COP30 Climate Summit in Belém Faces Housing Crisis and Political Tensions

Nova Doca Linear Park in Belém, Brazil. The city, renowned as the gateway to the Amazon, is hosting COP30’s climate schedule. Anderson Coelho/Reuters

Over the past few weeks, Ricardo Teixeira has been updating Love Lomas, his love motel in the Brazilian port city of Belem. He is also considering how to soften some of the more frankly slippery details in the rooms, including erotic chairs and a menu of sex toys for sale. All of this – in anticipation of meeting guests of a completely different kind than usual.

Love motels are widespread across Brazil: rooms by the hour, often booked for romantic encounters. However, during COP30 – the largest annual climate summit – thousands of people arrive in Belem, but housing is in short supply, and motels are ready to fill this gap.

The prospect that diplomats, scientists, and climate activists should indicate which erotic features they would like to remove from the rooms sounds odd, but it opens up a serious context. While delegates compete for beds, stakes are rising, and some developed countries and non-governmental organizations say they are being barred from participating in the summit.

“Their voices will be silenced right in the rooms where decisions about their survival are made.”

Logistics and political pressure ahead of COP30

Accommodation problems are just one example of the chaos and uncertainty that experts refer to ahead of the summit. Organizers are trying to source additional housing, including on cruise ships, and are providing assistance to the most vulnerable countries.

COP30 promised to be a landmark gathering where countries would meaningfully reduce climate impact by cutting pollution. Instead, major polluters missed several deadlines for submitting national targets; President Donald Trump has just delivered a speech in which he called climate change a “hoax,” the U.S. announced it would not send a delegation to the summit, and Brazil just approved oil extraction in the Amazon estuary – all this against a backdrop of rising average temperatures and slow progress toward climate goals.

“In ten years, we will need to have very honest and strict conversations about whether we are truly sticking to this plan,” said Juan Carlos Monterrey Gomez, Panama’s special representative on climate change.

“In ten years, we will need to have very honest and strict conversations about whether we are truly sticking to this plan.”

Brazil chose Belem as a symbolic site. The city is known as the “Gateway to the Amazon,” and the idea was to force the world to confront the danger posed by this vast tropical rainforest through the climate crisis.

However Belem is not ready for the COP surge. The city typically has about 18 thousand hotel rooms, while around 50 thousand participants are expected.

The official COP30 website lists hotels, many located tens of miles outside Belem, with prices ranging from about $200 per night to more than $1,000, most with a minimum stay of no fewer than 11 nights. One delegation leader told CNN that they were charged more than $20,000 for a two-week period in a three-bedroom apartment.

Organizers insist there will be rooms for everyone and are exploring additional accommodation options, including on cruise ships, and they are providing assistance to the most vulnerable countries.

“Our fear is that these logistical barriers could hinder full participation of everyone who needs to be present,” said Monterrey Gomez to CNN.

“Our fear is that these logistical barriers could hinder full participation of everyone who needs to be present.”

Alongside COP30 logistics, Brazil’s October decision to permit geological exploration drilling near the Amazon estuary also looms. Activists call this hypocrisy. “Brazil invites the world to Belem to save the most critical ecosystem, while selling the industries that destroy it,” said Hardjit Singh.

“Brazil invites the world to Belem to save the most critical ecosystem, while selling the industries that destroy it.”

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva defended the decision: “It would be inconsistent and irresponsible if I said that we would no longer use oil.” This statement came ahead of COP30, AP reports.

“It would be inconsistent and irresponsible if I said we would no longer use oil.”

A senior climate analyst at the E3G research group Alden Meyer noted: “Pursuing climate action in parallel with new fossil fuel projects is the same paradox we face now”; studies point to the dominance of compromises. “There is fairly widespread complicity,” he added.

“There is fairly widespread complicity.”

Two years ago at COP28 in Dubai, countries urged a move away from oil, coal, and gas, which was presented as a breakthrough. Since then, the world has changed; a huge hole created by Trump in climate diplomacy is being carved. Petro-states and oil companies are increasingly opposing any formulation that obliges a move away from fossil fuels.

“There is no clear timeline, targets, pace, or support program for countries and communities in this transition,” Meyer said.

In the coming months, according to recent UN reviews, the world is moving far too slowly to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees. Analyses show that current policies put the planet on a path toward warming of about 2.8 degrees Celsius, far from the 1.5°C target, and that data are insufficient to draw conclusions about global levels.

“There is limited readiness now from countries to move ahead with ambitious climate actions or promises,” said Niklas Höhne, international climate policy expert at the German Institute for Climate Change Strategies (NCI), CNN.

“There is limited readiness now from countries to move ahead with ambitious climate actions or promises.”

The actions of the United States, the second-largest emitter, could also influence the course of events. Trump called climate change “the greatest hoax ever perpetrated against the world,” and the United States subsequently confirmed that it would not send a high-level delegation to COP30. The absence of the United States casts a shadow over COP30; still, experts see signs of hope beyond the negotiation halls.

“Climate negotiations are the lowest common denominator of what countries are willing to achieve in the current political circumstances.”

Experts estimate there is hope for progress in clean energy and new technologies, even as political momentum wanes. While the summit’s outcomes leave many questions, the global community must find new ways to reduce emissions and strengthen climate resilience.

In the end, experts note: climate negotiations remain the least ambitious common denominator of what countries are ready to do now, but beyond Belem a different reality is unfolding – clean energy and technologies that have the potential to change the future of the planet’s atmosphere are growing.

“Climate negotiations are a completely different world beyond Belem’s negotiation halls.”