At Vila da Barca in Belém, Brazil, ahead of COP30, October 23, 2025. TOMMASO PROTTI FOR LE MONDE
Near the soldiers guarding the barricaded avenues, gardeners continued to tend to the flower beds. Inside the vast air-conditioned tents set up in Belém's Parque da Cidade, the corridors bustled with workers nailing down carpets, transporting potted plants on wheeled carts, and bustling around tables still stacked up.
On Thursday, November 6, the facilities that would host the 30th Conference of the Parties on Climate Change (COP30), scheduled from November 10 to November 21, were not entirely ready. "It's quite a challenge for us to get everything done in time," confided a Brazilian worker, amid advisers and delegates already present to settle into the venue.
From Thursday morning, Belém, a city of 1.4 million people and the gateway to the Amazon rainforest, became the beating heart of environmental diplomacy. For two days, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is hosting a climate summit there, aiming to give a voice to heads of state and government ahead of COP30 and, at the same time, relieve the strain on hotel infrastructure in a city ill-equipped to host such an event.
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