the COP30 U.N. Climate Summit, Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2025, in Belem, Brazil. (AP Photo/Andre Penner)

André Corrêa do Lago, COP30 president, right, and Ana Toni, COP30 CEO, talk at a news conference during the COP30 U.N. Climate Summit, Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2025, in Belem, Brazil. (AP Photo/Andre Penner)

An image of the Brazil flag is visible on security personnel outside the venue for the COP30 U.N. Climate Summit, Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2025, in Belem, Brazil. (AP Photo/Andre Penner)

An attendee poses for a photo near a sign for the COP30 U.N. Climate Summit, Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2025, in Belem, Brazil. (AP Photo/Andre Penner)

Security personnel monitor as attendees arrive to the COP30 U.N. Climate Summit, Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2025, in Belem, Brazil. (AP Photo/Andre Penner)

Security personnel work outside the venue for the COP30 U.N. Climate Summit, Monday, Nov. 17, 2025, in Belem, Brazil. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)

Indigenous activists participate in a climate protest during the COP30 U.N. Climate Summit, Monday, Nov. 17, 2025, in Belem, Brazil. (AP Photo/Andre Penner)

André Corrêa do Lago, COP30 president, gestures during a news conference at the COP30 U.N. Climate Summit, Monday, Nov. 17, 2025, in Belem, Brazil. (AP Photo/Andre Penner)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Sylvester Stallone, Kiss and Gloria Gaynor are among the luminaries being celebrated Sunday at the annual Kennedy Center Honors, with Donald Trump hosting the show, the first time a president will command the stage instead of sitting in an Opera House box.

Since returning to office in January, Trump has made the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, which is named after a Democratic predecessor, a touchstone in a broader attack against what he has lambasted as “woke” anti-American culture.

Trump said in August that he had agreed to host the show. The Republican president said Saturday at a State Department dinner for the honorees that he was doing so “at the request of a certain television network.” He predicted that the broadcast, scheduled to air Dec. 23 on CBS and Paramount+, would have its best ratings ever.

“It’s going to be something that I believe, and I’m going to make a prediction: This will be the highest-rated show that they’ve ever done and they’ve gotten some pretty good ratings, but there’s nothing like what’s going to happen" on Sunday night, Trump said.

Trump is assuming a role that has been held in the past by journalist Walter Cronkite and comedian and Trump nemesis Stephen Colbert, among others. Before Trump, presidents watched the show alongside the honorees. Trump skipped the honors altogether during his first term.

Since 1978, the honors have recognized stars for their influence on American culture and the arts. Members of this year's class are pop-culture standouts, including Stallone for his “Rocky” and “Rambo” movies, Gaynor for her feminist anthem “I Will Survive” and Kiss for its flashy, cartoonish makeup and onstage displays of smoke and fire. Country music superstar George Strait and Tony Award-winning actor Michael Crawford are also being honored.

The ceremony is expected to be emotional for the members of Kiss. The band’s original lead guitarist, Ace Frehley, died in October after he was injured during a fall.

Previous honorees have come from a broad range of art forms, whether dance (Martha Graham, Merce Cunningham), theater (Stephen Sondheim, Andrew Lloyd Webber), movies (Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks) or music (Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell).

Trump upended decades of bipartisan support for the center by ousting its leadership and stacking the board of trustees with Republican supporters, who then elected him chair. He has criticized the center’s programming and the building’s appearance — and has said, perhaps jokingly, that he would rename it as the “Trump Kennedy Center.” He secured more than $250 million from Congress for renovations of the building.

Presidents of each political party have at times found themselves face to face with artists of opposing political views. Republican Ronald Reagan was there for honoree Arthur Miller, a playwright who championed liberal causes. Democrat Bill Clinton, who had signed an assault weapons ban into law, marked the honors for Charlton Heston, an actor and gun rights advocate.

During Trump’s first term, multiple honorees were openly critical of the president. In 2017, Trump’s first year in office, honors recipient and film producer Norman Lear threatened to boycott his own ceremony if Trump attended. Trump stayed away during that entire term.

Trump has said he was deeply involved in choosing the 2025 honorees and turned down some recommendations because they were “too woke." While Stallone is one of Trump's Hollywood ”special ambassadors" and has likened Trump to George Washington, the political views of Sunday's other guests are less clear.

Strait and Gaynor have said little about their politics, although Federal Election Commission records show that Gaynor has given money to Republican organizations in recent years.

Kiss co-founder Gene Simmons spoke favorably of Trump when Trump ran for president in 2016. But in 2022, Simmons told Spin magazine that Trump was “out for himself” and criticized Trump for encouraging conspiracy theories and public expressions of racism.

Fellow Kiss member Paul Stanley denounced Trump's effort to overturn his 2020 election defeat to Democrat Joe Biden, and said Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, were “terrorists.” But after Trump won in 2024, Stanley urged unity.

“If your candidate lost, it’s time to learn from it, accept it and try to understand why,” Stanley wrote on X. "If your candidate won, it’s time to understand that those who don’t share your views also believe they are right and love this country as much as you do.”

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Italie reported from New York.

President Donald Trump, left, speaks as he presents Sylvester Stallone, George Strait, KISS, Gloria Gaynor and Michael Crawford with their Kennedy Center Honors medals in the Oval Office of the White House, Saturday, Dec. 6, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

The 2025 Kennedy Center Honorees, front row from left, Sylvester Stallone, George Strait, Gloria Gaynor and Michael Crawford; back row from left, members of the rock band KISS, Paul Stanley, Gene Simmons and Peter Criss, pose for a group photo at the 48th Kennedy Center Honors Medallion Reception, hosted at the U.S. Department of State, Saturday, Dec. 6, 2025 in Washington. (AP Photo/Kevin Wolf)