Brazil scrambles for rooms to host COP30 in Amazon

FILE - A boy kicks a soccer ball near signage for the COP30 U.N. Climate Conference in Belem, Brazil, March 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Jorge Saenz, File)

BRASILIA, Brazil — Brazil insisted Wednesday it will have enough rooms for the tens of thousands of people expected to attend the COP30 UN climate conference in the Amazonian city of Belem in November.

After complaints about sky-high room prices in the far-flung destination, organizers said they would guarantee affordable accommodation for delegates and participants from poor countries.

At least 40,000 people are expected to attend the November 10-21 event in Belem, known as the gateway to the Amazon rainforest, according to government estimates from the start of the year.

Around 30,000 potential rooms have been “identified” for use during the conference, the event’s secretary Valter Correia said, including 3,900 on two cruise ships.

There will also be rooms in hotels, private homes, and at universities and schools to be converted for the first-ever climate COP to be held in the Amazon.

They will include 1,500 rooms priced at no more than $220 per night for delegates from 98 developing and island nations, Correia said.

Another 1,000 rooms will be priced at no more than $600 per night, and the government was negotiating with the private sector to set “reasonable prices” for other accommodation, said Correia.

“We will have sufficient accommodations for everyone, have no doubt about that. We just need to set appropriate prices,” Correia told journalists.

At a preparatory meeting in June, several countries raised concerns over eye-watering lodging prices in Belem, a northern city of 1.3 million inhabitants with limited hotel capacity.

More than 50,000 people attended the last COP, held in Azerbaijan in 2024, some 30,000 fewer than COP28 in Dubai.

In recent months, some hotels have been offering rooms at $1,400 per night.