Ecological boundaries must be incorporated in the post-COP30 climate regime

The 2025 United Nations Climate Change Conference COP30, was held in Belém, Brazil at the mouth of the Amazon River. The location brought global attention to the ecological systems that underlie climate stability: as one of the world’s most important biophysical regulators, the Amazon basin exemplifies how forests, hydrological cycles, biodiversity, and Indigenous stewardship collectively shape regional and global climate dynamics. Scientific briefings at the conference emphasized the accelerating pressures on these systems, from deforestation and ecosystem conversion to freshwater decline and coastal degradation, as well as their implications for climate outcomes, consistent with growing recognition across climate policy processes. The Earth’s climate is regulated and stabilised by interconnected ecosystem processes. This Comment argues that following on from COP30, nature-based indicators should be integrated into formal climate policy processes—such as the Global Stocktake and Nationally Determined Contributions—to strengthen the coherence between climate governance and Earth System stability.