Latest news with #Belém
The Guardian
10 hours ago
- Business
- The Guardian
UN holds emergency talks over sky-high accommodation costs at Cop30 in Brazil
The UN climate bureau has held an urgent meeting about concerns that sky-high rates for accommodation at this year's Cop30 summit in Brazil could price poorer countries out of the negotiations. Brazil is preparing to host Cop30 this November in the rainforest city of Belém, where representatives of nearly every government in the world will gather to negotiate their joint efforts to curb the climate crisis. Concerns about logistics have dogged preparations for the summit. Developing countries have warned they cannot afford Belém's accommodation prices, which have soared amid a shortage of rooms. In an emergency meeting of the UN's 'Cop bureau' on Tuesday, Brazil agreed to address countries' concerns about accommodation and report back at another gathering on 11 August, said Richard Muyungi, the chair of the African Group of Negotiators (AGN), who called the meeting. 'We were assured that we will revisit that … to get assurances on whether the accommodation will be adequate for all delegates,' Muyungi said afterwards. He said African countries wanted to avoid reducing their participation because of the cost, adding: 'We are not ready to cut down the numbers. Brazil has got a lot of options in terms of having a better Cop, a good Cop. So that is why we are pushing that Brazil has to provide better answers, rather than telling us to limit our delegation.' Brazil has faced criticism for its decision to host the conference in a small city in the rainforest rather than in a bigger urban centre that already has the necessary infrastructure and hotel rooms. The country is racing to expand the 18,000 hotel beds usually available in Belém, a coastal city of 1.3 million, to accommodate roughly 45,000 people who are expected to attend Cop30. This month, the Brazilian government said it had secured two cruise ships to provide 6,000 extra beds for delegates. It also opened bookings to developing countries at more affordable nightly rates of up to $220 (£165). That is still above the daily subsistence allowance (DSA) the UN offers some poorer nations to support their participation at Cops. For Belém, that DSA is $149. A diplomat familiar with Tuesday's meeting said complaints about affordability came from both developed and developing countries. Wealthier countries have been told to expect nightly accommodation costs of up to $600 – far higher than at previous Cop meetings. The Panamanian negotiator Juan Carlos Monterrey Gómez said in June that he feared the conference 'might become the most inaccessible Cop in recent memory' and that developing countries, small island states, Indigenous voices and civil society would 'not be adequately represented — if represented at all'. Media organisations, activists, NGOs and charities have also raised fears that they may not be able to participate in the conference if a solution on accommodation costs is not found. In February, the Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, told critics that if hotels were unavailable, they should 'sleep under the stars'. An agenda for Tuesday's meeting confirmed it was convened to address 'operational and logistical preparations for the climate change conference in Belém' and the AGN's concerns on the matter. Sign up to Down to Earth The planet's most important stories. Get all the week's environment news - the good, the bad and the essential after newsletter promotion Brazil's foreign ministry did not reply immediately to a request for comment. Officials organising the Cop30 have made repeated assurances that poorer countries will have access to accommodation they can afford. A spokesperson for the UNFCCC, the United Nations climate body, declined to comment on the meeting. Two UN diplomats showed Reuters quotes they had received from hotels and property managers in Belém for nightly rates of about $700 a person during Cop30. Officials from six governments, including wealthier European countries, said they had not yet secured accommodation because of high prices, and some said they were preparing to reduce their participation. A spokesperson for the Dutch government said it might need to halve its delegation compared with recent Cops, when the Netherlands sent about 90 people during the two-week event including envoys, negotiators and youth representatives. This month, Poland's deputy climate minister, Krzysztof Bolesta, said: 'We don't have accommodation. We'll probably have to cut down the delegation to the bone. In an extreme event, maybe we will have to not show up.'
The Guardian
16 hours ago
- Business
- The Guardian
UN holds emergency talks over sky-high accommodation costs at Cop30 in Brazil
The UN climate bureau has held an urgent meeting about concerns that sky-high rates for accommodation at this year's Cop30 summit in Brazil could price poorer countries out of the negotiations. Brazil is preparing to host Cop30 this November in the rainforest city of Belém, where representatives of nearly every government in the world will gather to negotiate their joint efforts to curb the climate crisis. Concerns about logistics have dogged preparations for the summit. Developing countries have warned they cannot afford Belém's accommodation prices, which have soared amid a shortage of rooms. In an emergency meeting of the UN's 'Cop bureau' on Tuesday, Brazil agreed to address countries' concerns about accommodation and report back at another gathering on 11 August, said Richard Muyungi, the chair of the African Group of Negotiators (AGN), who called the meeting. 'We were assured that we will revisit that … to get assurances on whether the accommodation will be adequate for all delegates,' Muyungi said afterwards. He said African countries wanted to avoid reducing their participation because of the cost, adding: 'We are not ready to cut down the numbers. Brazil has got a lot of options in terms of having a better Cop, a good Cop. So that is why we are pushing that Brazil has to provide better answers, rather than telling us to limit our delegation.' Brazil has faced criticism for its decision to host the conference in a small city in the rainforest rather than in a bigger urban centre that already has the necessary infrastructure and hotel rooms. The country is racing to expand the 18,000 hotel beds usually available in Belém, a coastal city of 1.3 million, to accommodate roughly 45,000 people who are expected to attend Cop30. This month, the Brazilian government said it had secured two cruise ships to provide 6,000 extra beds for delegates. It also opened bookings to developing countries at more affordable nightly rates of up to $220 (£165). That is still above the daily subsistence allowance (DSA) the UN offers some poorer nations to support their participation at Cops. For Belém, that DSA is $149. A diplomat familiar with Tuesday's meeting said complaints about affordability came from both developed and developing countries. Wealthier countries have been told to expect nightly accommodation costs of up to $600 – far higher than at previous Cop meetings. The Panamanian negotiator Juan Carlos Monterrey Gómez said in June that he feared the conference 'might become the most inaccessible Cop in recent memory' and that developing countries, small island states, Indigenous voices and civil society would 'not be adequately represented — if represented at all'. Media organisations, activists, NGOs and charities have also raised fears that they may not be able to participate in the conference if a solution on accommodation costs is not found. In February, the Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, told critics that if hotels were unavailable, they should 'sleep under the stars'. An agenda for Tuesday's meeting confirmed it was convened to address 'operational and logistical preparations for the climate change conference in Belém' and the AGN's concerns on the matter. Sign up to Down to Earth The planet's most important stories. Get all the week's environment news - the good, the bad and the essential after newsletter promotion Brazil's foreign ministry did not immediately reply to a request for comment. Officials organising the Cop30 have made repeated assurances that poorer countries will have access to accommodation they can afford. A spokesperson for the UNFCCC, the United Nations climate body, declined to comment on the meeting. Two UN diplomats showed Reuters quotes they had received from hotels and property managers in Belém for nightly rates of about $700 a person during Cop30. Officials from six governments, including wealthier European countries, said they had not yet secured accommodation because of high prices, and some said they were preparing to reduce their participation. A spokesperson for the Dutch government said it might need to halve its delegation compared with recent Cops, when the Netherlands sent about 90 people during the two-week event including envoys, negotiators and youth representatives. This month, Poland's deputy climate minister, Krzysztof Bolesta, said: 'We don't have accommodation. We'll probably have to cut down the delegation to the bone. In an extreme event, maybe we will have to not show up.'
CNN
2 days ago
- Politics
- CNN
The US is sitting out the most consequential climate summit in a decade. It may offer a victory to China
The Trump administration fired the last of the US climate negotiators earlier this month, helping cement America's withdrawal from international climate diplomacy. It may also have handed a huge victory to China. The elimination of the State Department's Office of Global Change — which represents the United States in climate change negotiations between countries — leaves the world's largest historical polluter with no official presence at one of the most consequential climate summits in a decade: COP30, the annual UN climate talks in Belém, Brazil, in November. Without State's climate staff in place, even Capitol Hill lawmakers who usually attend the summits have been unable to get accredited, a source familiar with the process said. COP30 is intended to be a landmark summit, setting the global climate agenda for the next 10 years — an absolutely crucial decade as the world hurtles toward ever more catastrophic levels of warming. The US is 'abandoning its responsibilities in the midst of a planetary emergency,' said Harjeet Singh, a longtime climate advocate, COP negotiations veteran and founding director of Satat Sampada Climate Foundation, a climate justice organization. The US role in climate negotiations has always been marked by contradiction, he told CNN. 'It has championed ambition in rhetoric while expanding domestic fossil fuel extraction.' But its absence creates a 'dangerous vacuum,' he said. One of President Donald Trump's first acts in office was to pull the US out of the Paris climate agreement, which he also did in his first term. The elimination of the State climate office is yet another sign of the administration's hard line rejection of climate action. A State Department spokesperson said 'any relevant related work will be managed in other offices in the Department as appropriate.' They did not directly respond to CNN's question on whether it would send representatives to COP30. Experts fear the US absence may derail climate ambition. Wealthy countries, including those in Europe, may use it as a 'license to backtrack,' said Chiara Martinelli, director of Climate Action Network Europe, a coalition of climate non-profits. Poorer countries may lose faith in the process, she told CNN. But most significantly, it could hand a geopolitical advantage to China, allowing America's most formidable global competitor to position itself as a more reliable and stable global partner, experts told CNN. The State Department spokesperson did not comment on what the US withdrawing from Paris would mean for China. China is building out clean energy at a blistering pace, as the US takes a chainsaw to its wind and solar sectors and makes a hard turn back toward fossil fuels. 'It is likely that China's voice will be heard more loudly (at COP30), as they have identified growth in green technologies as a key pillar of their economic strategy,' said Joeri Rogelj, a climate scientist at Imperial College London. In a statement to CNN, China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs called climate change a 'common challenge faced by mankind.' 'No country can stay out of it, and no country can be immune to it,' the Chinese statement said. The question is whether China will make good on the strong language, and lead by example without its world-power counterpart. All countries have until September to submit new goals to limit climate pollution over the next decade, and China has a history of setting weak targets for itself. Meanwhile, it continues to power plants that run on coal — the most polluting fossil fuel. These goals will provide a road map for climate action between now and 2035, and China, being the world's most-polluting country, will help determine the planet's climate trajectory. China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not answer specific questions about its forthcoming goals, but said the country 'will work with all parties concerned' to 'actively respond to the challenges of climate change, and jointly promote the global green and low-carbon transformation process.' The US has traditionally pushed China to make more ambitious pledges, with varying degrees of success. Climate was the one bright spot in an otherwise strained US-China relationship under the Biden administration. The two nations struck a significant deal nearly two years ago, pledging to ramp up renewables and curb planet-warming gases. 'We were the country that put pressure on them more than any other,' said the source familiar with the process. But it's a very different world now. As COP30 looms, China will not be facing that same pressure. The Biden administration proffered an ambitious US target before leaving office, a cut of 61-66% below 2005 levels by 2035. This would have been tough even under a Democratic administration that favors clean energy. It's vanishingly unlikely under the Trump administration with its 'drill, baby, drill' mantra. That leaves all eyes on China. Its target is by far the most consequential for the climate, experts told CNN. The country has a well-established pattern of under-promising and over-delivering. Its most recent target gave the country until 'around' 2030 to peak its climate pollution. Independent analysis shows it is likely this has already happened, five years ahead of schedule, and pollution is now starting to decline. Biden administration officials had encouraged China to put forward a sharp pollution cut of 30% by 2035. But some experts anticipate a much more tepid target giving China plenty of wiggle room. 'Beijing has been sending signals that those demands are just too high, rather unrealistic and unfair in their view,' said Li Shuo, director of the China climate hub at the Asia Society Policy Institute. 'It is very safe to say there will be a gap. And potentially that gap will be rather significant.' Shuo and colleagues at the Asia Society believe China will put forward a high single-digit or a low double-digit figure for pollution cuts. The number matters, said former US climate envoy Todd Stern. A strong, ambitious goal from China 'would affect numbers all over the world and it would affect the perception of whether COP is making decent progress or not,' he added. Even if its climate pledges lack ambition, China is still leagues ahead of the rest of the world when it comes to clean energy. It is currently building 510 gigawatts of utility-scale solar and wind capacity, according to Global Energy Monitor. This will add to the eye-popping 1,400 gigawatts already online — five times what is operating in the US. The big sticking point is coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel, to which China remains wedded. 'They're building every five years as much coal as remains in the US,' Duke said. That's the paradox of the US withdrawal, Singh said. 'It could advance China's global climate leadership while simultaneously easing the pressure on Beijing to accelerate its difficult transition away from fossil fuels.'
New York Times
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Dance Poles and Leopard-Print Walls: Love Motels Ready Rooms for Climate Summit
The suite, with its crisp white sheets and tiny soaps, could almost pass for any no-frills hotel room. That is, if it weren't for the mirrored ceilings and the dance pole by the bed. The décor of Motel Secreto, on the fringes of the Brazilian city of Belém, normally serves as a backdrop for lunch-hour trysts, clandestine affairs and passion-struck lovers seeking a few hours of privacy away from cramped family homes. But the love motel, like others across Belém, is now preparing rooms that range from the sensual to the raunchy for a different kind of guest: diplomats and climate scientists, civil servants and environmental activists, all descending on the city in November for the 30th United Nations Climate Change Conference, known as COP30. 'We're taking out anything too erotic from the rooms,' said Yorann Costa, 30, the owner of Motel Secreto, Portuguese for 'Secret Motel.' 'And the location is perfect.' Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Bloomberg
16-07-2025
- Politics
- Bloomberg
Brazil Seeks to Calm Fears It Will Run Out of Beds for COP30 Climate Summit
With less than four months to go until the COP30 climate summit in the Amazon city of Belém, Brazil's government is trying to reassure those planning to attend that there'll be enough places to sleep. 'We will have enough properties, we will have enough rooms for everyone, there's no doubt about that,' said Valter Correia, Brazil's special secretary for COP30. 'We just need to find the right prices for each audience.'
