A United Nations climate committee has given Brazil, the host nation for COP30, a mid-August deadline to find concrete solutions for accommodation challenges in the Amazon city of Belém, as calls grow for the summit to be moved to a bigger city in the South American country.
With more than 50,000 participants expected and only around 28,000 rooms currently available in Belém, many delegates, especially from poorer countries, will be excluded from the negotiations, members of the UN COP bureau told an emergency meeting on Tuesday in Brasilia.
They asked Brazil to come back later this month with a response on how it can provide the additional rooms needed to accommodate participants.
The COP bureau supports the host nation of the annual UN climate conference, providing advice, consulting with regional groups on issues and taking decisions on the overall management of the intergovernmental negotiations. Each regional grouping under the UN climate convention is represented by two bureau members, with one extra member coming from the small island developing states (SIDS).
Richard Muyungi, chair of the African Group of Negotiators (AGN) at the talks, who called for the bureau to meet this week, said some delegates are beginning to question why Brazil does not want to move the COP to a larger city.
Cruises, schools and love motels
Brazil is planning to host the annual UN climate conference in Belém, a small city of about 1.3 million people on the edge of the Amazon rainforest that has so far been struggling to ensure affordable lodgings for the influx of delegates due to arrive for this year’s November 6-21 conference.
Faced with the challenge of insufficient rooms for COP attendees, Brazil’s government has had to look in odd places to find additional spaces, including offering rooms in chartered cruise ships and repurposing love motels, schools and sports clubs into dormitories. The shortage has caused accommodation prices to spike.
In an interview with Climate Home News in early July, COP30 President André Aranha Corrêa do Lago rebutted the suggestion that part or all of the climate conference could be moved from Belém.
On Thursday, he confirmed to Brazilian news outlet O Globo that some developing countries had requested to move the summit out of Belém, adding that hotels there are causing a “crisis” due to “completely abusive” prices.
“While in the majority of cities where COPs have happened, hotels charged double or triple the regular price, in Belém hotels are asking for more than 10 times the normal prices,” do Lago told O Globo. “There’s a sense of revolt from some countries for that insensitivity.”
For the first time, the UN annual summit COP30 will be held in the Amazon, in the city of Belém. (Photo: Rafa Neddermeyer/COP30 Amazônia/PR)
For the first time, the UN annual summit COP30 will be held in the Amazon, in the city of Belém. (Photo: Rafa Neddermeyer/COP30 Amazônia/PR)
African, island nations air their concerns
African and Pacific island nations had earlier written letters to the Brazilian government expressing their worries over the sky-high cost of lodgings and how that could disrupt their participation at the COP.
AGN’s Muyungi told Climate Home News that Brazil has huge cities for very big meetings and “some members of the bureau are questioning why can’t they move the whole COP to somewhere else where delegates will be more comfortable to be included in the process”.
He said that if Brazil does not come up with a solution by the time of the committee’s next scheduled meeting on August 11, then “the bureau can come up with better decisions” on the way forward.
On the issue of deploying cruise ships, Muyungi said the lack of clarity on who will stay there is also a concern because “there are landlocked countries in Africa who are not familiar with the waters, and if you take a country like Eswatini and ask their minister to stay on a ship for 15 days, that will not be acceptable”.
Muyungi said Belém’s lack of infrastructure must not exclude anyone, including Indigenous Peoples, youth, women, civil society and even the private sector from Africa, adding that he would “ensure that the voice of Africa is heard and respected”.
Unfair price caps and conditions
Muyungi said bureau members had also pushed back against unfavourable terms, including the limits on the number of rooms each delegation can book and price differentials – with a $220-per-night cap for poorer countries and small island states and up to $600 for others. He added that the Brazilian government is expected to issue another note cancelling that system after changing its policy once already.
Governments were also reportedly told they could book a maximum of 15 rooms and had to pay in full in advance with a non-refundable condition even if delegates do not attend. Muyungi said this infringed on countries’ sovereign rights regarding how many delegates they can bring to the conference and the number of days they plan to spend there.
He said the conditions on room limits and non-refundable payments had been rejected and the Brazilian government had been asked to come back by the August deadline to address the issues and provide more clarity on the situation.
On Friday, the Financial Times reported that financial institutions, consultancies and business advisers had told the newspaper they plan to skip Belém and send smaller numbers instead to São Paulo or Rio de Janeiro where related finance and climate events will take place.
Cláudio Ângelo, international policy coordinator at Observatório do Clima, a Brazilian environmental network, told Climate Home that moving COP30 away from Belém would be politically difficult for President Lula because the Governor of Pará – the state where Belém is located – is a key political ally.
President Lula (left) and Governor Barbalho (right) at the ceremony announcing that COP will be held in Belém on 17 June 2023 (Photo: Ricardo Stuckert/ Palacio do Planalto)
Governor Helder Barbalho comes from a politically powerful family. His father Jader Barbalho, a senator and media mogul, was part of Lula’s transition team after the 2022 election, and his brother Jader Barbalho Filho is Lula’s cities minister.
Left-wing leader Lula needs his support because he is one of only two governors of Amazonian states who is not on the far-right, Angelo said. Hosting COP30 in Pará has boosted Barbalho’s national and international profile, and he has been floated in Brazilian media as a possible vice-presidential running mate in next year’s election.
Angelo said the government could either radically lower accommodation prices – or be faced with an “impossible” choice between risking the “least inclusive COP in recent history” or moving the COP to Rio de Janeiro, thereby missing the “historical opportunity to host a climate conference in the Amazon, at the very frontline of the climate crisis”.
