Sawt Falasteen - COP30 to be held in Amazonian city despite accommodation concerns: CEO

Over the past two weeks, several COP30 country representatives and civil society organisations -- gathered in the German city of Bonn for technical climate negotiations -- have expressed concerns over the lack of affordable accommodation in the capital of Para state.

There are fears that the event will only be accessible to the rich or that it will be poorly attended as a result of this.

COP30 is due to be held on November 10-21 and some have speculated about a possible last-minute relocation to a larger city, such as Rio de Janeiro.

"Let's be very very clear, it's all happening in Belem," COP30 CEO Ana Toni told AFP in Bonn.

"We fully understand that having a COP in a very different place, in the middle of the Amazon, in a smaller city, is leading many people to be very anxious about the logistics," she said, but "there is no discussion about having (it) in any other place".

Toni, who also serves as Brazil's national secretary for climate change, said that the government was aware and working on solutions.

"The concern that remains, as far as I understand, is the cost of accommodation rather than logistics in general," she said.

"It is the private sector, it is not something that the government controls, but the Brazilian government is taking measures... to ensure that the prices of accommodation are controlled," she added.

Claudio Angelo, a member of the Brazilian Climate Observatory collective, said "everybody's concerned because at this point, five months to the date, everybody should have hotels and no one has".

"So delegations are thinking about cutting back on numbers of delegates," he told AFP, adding that many small developing countries or island states have limited resources.

O.Farraj--SF-PST