Only 40% of countries have booked lodging for Amazon climate meet
Less than two months before the COP30 conference an climate in Brazil, only 40% of nations reserved housing in the city of Amazon de Belem, where prices climbed, the organizers announced on Wednesday.
The president of Brazil, Luiz Inacio Lula Da Silva, defended the participation of the world conference in the largest tropical forest in the world, but he put pressure on the chaos of the hotel in the poor city in the North.
The organizers reported in a statement that only 79 of the 198 countries obtained accommodation, while 70 others were still in negotiations for places to sleep during the November meeting.
Some 50,000 people are expected in Belem, which house 1.4 million residents – more than half of which live in slums.
With a shortage of traditional hotel rooms, the conference organizers rushed to find alternative accommodation in private houses, universities and schools, and even two cruise ships accosted in the port at around 20 kilometers (12 miles) of the conference center.
Lula has removed concerns and asks to move certain events in other cities, saying in February that delegates can “sleep under the stars”.
COP30 could be “the most exclusive in history” because of its prices, warned the climate observatory of the Brazilian NGO in August.
To alleviate the pressure, the United Nations stimulates their daily subsidy for delegates from 144 countries from $ 144 to $ 197, a UN spokesman confirmed on Wednesday.
The Brazilian government welcomed this decision, but said it “would not cover costs”.
The UN requires accommodation costs of $ 100 per night for low -income nations – a difficult number to find in Belem on Airbnb, Booking.com and the official Ontrocodation platform.
To facilitate the request for hotel rooms, Brazil moved the meeting of heads of state to November 6 and 7, several days before the start of the wider conference – but this was not enough to considerably reduce prices.
FFB / App / Mar / FB / MLM
