About

We are bringing together key stakeholders including scientists, delegates, activists, organisers, sailors and storytellers to support the indigenous communities of Brazil to be heard in this climate summit.

This project promotes and links sustainability, intercontinental travel, activism and a revolution in how we can work, live and travel together. We are creating a groundbreaking and inspiring example of how we can travel to global climate summits, how we can enable the most relevant, yet often excluded,, communities to be involved in these conversations.

Flotilla4Change will go beyond plotting a sustainable route from Europe to the UNFCCC COP 30 in Brazil. Our journey speaks to the essential integration of sustainable travel and intersectional communities to support a diverse range of frontline voices which must be heard at these climate negotiations.

Our impact at COP30: We bring together key stakeholders in a novel and disruptive situation available nowhere else but on a ship, mid-ocean.

Impetus

Climate justice means opening avenues of engagement. For this to be meaningful, we aim to help build capacity for those who are not able to engage, or those who are unwelcome, in the UNFCCC process. 

In order that they might be better able to deliver more relevant and impactful interventions within the UNFCCC space. These people include indigenous front-line defenders, communities living in the shadows of capitalist extraction and those with essential skills and wisdom to create real grounded social change.

Empowerment and capacity building 

Although the COP is about climate legislation, important voices are not welcomed or included. The COP has a complicated infrastructure that can lock people out, at a time where these communities most need to be heard. We speak to the combined issues of intersectionality, bringing greater diversity, amplifying unheard voices, and tackling social challenges, we’ve previously seen around the COPs.

We are offering sailing transport to tackle the urgent need for a different approach to long-distance travel. COP28 in Dubai in 2023 had over 70,000 delegates, all of whom travelled by polluting air travel. We are normalising sustainable solutions, and the benefits of slow travel which need to become more accessible to create more harmony and sustainability on a disrupted planet.

erienced private and commercial sailboat owners to collaborate and sail with us in a flotilla to Belem. A noticeboard will match boats and interested passengers to facilitate as many people as possible to sail with us.

Onboard Detail: 

• Whilst aboard Flotilla4Change sailing boats, public education forums can be offered by individuals in a peer-to-peer learning format. This will build capacity towards making our COP messaging inclusive to diverse stakeholders. We will sail in a facilitated, held, safe space where there will be opportunity to plan, discuss and enjoy our sustainable travel choice into the mouth of the Amazon River.

Joining the community

Flotilla4Change will facilitate a community via our website portal, by introducing passengers to sail boats with spaces. On board costs will be shared by passengers and will be directly managed by each boat. 

Flotilla4Change will, in certain exceptional circumstances, fund or part fund certain applicants.

F4C provides the facility to accept screened “privateer” ships into the flotilla.

We support incentives, such as discounts, to those completing a return sailing voyage to Europe. This is to mitigate the possibility of return flights. Our commitment is to ensure the same number of passengers return with F4C as departing. Due to differing return trip itineraries those booking a return ticket, where feasible, will have the option to change ships for departure from Belem after the meeting.

Off-set fund

Donations can be made by COP travellers unable to commit to the sea-time. This fund will go toward ensuring as many people as need to travel by sail can do so, regardless of financial status.

Safety

Personal safety and wellbeing

Personal safety is of the utmost importance during this journey. Most people who participate in this trip will be unfamiliar with life on a ship and the customs on board. We will provide information guidance and training to ‘newbies’ and crew will be on hand to help you find your sea legs.

Before departure and at all stop over ports en-route, crew and passengers are strongly encouraged to attend training and facilitation workshops aimed at safety, managing expectations and any arising conflict resolution matters.

During the stops, the community can check whether everything is going well on the ships and everyone feels comfortable and safe. If necessary, tips can be exchanged or help provided.

The exchange that will take place on the ships is one of the key benefits of this trip. To achieve this exchange, it is important that everyone feels safe and can be completely themselves. F4C aims to facilitate this aspect by having a F4C representative (trained in, amongst other things, conflict resolution) on each ship.

Technical / operational safety

All ships that F4C has listed on their website have been merely vetted to the best of our ability. Crew and Passengers joining these vessels must remain aware, vigilant and understand we have no ability to judge their actual seaworthiness or stand in judgement of the nature or ability of the captains or crew members of these vessels.