SAO PAULO (AP) — Brazil’s president announced Friday that the United Nations has chosen his country to host the 2025 United Nations climate change conference, though the world body has yet to publicly confirm the decision.
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said Brazil would host the conference, known as COP 30, in the city of Belem, Para state, deep in the Brazilian rainforest. The location reflects Lula’s intention to draw attention to the Amazon region.
The last climate conference was hosted by Egypt’s Sharm el-Sheikh, and this year’s will be in Dubai.
“It will be an honor for Brazil to welcome representatives from all over the world to a state in our Amazon,” Lula said in a video posted on his social media. “I’ve been to the COPs in Egypt, in Paris, in Copenhagen, and all we talk about is the Amazon. So I said, ‘Why don’t we go there so you can see what the Amazon is like?’ ”
Brazilian Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira says in the video that the decision was made at the UN on May 18. The UN has yet to confirm the location.
Lula’s announcement comes in a week that his administration’s environmental governance has faced headwinds from Brazil’s congress. Lawmakers overwhelmingly approved a measure that eroded the environment ministry’s control over building licenses in forest and coastal areas, and other developments.
Also this week, congress is debating whether the state-run oil giant should be allowed to drill offshore in the Amazon states of Amapa and Para,