Surreal prices for COP30 in Brazil's Amazon leave attendees scrambling for accommodation
Nine months ahead of the 2025 U.N. climate conference known as COP30, prices for lodging are alarming those who want to attend the event in Belem, Brazil’s Amazonian host city
SAO PAULO, Brazil — Nine months ahead of this year's annual U.N. climate summit, known as COP30, lodging prices in the Brazilian host city of Belem are turning heads—and may soon turn off would-be attendees from the first such meeting in the Amazon rainforest.
With a shortage of housing and high interest, property owners and rental companies are feeling emboldened to charge five-digit rates, even for cramped rooms with shared bathrooms.
On Booking.com, one of the last available hotel rooms listed, a flat apartment, is going $15,266 for one person, up from $158 for the same category currently—a 9,562% increase. A 15-day stay during the conference in November would total $228,992, enough to buy a four-bedroom apartment in one of Belem’s top neighborhoods.
On Airbnb, a room with a shared bathroom in Ananindeua, a poor city near Belem, is listed at $9,320 per day. A comparable room today could be rented for as little as $11 per day. In more upscale neighborhoods, renting an apartment that accommodates eight people costs up to $446,595 for a two-week stay.
“This one scared me," joked local architect and digital influencer Renato Balaguer about a dilapidated apartment listed at $10,000 for an 11-day stay.
«Look, this is captivity for gringos. False imprisonment is a crime!” said Balaguer in a post that went viral.
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who champions himself as a protector of the environment, has boasted about hosting the event in the Amazon, which helps regulate the climate by storing large quantities of carbon dioxide, a gas that
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