Ahead of COP30, Brazil struggles with infra and political inconsistency

Located in the heart of the world’s largest rainforest, the Brazilian city of Belem will be the host of COP30 from November 5th to 21st, 2025. On the tenth anniversary of the Paris Agreement, it will be the first conference of the parties to take place in Brazil and only the fourth in Latin America.

Less than a year ahead of the event, however, many remain sceptical about Belem’s capacity to host an event of this magnitude.

With 1.5 million inhabitants, it is the second largest city in the Brazilian Amazon. Many worry about insufficient accommodation to host the 50,000 expected attendees, but the city’s struggles go beyond hotel capacity. Belem faces chaotic traffic, an urban waste crisis, inadequate sewage treatment and high criminality levels.

“These sorts of problems, however, are present in every big city in the country,” Priscilla Santos, co-founder of Rede Amazônidas pelo Clima, told Gas Outlook. “The fuss about Belem comes from a lack of information about the Amazon’s reality that is borderline naive. People are only now discovering that there are actual cities in the region. Cities with regular city issues,” she added.

Santos recalls that the UNFCCC visited and audited the city, before deeming it fit to receive COP30. Belem is also used to hosting large events: every year, over a million people flock to the streets for the Procession of Our Lady of Nazareth.

“From the moment Belem became a candidate to host the event, Para’s state government started preparing and looking for resources and investments,” Gabriela Savian, deputy director of public policies at the Amazon Environmental Research Institute (IPAM) told Gas Outlook.

Combining funds from the Federal Budget, the National Bank for Economic and Social Development (BNDES), and Itaipu Dam hydroelectric power plant, the total investment is estimated at R$ 4.7 billion (US$ 76 million).

The main projects to be developed ahead of the summit include expanding and paving roads, improving the sewage system, renovating the city’s traditional market and building Parque da Cidade, or City Park, where the event will be held, in an area of 500,000 square meters (123 acres). The latter, with 70% of the planned construction completed, will become a public space once the event is over.

Belem’s new mayor, Igor Normando, who took office on January 1st, has promised since the election in October 2024 to carry out a 100-day effort to clean the city canals and structure a committee to manage the works in preparation for COP30. Normando is a cousin of Helder Barbalho, governor of the state of Para.

Regarding accommodation, new hotels are under construction in the city, including the first one with a heliport, residents were offered workshops on how to use platforms like Booking and AirBnB, and Lula da Silva’s government plans on hiring two cruise ships with capacity to add around 4,500 rooms in total. Meanwhile, the state of Para created Capacita COP30, a training programme for tourism professionals to welcome event attendees.

At the same time, however, there are concerns about the environmental impacts of the construction projects and criticism that the city improvement works leave out peripheral and vulnerable communities. There is also scepticism over what will effectively be ready in time for the conference.

To that, Santos and Savian argue that it is unrealistic and unfair to expect a city to solve in  just two years structural problems resulting from centuries of a development model based on predatory and colonising activities. “I have no illusion that this process could be anything other than exclusionary,” said Santos.

Brazil’s President Lula da Silva, who recognised Belem’s limitations, defended his choice as a means for “people [to] feel what life is like for those who live in the Amazon.” To that, Para’s governor Helder Barbalho added that COP30 will not be as luxurious as previous COPs, and that this will send a message to attendees.

“This will also be an important moment to demystify the reality of the Amazon for Brazil and the world,” said Savian.

A COP of contradictions

Choosing the Amazon region might be justified by its growing protagonism in the national and international climate agenda. “During the four years of Bolsonaro’s government, a climate denialist, the Northern states took a central role in the agenda,” said Savian.

But Brazil’s challenges as host of COP30 go beyond Belem’s infrastructure shortcomings. In the aftermath of an underwhelming COP29, held last November in Azerbaijan, the country will have to deal with a crisis of trust in multilateralism, whilst trying to keep the 1.5 C goal of the Paris Agreement alive. It will also have to tackle the new round of NDCs, phase-out of fossil fuels, the next steps of the global stocktake, the loss and damage fund and the global goal of adaptation.

For Santos, Brazil’s experienced negotiators and the COP president might be able to set the tone for negotiations. Yet, the summit’s presidency remains undisclosed and under dispute, as the Indigenous movement presses for a co-presidency of the event.

Meanwhile, the National Union of Employees of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs questions the country’s capacity to hold COP30 and leading the negotiations in an open letter that highlights logistical problems and work overload during such international events.

At the same time, Brazil’s own inconsistencies might pose a roadblock for the COP30 presidency. While the country attempts to push forward the image of an international climate leader, domestically, the government continues to defend oil exploration in the Amazon Basin and is paving a highway that will cross the forest.

COP30, however, will be a significant one for civil society participation, as it will be the first one held in a democratic country after three years happening under authoritarian regimes. “We foresee a greater presence of social movement manifestations,” said Santos.