UN tries to limit staff going to Cop30 in Brazil due to high price of hotels | Cop30
The United Nations urged its staff to limit attendance at the top of the COP30 climate in Brazil in November due to high accommodation prices, while government delegations rush to find rooms in their budget.
This decision comes as delegations are becoming more and more concerned with the cost of accommodation in the coastal city of Amazon of Belem welcoming COP30. Brazil said that it was working to increase the number of hotel beds available, but that the prices for the housing rise attracted calls from certain governments to move the conference, which Brazilian officials have rejected.
“Given the constraints of capacity to Belem, I would like to ask that the heads of the United Nations system, the specialized agencies and other organizations concerned examine the size of their delegations to COP30 and reduce the figures if possible,” said the executive secretary of the United Nations climate secretariat, Simon Siell, in a document published on the UN website.
In a statement, the chairmanship of COP30 in Brazil said that it had reaffirmed its commitment to obtain 15 single rooms for poor countries at reduced rates.
Almost all the government of the world will meet at the United Nations annual summit to negotiate efforts to slow down climate change. But developing countries have warned that they could not afford the prices of the accommodation of Belem, which skyrocketed in the middle of a shortage of rooms.
Media organizations and civil society groups have also said they should reduce or abandon their conference coverage due to accommodation costs.
The organizers have been warned that they may accommodate “the least inclusive cop at all times” if solutions to the accommodation crisis are not found.
During a meeting of representatives of the countries and UN officials last month, the UN asked Brazil to subsidize the prices of hotels to ensure rooms for $ 100 per day for the poorest countries in the world and $ 400 to $ 500 per day for other countries, according to an official summary of this meeting.
Miriam Belchior, executive secretary of Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula Da Silva, the chief of staff, told journalists after the meeting that Brazil already wore significant costs for the accommodation of COP30 and could not provide additional subsidies.
Representatives of countries and UN officials must meet again this week to discuss the accommodation situation for COP30.
