Insider

Exclusive: Lula jumps the gun on COP host city

Pará Governor Helder Barbalho, President Lula, and Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira celebrate a win that has yet to be materialized. Photo: Ricardo Stuckert/PR

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva jumped the gun when he announced that Belém, the second-largest city in Brazil’s Amazon region, had been selected to host the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change’s Conference of Parties (COP) in 2025.

The UNFCCC’s press office told The Brazilian Report that the group of Latin American and Caribbean countries at the UN had informed the secretariat of its support for Brazil’s candidacy for Belém to host the conference. However, “the next step is the COP (sic) to confirm the location,” meaning that no official decision has been announced.

Belém’s selection is a virtual certainty, as COP hosting duties typically rotate among the UN’s five regional groups, and it will be Latin America’s turn in 2025. No other country in the region has submitted a bid.

Nevertheless, Foreign Affairs Minister Mauro Vieira’s claim in a video message on May 26 that “the United Nations approved [Belém’s candidacy] on May 18” is not strictly true.

The Brazilian Report asked the Foreign Affairs Ministry’s press office for a copy of a document in Mr. Vieira’s possession confirming Belém as the conference host, but it did not comply. We have filed a request under Brazil’s Freedom of Information law.

The ministry’s press office referred us to a statement issued on the same day the video message featuring Lula and Mr. Vieira was broadcast. The text informs that Brazil has obtained the formal support of Latin American countries for Belém’s candidacy, and adds that this endorsement will be ratified at the upcoming COP to be held in Dubai later this year.

Lula in January announced Belém as Brazil’s candidate to host the COP, as part of his broader agenda to bring Brazil back to the forefront of international relations. The bid was almost immediately endorsed by other Latin American countries during a multilateral meeting held in Argentina.

As The Brazilian Report has shown, Belém is far from capable of hosting major international events.

According to the most recent federal estimate, from 2016, Belém has just over 15,000 hotel beds — enough for less than half of the more than 35,000 people who attended COP27 in the Egyptian coastal city of Sharm el-Sheikh last year. Also according to the 2016 survey, the entire state of Pará has only eight luxury hotels, the kind that VIP guests such as COP attendees tend to fill.

The choice of Belém to host the COP has also been criticized in Brazil, as the state of Pará has led Amazon deforestation rankings for over 15 consecutive years, even though neighboring state Amazonas is 25 percent larger.

A UNFCCC handbook on hosting the annual climate change conference states that the secretariat undertakes a fact-finding mission to the prospective host country to determine whether all “logistical, technical and financial elements for hosting the sessions are available.” The UNFCCC has not indicated whether this mission has already taken place.