COP30 host Brazil has announced that world leaders will deliver their speeches on climate action several days before UN negotiations officially kick off on November 10, in a bid to ease pressure on hotels and transport in the medium-sized Amazon city of Belém.

For the past decade – since COP21 which adopted the Paris Agreement in 2015 – most heads of state and government have attended and spoken during the first two or three days of the UN climate conference. But this year, leaders will convene in Belém on November 6 and 7, before the November 10-21 talks.

“The [World Leaders’] Summit is part of the COP, and the decision to bring it forward was made by Brazil,” Valter Correia, extraordinary secretary for COP30, said in a statement. “This will give us time for more in-depth reflection, without the pressure from hotels or the city, and will help us better organise the event’s official opening.”

Climate campaigners gave the decision a mixed response, with some criticising the move and others arguing it would have little effect on the summit outcome.

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Natalie Unterstell, president of Brazilian think-tank the Talanoa Institute, said bringing forward the two-day leaders’ summit may mean less media attention and opportunity to put pressure on negotiators.

“Splitting the World Leaders’ Summit from the actual negotiations is like having the opening act perform after the main show – it disrupts the flow and weakens the impact,” said Unterstell. “The risk is that leaders make grand statements in one room while negotiators, days or weeks later, water them down in another room.”

But Alden Meyer, senior associate with international think-tank E3G, said the change “makes sense” and still provides “political momentum around Brazil’s vision of a COP that cements a shift from negotiations to implementation and accelerates climate action on the ground”.

Meyer added that security has always been tight around the presence of world leaders at the UN climate conferences, so climate lobbyists would not lose access to them if their segment is held slightly earlier.

Since COP21 in Paris, the World Leaders’ Summit has been held at the beginning of the annual UN climate conference. At that key COP, which delivered a new global accord on tackling climate change, 150 heads of state arrived at the start to deliver speeches. At previous COPs, they had done so around the middle of the conference, usually with far fewer showing up.

Belém under pressure

This year, the annual UN climate summit will be hosted for the first time in the Amazon rainforest, in the northern city of Belém – largely seen as an emblematic location given the importance of forests in holding down planet-warming carbon emissions. Yet some officials have expressed concerns over whether the city of 1.3 million people is capable of hosting tens of thousands of delegates flocking in over two weeks.

In a letter issued on Monday setting out his vision, COP30 president André Aranha Corrêa Do Lago defended the decision made by Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to host the UN talks in the Amazon, arguing it will showcase the “extraordinary role” of rainforests in fighting climate change.

Just days before, at an informal UN plenary in New York, at least three country delegations expressed concerns over security and accessibility. Corrêa Do Lago responded by saying that, while Belém was “not designed for this kind of event”, its symbolism is more important than the challenges it poses.

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The Brazilian government has announced a plan to supply 26,000 new beds by utilising river cruise boats, rental apartments and even military facilities and schools.

Yet the massive construction efforts aimed at improving the city’s ability to host the summit smoothly have also been called in question.

This week, the BBC reported that a new 13-km highway cutting through the rainforest around Belém, seen as key for COP30 logistics, threatens protected land, as well as the homes and livelihoods of forest communities living along the route. The Brazilian government denied that the project is part of its infrastructure plans for the UN climate conference.

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Brazil decides leaders will speak before COP30, easing logistics crunch