Aerial view of Parque da Cidade, the main venue for COP30, under construction in Belém, Brazil, in early May 2025.
Photographer: Alessandro Falco/Bloomberg
Brazilian City Gets Rushed Makeover Ahead of Climate Summit
In Belem, major construction and a scramble for more rooms are underway as the Amazon metropolis prepares to host COP30.
Just a few hundred feet from the Amazon River delta, Ivan Ferreira is converting used shipping containers into hotel rooms ahead of the world’s biggest climate conference.
His metal workers in Belem are chopping doors and windows into the corrosion-resistant steel. Before long they will paint the containers with jungle themes to mark COP30, the first such summit held in the Amazon basin.