{"id":155671,"date":"2025-11-23T16:40:18","date_gmt":"2025-11-23T16:40:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/155671\/"},"modified":"2025-11-23T16:40:18","modified_gmt":"2025-11-23T16:40:18","slug":"irish-minister-and-officials-among-evacuees-after-fire-breaks-out-at-cop30-summit-in-brazil-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/155671\/","title":{"rendered":"Irish Minister and officials among evacuees after fire breaks out at Cop30 summit in Brazil \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Irish officials and Minister for Climate Darragh O\u2019Brien<\/a> were among thousands of people who had to flee the Cop30<\/a> climate talks in Brazil<\/a> after a fire broke out at the venue.<\/p>\n

The fire started in a \u201ccountry pavilion\u201d \u2013 one of the scores of stands erected for countries to host side events and showcase their climate action<\/a> efforts. <\/p>\n

It quickly spread to the roof of the temporary structure that houses the main negotiations taking place in the host city of Bel\u00e9m. <\/p>\n

Mr O\u2019Brien and his team of 26 were in the Irish delegation office about 50m away when the incident happened around 5pm Irish time. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt was serious enough. It started really, really quickly and you could smell the smoke,\u201d he said from outside the structure. <\/p>\n

\u201cOur team are out and all accounted for. Everyone was very efficiently evacuated. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe been told there are no injuries which is the important thing but we have no news as what happens next.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re all on the street outside the campus now and if it was an electrical issue, I\u2019d imagine they\u2019ll have to check everything before we can get back in. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve also torn a big part of the roof away to let the smoke out but if it rains now, the whole place will be flooded.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"AA worker runs carrying a fire extinguisher toward a pavilion after a fire broke out during the COP30 UN Climate Change Conference in Belem. Photograph: Pablo Poriuncula\/AFP \"Photograph:Photograph: Pablo Porciuncula\/AFP <\/p>\n

Bel\u00e9m is on the edge of the Amazon rainforest and receives thunderous downpours late in the afternoon almost every day. <\/p>\n

Mr O\u2019Brien said he was unsure what would happen with the rest of the day\u2019s schedule on what is meant to be the penultimate day at the talks, with negotiations expected to continue late into the night. <\/p>\n

A meeting of EU heads of delegation was meant to take place at midnight Irish time. <\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone left with what they stood up in so in terms of organising meetings elsewhere, I don\u2019t know if that\u2019s possible,\u201d Mr O\u2019Brien said. <\/p>\n

The Minister is scheduled to leave Bel\u00e9m late on Friday night but those plans too are now in doubt.<\/p>\n

Earlier on Thursday, he was part of an EU team that concluded negotiations on aspects of adaptation funding to assist poor countries protect themselves against the impacts of climate change. <\/p>\n

He also signed a declaration on behalf of Ireland pledging the country\u2019s support for the creation of a \u201croadmap\u201d to end the use of fossil fuels globally. <\/p>\n

The initiative was begun by Colombia whose representatives were about to hold a press conference when the fire broke out. <\/p>\n

Mr O\u2019Brien said Colombia had asked Ireland to co-host a conference next April to get signatory countries working on the detail of the roadmap. <\/p>\n

A statement from Cop30 said: \u201cThe fire service will conduct full safety checks and is expected to provide an update at 4pm [7pm Irish time].\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Irish officials and Minister for Climate Darragh O\u2019Brien were among thousands of people who had to flee the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":155672,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[1347,21646,15910,246,61,60,82],"class_list":["post-155671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-brazil","tag-cop30","tag-darragh-o-brien","tag-environment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155671","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=155671"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155671\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/155672"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=155671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=155671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=155671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}