Fewer Than 60 Leaders to Attend Brazil Climate Summit

Fewer Than 60 Leaders to Attend Brazil Climate Summit

Brazil announced on Friday that fewer than 60 world leaders have confirmed their attendance at next week’s Amazonian summit, which precedes the upcoming UN climate conference, COP30. The number marks a decline compared to previous years.

The COP30 conference will take place in the city of Belém from 10 to 21 November, following a separate summit of heads of state and government on 6–7 November. The separation was intended to ease accommodation pressures in the host city.

Belém, home to 1.4 million residents—more than half of whom live in shantytowns—expects to welcome around 50,000 visitors for the event. With limited hotel capacity, organisers have arranged alternative accommodation in private homes, universities, schools, and even two cruise ships docked about 20 kilometres from the conference centre.

Rising prices have prompted environmental groups to warn that COP30 could become “the most exclusionary in history.”

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who insisted on hosting the conference in the Amazon to underscore the forest’s vital role in absorbing carbon, previously joked that delegates could “sleep under the stars.”

As of Friday, 57 heads of state and government had confirmed their attendance, Brazil’s chief negotiator Mauricio Lyrio said. Last year, 75 leaders attended COP29 in Azerbaijan—about half the number seen in Dubai in 2023.

Confirmed attendees include leaders from Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Norway, Colombia, Chile, Cape Verde, and Liberia. China will be represented by Vice Premier Ding Xuexiang, while the United States and Argentina—both led by climate sceptics—have yet to announce their delegations.

In total, 170 delegations have been accredited for COP30, which comes amid heightened global political tensions that many fear could overshadow the climate emergency.