Accommodation crisis hits climate crisis summit host
By Alberto Leny, August 6, 2025As Brazil prepares for the world’s most important meeting on the climate crisis, organisers of the United Nations climate summit (COP30) face another crisis – accommodation challenges in the host city, Belém.
So acute is the crisis that delegates from developing nations have voiced their anger at the sky-high hotel prices and a lack of rooms in the coastal Amazonian forest host city. Some nations’ representatives have called for the summit to be shifted to a bigger Brazilian city.
And now a UN climate committee has given Brazil a deadline by the middle of this month to find concrete solutions for the accommodation challenges.
More than 50,000 participants are expected, with only 28,000 rooms available in Belém.
Many delegates from poorer countries fear they will be excluded from the negotiations, members of the UN COP bureau told an emergency meeting last week 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 summit’s host nation, providing advice, consulting with regional groups on issues and making 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).
African Group of Negotiators (AGN) Chairperson Richard Muyungi said some delegates are beginning to question why Brazil does not want to move the COP to a larger city.
Huge influx
Last Friday, Brazilian newspaper Folha de São Paulo reported that a group of 25 negotiators from Canada, the Netherlands, Switzerland and the groups of African and Least Developed Countries (LDCs), sent a letter to the UN climate secretariat and the COP presidency requesting to move the venue out of Belém if solutions on accommodation are not provided.
Belém is 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 the 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.
Last month, COP30 President André Aranha Corrêa do Lago rebutted the suggestion that part or all of the climate conference could be moved from Belém in an interview with Climate Home News, the award-winning independent digital publication covering the international politics of the climate crisis.
He confirmed on Thursday, July 31, 2025, 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.”
African and Pacific island nations have expressed their worries to the Brazilian government over the sky-high cost of lodging and how that could disrupt their participation at the COP.
AGN’s Muyungi told Climate Home Brazil has huge cities that can host very big meetings, and some members of the bureau are questioning why they can’t 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.
The COP30 Presidency said the follow-up meeting has been scheduled to “continue the dialogue” on the actions required for the success of COP30.
The agenda will cover “accommodation, transportation, security, food, and other essential aspects for the success of the conference”, it added.
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 one takes a minister from a country like Eswatini and asks them to stay on a ship for 15 days, it will not be acceptable.
Deterring delegations
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.
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 US$220-per-night cap for poorer countries and small island states and up to US$600 for others.
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.
The Financial Times reported on August 1, 2025, 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.
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 as one of only two governors of Amazonian states not on the far right, Angelo said.
Hosting COP30 in Pará has boosted Barbalho’s national and international profile.
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”.