"Fiasco": W. Climate Summit Credibility Already In Tatters, $1,000/Night Hotel Bills In Belem Driving Away Attendees

The idea had seemed symbolically fitting at first — a global climate summit set on the edge of the threatened Amazon rainforest. But as the annual U.N. climate mega-conference, known this year as COP30, draws nearer, what seemed poetic is now turning into a contentious fiasco.

In the Brazilian host city of Belém, the few remaining hotel rooms are going for 10 and 20 times their usual cost. Residents in high-rises and favelas are offering up their homes at rates often exceeding $1,000 per night. An official booking portal for attendees includes a love motel that costs $6,660, for a 15-night minimum stay. Even on its own, the cost of participating is staggering — beyond the scale of previous years, when larger cities, including Dubai and Paris, hosted the event. Belém, one of Brazil’s poorest state capitals, lacks the hotel capacity of even midsize American towns like Amarillo, Texas, or Syracuse, New York.

But to make matters worse, some participants say these extreme costs are undermining an event already criticized for its inequities. For years, poorer nations — those most exposed to climate change — have said their urgent challenges are ignored by wealthy, high-polluting countries. Now they are expected to again attend the talks, at a price tag many consider prohibitive. “We cannot bear the cost of rooms,” said Hamid Abakar Souleymane, the lead negotiator from Chad, which is ranked as the country most vulnerable to climate change. He said paying for a conference like this reduces the resources his country can commit to food shortages and drought. “If nothing is done” to reduce room rates, he said, “I as the chief negotiator of the delegation will not participate.”

All this comes at a moment when climate leaders admit they should be talking about issues more consequential than room rates. Political momentum to address climate change has slowed, especially in the United States. The world is far off course from its major climate goals, and countries are behind schedule in submitting new national-level plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions. But it is the topic of lodging, not fossil fuels or rising temperatures, that has inspired recent emergency talks.

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2025/09/10/cop30-un-climate-conference-prices/