Logistical challenges in the Amazon city of Belém have made the participation of business leaders at COP30 “very difficult”, according to private-sector representatives, as Brazilian government officials urged companies to show up to the UN climate summit in November.

The costly accommodation offer in the city has made planning “difficult to navigate” for businesses, said Ricardo Mussa, chair of a private-sector initiative called Sustainable Business COP (SB COP) led by the Brazilian National Confederation of Industry (CNI).

“Especially for CEOs from large corporations, it has been very difficult to make plans to come to Brazil without having 100% certainty about what they will find here,” Mussa told Climate Home News. “That clearly didn’t help.”

COP30 president André Corrêa do Lago issued a new public letter last week urging companies “to attend and engage through solutions, partnerships, investments, and ideas”. At the same time, he conceded: “We recognize that traveling to Belém presents logistical challenges.”

Speaking to journalists, COP30 CEO Ana Toni rejected concerns that some businesses could stay away, and said the presidency’s call for them to show up in Belém had “nothing to do with logistics”. “We have heard from many private-sector leaders that they will be coming to Belém. We’re not concerned about that,” Toni added.

Nonetheless, Maria Mendiluce, CEO of the We Mean Business Coalition, told Climate Home that her organisation is also endorsing events happening in other Brazilian cities like Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. “It is just ‘come to Brazil’ – that’s the right message for business,” she added.

In Belém, limited accommodation options and astronomical prices for rooms have made it difficult for companies from developing countries to attend COP30, Mendiluce said. “Some of the prices are so high that businesses cannot afford or justify them,” she explained.

The week before COP30, São Paulo will host the Climate Implementation Summit on November 8 and the Climate Action Innovation Zone from November 6 to 9. Both events are aimed at the private sector, and seek to build collaborations around climate solutions.

Mussa said many companies had decided to come to São Paulo and Rio in the week leading up to COP30, before negotiations start on November 10. “We are seeing a lot of confirmations already for the previous week in São Paulo and Rio, with the option to be in Belém depending on who they can meet from the government there,” he added.

Mendiluce argued that “logistics cannot become a barrier for companies to show up at COP as they have always done”.

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