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COP30 delegates were evacuated from the climate conference venue on Thursday after a fire broke out shortly before 2pm local time. Thirteen people were treated on site for smoke inhalation, according to Brazil’s COP30 presidency, which said their condition continues to be monitored.

Flames were brought under control in around six minutes after firefighters and UN security officers intervened “swiftly”, the presidency added in a statement.

Videos circulating online – including one posted online by the AFP news agency – suggest the fire originated in the pavilions area of the venue. A Reuters photograph shows that the Africa pavilion, in particular, sustained damage.

Sonia Borrini works in communications for the African Development Bank which runs the pavilion. She told Climate Home News she didn’t know what had caused the fire, but the pavilion’s technicians said fire broke out in their technical room and one had to run out without shoes.

“What I understood is that it started just where all cables are, between [the Africa] pavilion and the East African Community pavilion,” she said.

Helder Barbalho, the governor of Pará state where Belém is located, told Brazilian news outlet G1 that the two initial hypotheses on the source of the fire are a short-circuit in one of the pavilions or a failure in an electricity generator.

The Brazilian fire service conducted a safety assessment and reopened the venue at 8.40pm local time, although the area affected by the incident will remain isolated until the conclusion of the conference.

In a statement to media, the COP30 presidency said no plenary would be held on Thursday night but plenary sessions could take place as normal on Friday.

“We still have substantial work ahead, and we trust that delegates will return to the negotiations in a spirit of solidarity and determination to ensure a successful outcome for this COP,” it added.

Climate Home News editor Megan Rowling was working in the press centre when she heard a big stampede and was evacuated, along with everyone else. “One thing is for sure,” she said, “this is not going to help the negotiations which have already fallen behind.”

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Mohamed Adow, director of Power Shift Africa, said the fire caused a “fright” but “what could have spiralled into a disaster was contained in minutes thanks to the swift, disciplined work of the security teams and marshals on site. They moved fast, kept people calm, and restored order before rumours could outrun the truth. They deserve full credit.”

He added: “Even in a moment of chaos, one thing stood out: people from every corner of the world, different nations, creeds and affiliations, looked out for one another. Delegates helped strangers, staff guided crowds, and no one stopped to ask who belonged to which bloc before stepping in. When faced with a crisis, cooperation wasn’t a slogan, but a human instinct in its rawest, truest form.”

UN chief backs call to triple adaptation finance

Before the fire incident, as negotiations on a Belém “Mutirão” decision dragged on beyond the Wednesday deadline the COP30 presidency had targeted, UN chief António Guterres called on governments to agree a balanced political package that would require compromise and courage. 

Such a package should be “concrete on funding adaptation, credible on emissions cuts, bankable on finance”, he told journalists on Thursday morning. 

For the first time, he rallied behind a demand from the world’s poorest countries to triple finance to help them adapt to more extreme weather and rising seas to $120 billion a year by 2030. 

He noted that communities on the frontlines are watching the UN summit  – “counting flooded homes, failed harvests, lost livelihoods and asking ‘how much more must we suffer?’” “They have heard enough excuses, they demand results,” he added.

COP30 Bulletin Day 9: Belém package elusive as Lula steals the show

He warned that an “inevitable” temporary overshoot of the 1.5C warming limit in the Paris Agreement means “more heat and hunger, more disasters and displacements”.

“For millions, adaptation is not an abstract goal,” the Portuguese official insisted. “It is the difference between rebuilding and being swept away, between replanting and starving, between staying on ancestral lands or losing it forever.”

Adaptation needs are “skyrocketing and the overshoot will push them even higher”, he added. Despite this, developed countries’ commitment to double adaptation finance to at least $40 billion by this year “is slipping away”, he warned.

Poorest countries appeal for more adaptation finance at COP30

The latest estimate of developing countries’ annual climate adaptation needs for 2035 outstrips current funding by at least 12 times, with rich nations providing just $26 billion in 2023, according to the annual UN Adaptation Gap Report. 

If current trends continue, developed countries are set to miss the 2025 target that they committed to at COP26 four years ago, UNEP’s report said. 

“So tripling adaptation finance by 2030 is essential,” Guterres said, adding that it is also “possible and desirable” and he hoped developed countries would “accept to engage in this objective” at COP30 if their concerns on emissions reductions are addressed. 

He noted that a new fund to help countries recover from loss and damage is practically empty and called for it to be capitalised. During COP30, the fund has received tiny pledges totalling less than $16 million from Iceland, Japan and Luxembourg. It has now secured combined promises of nearly $800 million but only around half of that is in the bank. 

Guterres urged funders, including wealthy governments, climate funds and development banks “to step up and prevent further tragedies”. “It’s about survival, it’s about justice – and for Indigenous peoples, it is also about protecting cultures and homelands that sustain our planet’s vital ecosystems,” he added.

To ramp up emissions-cutting efforts and bring warming back down to 1.5C, he said countries’ national climate plans (NDCs) should be the “floor not the ceiling”, with the responsibility on big emitters to do more.

He did not explicitly back a roadmap to transition away from fossil fuels, as more than 80 countries are pushing for at the talks, but said governments should implement the energy shift they signed up to at COP28 and ensure it is done in a fair way.

Asked if he wanted the US to return to the UN climate process, which climate-change denier President Donald Trump has abandoned, Guterres said “we are waiting for you”, quipping “hope is the last thing that dies”.

Germany pledges €1 billion to TFFF forest fund

Germany has joined a handful of countries pledging money to the Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF), but the conservation mechanism launched by Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva ahead of COP30 is still far short of the $25 billion in public funds it aims to secure.

Following talks between government ministers and Lula on Wednesday, Germany said it would contribute one billion euros ($1.1 billion) over the next 10 years, praising the “innovative approach” of the investment-driven multilateral fund proposed by Brazil.

The TFFF is a blended finance instrument that will invest in financial markets and pay a share of any returns to tropical countries that are protecting their rainforests. At least 20% of all payments must be allocated to Indigenous people and local communities. Read this Climate Home News explainer for more details of how the fund works.

“It’s about protecting the tropical rainforests, the lungs of our planet,” a statement by Germany’s development and environment ministers said after Wednesday’s meeting.

At a press conference this Thursday, Germany’s environment minister said the country will disburse $100 million every year over a decade in the form of a grant, which experts said could allow for larger payouts to forest countries since the fund would not have to pay interest. The money would come from the country’s foreign aid budget.

Germany’s promise of support follows a Norwegian pledge of 3 billion euros over the coming decade – which is conditional on other donors also contributing money to the fund, while Brazil and Indonesia have pledged $1 billion each and Colombia has offered $250 million. France has also said it will consider contributing 500 million euros over the next five years.

But campaigners were critical of the German contribution, as the world’s third-largest economy has pledged about the same amount as emerging economies Brazil and Indonesia. A group of German NGOs sent a letter to government officials requesting the country to pledge at least $2.5 billion for the TFFF.

“That the German government is investing in the TFFF is important and the right thing to do. Nevertheless, the investment amount of one billion euros is a disappointment,” said Felix Finkbeiner, founder of Germany-based conservation NGO Plant-for-the-Planet.

Florian Titze, WWF-Germany’s head of international policy, also said the sum was “disappointing”, given that Chancellor Frierich Merz told world leaders at COP30 that the country would pledge a “considerable” amount. “The federal government should now successively increase the German amount and distribute it over the next few years,” he said. 

The total pledged so far to the TFFF amounts to roughly $7 billion. However, experts noted that, because Norway’s pledge is conditional and doesn’t count toward the $10bn target set by the Brazilians for COP30, the fund has been left with a shortfall of about $6bn.

British climate minister Ed Miliband said on Monday the UK government was keeping “the option of an investment under review”. 

Talks have also been held with China, the United Arab Emirates, Australia, Japan and Canada, Brazilian TFFF official João Paulo de Resende told Climate Home News last month. None of those countries has so far announced pledges.

De Resende said securing political support was more important at this stage than funding promises, which could come later.

Roman ruins and lots of hotels – Türkiye’s pitch to host COP31

Outlining their ultimately successful bid to host COP31, Turkish officials pitched the country as a lower-emissions choice due to its location at the crossroads of Europe and Asia, and played up the rich cultural heritage and top-level tourist facilities of the resort city of Antalya where it will be held.

Australian Minister for Climate Change and Energy Chris Bowen announced last night that his country was ceding the summit’s hosting rights to Türkiye, though Australia – which had greater support for its candidacy – will lead the negotiations. 

Türkiye’s pitch for the talks to be held in Antalya, made in a presentation to delegates at the Bonn climate talks in June, promised to deliver a “zero-waste COP”, with a strong focus on heritage sites such as nearby Roman ruins and a shrine to Saint Nicholas of Myra, the inspiration for Santa Claus. The presentation’s slides also praised the Mediterranean city’s food and golf courses.

Turkish officials argued that a COP held in Antalya would have a smaller carbon footprint than Australia’s proposal of Adelaide due to its central geographical location, and also sought to emphasise the city’s urban transport network as well as its strong local logistics and supply chain.

Antalya, which is a similar size to Belém, with a population of roughly 1.5 million people, is popular with European and Russian sun-seekers in summer. By November, when the COP will be held, temperatures will have dropped to highs of about 21C (70F). That means COP delegates won’t have to compete with as many tourists for the 628,000 beds that the Turkish government says the city has to offer – far more than Belém.

But at a time of worries about democratic backsliding in Türkiye, hosting COP31 in Antalya may draw concerns.

Mahir Ilgaz, a Turkish regional programme director at Oil Change International, voiced doubts about the decision, noting in a social media post that elected mayors – including Antalya’s – have been replaced by government-appointed trustees.

“Colleagues working on local engagement are already wondering how to operate safely and meaningfully in that context,” he wrote on LinkedIn.

Meanwhile, a former Turkish climate diplomat told Climate Home News that they were disappointed Turkiye would not hold the COP presidency. 

“We bear the burden, but they hold the power. We have the drum but they hold the drumstick. We do the work but they make the decisions,” the official said.

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