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<\/p>\nTwo stark-white cruise ships loomed over a muddy Amazonian estuary, an odd sight from a beach where two children waded in the water.<\/p>\n
The diesel-powered vessels towered over the impoverished riverfront neighborhood where trash littered the ground and a rainbow sheen from household and street runoff glistened on top of rain puddles.<\/p>\n
The cruise liners \u2014 with their advertised swimming pools, seafront promenades and an array of restaurants and bars \u2014 were brought in to house thousands of delegates attending the 12-day United Nations COP30 climate summit in Bel\u00e9m, which ends Friday. The ships helped address a housing crunch created by an influx of roughly 50,000 people into the capital of Par\u00e1 in northern Brazil.<\/p>\n
Along with being a global economic powerhouse, Brazil is also one of the planet\u2019s most important climate actors. The South American nation is home to tropical rainforests that absorb vast amounts of carbon dioxide but are increasingly threatened by deforestation and a drying Amazon.<\/p>\n
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A navy soldier patrols the Port of Outeiro, where cruise ships are docked to host delegations attending the COP30 U.N. Climate Change Conference in Belem, Brazil, on Nov. 8. Two cruise ships tower imposingly over a sleepy port in the Brazilian Amazon where some 50,000 people are gathering for a U.N. climate conference. With capacity for 6,000 people, the behemoths came from Europe to the riverine city of Belem on Brazil’s north coast to serve as floating hotels. (Pablo Porciuncula \/ AFP via Getty Images)<\/p>\n
The contrast \u2014 a climate conference relying on emissions-heavy cruise ships \u2014 has become the defining image of this year\u2019s COP30, where wealth and scarcity sit side by side.<\/p>\n
Bel\u00e9m residents said they felt a mix of curiosity and excitement watching the influx of foreigners, eager to show a culture that is often overshadowed by the country\u2019s larger southern cities.<\/p>\n
Many described COP30 as the first time the world had paused long enough to take notice of the people living at the mouth of the Amazon River, where locally grown a\u00e7a\u00ed is sold on nearly every block. The region supplies the vast majority of Brazil\u2019s a\u00e7a\u00ed crop and much of what\u2019s exported worldwide.<\/p>\n
As humidity hung thick in the hot air, locals across the city of 1.3 million people pointed to expanded docks meant to attract future tourism, freshly painted walkways, restored colonial buildings with late-19th-century European touches and new cultural centers rushed to completion. But the sudden infusion of money layered atop long-standing inequality sharpened questions from residents about what will remain after the summit\u2019s global spotlight fades.<\/p>\n
Much of the summit footprint, they said, sits in areas where new structures were built fast, unevenly or only partly completed. Brazil’s government highlighted upgrades to Bel\u00e9m\u2019s airports, ports, drainage systems, sanitation networks, parks and tourist areas, saying the work would leave a lasting legacy beyond COP30.<\/p>\n
The BBC reported that a new four-lane highway built for COP30 resulted in tens of thousands of acres of protected Amazon rainforest being leveled, including trees locals relied on to harvest a\u00e7a\u00ed berries to sell. One roadway to ease traffic to the climate summit remains unfinished and blocked by plastic orange netting.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey cut all this forest to make that road and didn\u2019t even finish it,\u201d said Lucas Lina, 19, who works as an administrator at a Bel\u00e9m fire station, as he pointed to the unfinished road. \u201cI don\u2019t think they ever will. They will delay and delay.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lina said climate change is something locals feel acutely. The region has seen unpredictable rainfall, and in some years, receives little at all in an area used to its showers.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe climate is going crazy,\u201d Ana Paula, a government food safety inspector, said in Portuguese as Lina translated. \u201cWe can\u2019t predict anything anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even environmentalists acknowledge the optics are fraught, particularly as attendees flew more than 1,800 miles from events in Rio de Janeiro and S\u00e3o Paulo for satellite gatherings. That included members of California’s delegation and Gov. Gavin Newsom.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not well conceived because there\u2019s not enough housing,\u201d said Terry Tamminen, former California environmental secretary. \u201cIf we really cared about the climate, we\u2019d have these events every year and they\u2019d be 100% virtual.\u201d<\/p>\n
Such contradictions have often fueled demonstrations at climate summits, including on Friday when roughly 100 Indigenous protesters blocked the conference\u2019s main entrance for more than 90 minutes. They formed a human chain as they denounced development plans they say would accelerate deforestation.<\/p>\n
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Indigenous activists participate in a climate protest during the COP30 U.N. Climate Summit on Saturday in Bel\u00e9m, Brazil. (Andre Penner \/ Associated Press)<\/p>\n
\u201cOur forest is not for sale,\u201d they wrote in a statement.<\/p>\n
It was the second protest during the first week of COP30 after a brief clash inside the massive newly constructed facility resulted in two security guards suffering minor injuries.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are a lot of promises that the government made that are yet to be delivered,\u201d said Lina, who taught himself English by watching YouTube and through online gaming. \u201cWe don\u2019t know if these promises will actually be kept up after COP30.\u201d<\/p>\n
That tension \u2014 between symbolism and the city\u2019s strained reality \u2014 defines this climate conference in a way that delegates say feels impossible to ignore.<\/p>\n
Brazil remains one of the world\u2019s top oil producers and recently approved new drilling near the rainforest. Many delegates argued that no setting better captures the stakes of the climate crisis than the Amazon, where Indigenous stewardship, extraordinary biodiversity and the consequences of deforestation are felt globally.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know there\u2019s a more important location than the rainforest,\u201d Newsom told The Times. \u201cThe one area that consistently gets overlooked in the climate discussion is biodiversity.\u201d<\/p>\n
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This aerial view shows a deforested area of the Amazon rainforest in the municipality of Moju, Brazil, on Wednesday during the COP30 U.N. Climate Change Conference. (Mauro Pimentel \/ AFP via Getty Images)<\/p>\n
With the summit came new investments that residents say they welcomed, including new bus routes, expansions at ports meant to increase future tourism and increased police presence to make streets safer.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s very good for us,\u201d said Maria F\u00e1tima in Portuguese while standing under an awning of a shuttered bar overlooking the cruise ships. She smiled and gave a thumbs up after saying she had never seen an American in Bel\u00e9m before.<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone is very happy,\u201d she said of the possibility that the newly expanded port will bring future tourism.<\/p>\n
That port, which experienced an oil spill in April, is now being marketed as the Amazon\u2019s next cruise-tourism hub. Its expansion cost $44 million and relied on nonstop work from construction crews in rotating shifts. The rush project doubled the pier\u2019s capacity.<\/p>\n
Room prices aboard the cruise ships soared to more than $1,400 a night for a balcony cabin, according to Times inquiries. On land, Bel\u00e9m\u2019s modest supply of hotels and even seedy love motels that typically rent by the hour surged in price, pushing residents to rent their apartments and homes at rates many said they had never imagined.<\/p>\n
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People on a beach along the Guama River watch cruise ships docked at the Port of Outeiro, which will host delegations attending the COP30 U.N. Climate Change Conference in Bel\u00e9m, Brazil, on Nov. 6. (Carlos Fabal\/AFP via Getty Images)<\/p>\n
One attendee said her hotel room typically goes for $85 a night. Her room cost $1,000 instead.<\/p>\n
Newsom even joked about the costs. When a Brazilian journalist asked whether California would make climate investments in the country, Newsom said the price of his room at the Holiday Inn in Bel\u00e9m already felt like an \u201ceconomic contribution.\u201d<\/p>\n
But those prices didn\u2019t benefit everyone. Local media reported that some renters were evicted ahead of the conference in order to open up rooms to foreigners.<\/p>\n
Inside the summit, Newsom operated as a proxy for the United States while attending COP30 for two days after President Trump, an outspoken climate skeptic, declined to send any high-level federal officials.<\/p>\n
Long Beach resident Dominic Bednar, attending his fifth climate summit, said the contradictions of this year\u2019s summit don\u2019t diminish the importance of being there.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a double-edged sword,\u201d said Bednar, an assistant professor in the Department of Urban Planning and Public Policy at UC Irvine. \u201cOn one hand, it brings understanding to the city and is driving a lot of economic investment. But I\u2019m also curious: What is the carbon footprint of everybody coming into COP and the construction of this place? We are using energy, and we\u2019re contributing to climate pollution.\u201d<\/p>\n
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People riding in boats participate in a People’s Summit event on Guajara Bay during the COP30 U.N. Climate Summit on Wednesday in Bel\u00e9m, Brazil. (Andre Penner \/ Associated Press)<\/p>\n
Graduate students from UC San Diego\u2019s Scripps Institution of Oceanography echoed that discomfort, but said not attending would only cede more ground to powerful energy interests that already dominate climate talks.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can empathize with not having our voices heard,\u201d said graduate student Danielle McHaskell as she waited to take a photo with Newsom. \u201cAnd that\u2019s an important part of the climate movement \u2014 empathy for other people.\u201d<\/p>\n
Newsom, too, said he was aware of the contradiction of using fossil fuels to reach a climate summit.<\/p>\n
Still, he defended the decision to hold COP30 in the Amazon. He said it offered a chance to \u201csee what I\u2019ve only seen on TV or could see disappear in my lifetime.\u201d He added that he was particularly excited about venturing into the Amazon rainforest with a small delegation to learn in person about conservation efforts and connect with something beyond policy and negotiations.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that spiritual element really matters in a world that can use a little bit more of that,\u201d he said before returning to California on Sunday. \u201cThat\u2019s one of the reasons I\u2019m looking forward to getting deeper into the Amazon.\u201d<\/p>\n