UN tries to limit staff going to Cop30 in Brazil due to high price of hotels
The United Nations has urged its staff to limit attendance at the Cop30 climate summit in Brazil in November due to high accommodation prices, while government delegations are still scrambling to find rooms within their budgets.
The move comes as delegations grow increasingly concerned about the cost of accommodation in the coastal Amazon city of Belem hosting Cop30. Brazil said it was working to increase the number of available hotel beds, but soaring prices for accommodation have stoked calls from some governments to relocate the conference, which Brazilian officials have rejected.
At a meeting of countries’ representatives and UN officials last month, the UN asked Brazil to subsidise hotel prices to ensure rooms for $100 a day for delegates from the world’s poorest countries and $400-$500 a day for other countries, according to an official summary of that meeting.
Miriam Belchior, executive secretary to Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s chief of staff, told journalists after the meeting that Brazil was already bearing significant costs for hosting Cop30 and could not provide further subsidies.
Countries’ representatives and UN officials are due to meet again this week to discuss the accommodation situation for Cop30.