BONN, Germany — For two weeks, a single concern dominated corridor chatter at this year’s midyear climate talks on the Rhine.
It wasn’t anything on the negotiating table. It wasn’t the unprecedented absence of the United States. It wasn’t even finance, the perennial hot topic at climate talks. Instead, the question on everyone’s minds in Bonn was whether diplomats would have a roof over their head in November.
Brazil, the hosts of this year’s COP30 United Nations climate summit, plans to hold the massive global conference in the port city of Belém, on the border of the Amazon, to showcase the rainforest’s central role in stabilizing the planetary climate.
But their chosen venue has never organized an event of this scale. And Belém, Bethlehem in Portuguese, just doesn’t have enough room at the inn.
Already, hotels have sold out in record time — and what’s left is astronomically priced, threatening to exclude low-income countries and civil society from the pivotal conference.
Delegates might now find themselves staying in converted schools, military barracks or rented cruise ships. There’s a chance they’ll have to share rooms, despite forking over more than $1,000 a night.
Even rich countries are balking at the cost. No European delegation POLITICO spoke to in Bonn had booked their accommodation.
The COP30 logistics now threaten to cast a gloom over Brazil’s conference, having already overshadowed negotiations at the talks in the western German capital, where delegations wrapped up preparations on Thursday for the main summit in November.
“Everything is overwhelmed by logistics, and we’re concerned that might hinder negotiations,” said a senior Latin American diplomat. “We don’t have accommodation, no one has accommodation.”
A senior European negotiator said: “They’ve known for years they would host. We’re very concerned there’s no clarity.”
While most diplomats declined to be quoted on the record about their concerns, and were therefore granted anonymity, some vented their frustrations in public.
“We are worried,” wrote Panama’s climate envoy Juan Carlos Monterrey. “Worried that COP30 might become the most inaccessible COP in recent memory. Worried that developing countries, small island states, Indigenous voices, and civil society will not be adequately represented — if represented at all.”
Brazil, meanwhile, said it was listening to countries’ concerns and would address them before the summit.
“We are confident that we will solve this problem about logistics, and everybody will be coming in at a reasonable price,” Ana Toni, the CEO of COP30, told POLITICO. “Because it’s in our interest.”
Bunking up
Diplomats expressed reservations about Belém from the start.
Brazil has plenty of experience organizing international mega-events, from Olympic Games to international summits, including the Earth Summit that birthed the U.N. climate body. But not in Belém, where authorities are now scrambling to complete the necessary infrastructure by November.
In an April presentation sent to delegations and obtained by POLITICO, the Brazilian COP presidency said it “is working to strengthen accommodation capacities in hotels, vacation rentals, military buildings, schools and cruise ships.”
The past two COPs have set attendance records, with last year’s COP29 attracting more than 65,000 participants.
The Brazilians say only 50,000 people are expected for COP30. That’s roughly the number of beds the Brazilian authorities said they will provide. And yes, beds — not rooms.
“There will be more than 29,000 rooms and 55,000 beds available,” Brazil said last week.
That’s prompting concern among delegations that diplomats will have to bunk up.
Noting that COP negotiations often involve grueling schedules, the European Union told Brazil in a closed-door meeting in Bonn last week that it was “profoundly concerned regarding COP30 logistics,” according to a copy of the speech shared with POLITICO.
“The few hours of sleep that one can get in between are extremely precious, and key to a successful result of the negotiations. This means that negotiators cannot be asked nor expected to share rooms with each other,” the Europeans said.
The EU also raised concerns over commuting times between accommodations and the venue — some diplomats said the travel time could be an hour or longer — but above all, the cost.
“We have been [in Bonn] now for almost a week, and in every conversation we’ve had, we hear how everyone’s preparations are overshadowed by rising costs and uncertainty around basic logistics, including transportation,” the EU said.
Cost concerns
Hotel prices tend to soar in any city named as climate summit host — but Belém is extreme even by COP standards, diplomats said.
At lunch tables in the Bonn conference center, diplomats from all continents, and even members of the U.N. secretariat, were heard worrying about the cost.
One European diplomat said their country had been quoted €1 million to rent rooms for a negotiating team of 20 people.
The April presentation from Brazil said that the cruise ship cabins would range from $700 to $1,300 per night. The diplomat said that in Bonn last week, however, the COP30 presidency promised that cabins would start at $250 and rooms in rental houses at $100 per night.
“But we don’t know how far those are from the venue and how many are available for this price,” the diplomat said. A promised booking platform was set to launch in March, but has been “postponed, postponed, postponed,” they added.
For low-income countries and civil society — as well as the media — the prohibitive costs risk becoming a barrier to attending this year’s COP.
“Accommodation is a big concern for us,” said Tanzanian diplomat Richard Muyungi, chair of the African Group of Negotiators. “I’ve not received any adequate response to our concerns” from the Brazilians, he added.
Costs aside, the optics of negotiators renting cruise ships to negotiate over the fate of the planet aren’t exactly great. “This image of cruise ships will just confirm the image we’re not saving the climate here, we’re killing it,” the European diplomat fretted.
Brazil’s promise
Hotels are far from the only concern. The EU in its speech also mentioned it had received no information about availability and cost for offices and representative pavilions at the conference.
Many diplomats worry about the local airport’s capacity, and whether there will be enough domestic flights available within Brazil, as Belém only has direct connections to Portugal, Florida, French Guiana and Suriname.
Several delegations also raised concerns about the quality and availability of medical care in Belém, the European diplomat said.
Most diplomats in Bonn said that Brazil appeared to take their concerns seriously, with the hosts holding numerous bilateral meetings on the issue.
“Obviously we’re listening to that, and we regret that the logistics of Belém has become such a big topic,” said Toni, the COP30 CEO, saying that Brazil was taking measures to tackle price gouging.
She insisted that all logistics issues other than costs had been addressed and resolved in Bonn — but acknowledged that accommodation prices were a problem.
“We, as the government, are addressing that problem with all the tools that we have,” she said. “We cannot allow Brazilians or foreigners to be paying prices much more than what’s reasonable. So this is a concern, no question.”
Yet Toni also suggested that some delegates might just be uninformed or even prejudiced.
“Obviously they have real concerns, but [they are] also not understanding what a big city of 1.2 million people it is,” she said. “And it’s in the Amazon, and people have a certain idea of the Amazon.”
The post No room at the inn: COP30 logistics chaos overshadows climate talks appeared first on Politico.
