Amazon city of Belem set to host COP30 in 2025, says Brazil's Lula

Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Friday announced that the city of Belem, which is located on the border of Amazon, will be hosting the COP30 round of global climate talks in 2025.

The second most populous city in Brazil's Amazon after Manaus, Belem, has earlier hosted games of the 2014 World Cup.

"I am convinced that it will be a great event... the world will love the people of the state of Para" of which Belem is the capital, stated the president in a video shared on social media.

Lula had earlier pledged to make efforts to bring the UN climate talks to a city in the largest rainforest in the world.

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Last year, the leftist leader participated in the COP27 in Egypt as president-elect and pledged to recommit the nation to fighting the climate crisis.

"I already participated in this conference (Conference of the Parties or COP) in Egypt, in France, and everyone was talking about the Amazon. So I said: 'Why not hold the conference there, so you know where the Amazon is?'" Lula added while speaking about his offer to host the COP30 meeting.

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UN approves Brazil's bid for COP30

Meanwhile, Brazil's Foreign Affairs Minister Mauro Vieira stated that the biz of Brazil to host COP30 was approved by the UN on May 18 after the request was submitted by Lula during last year's COP27 meeting held in Egypt.

In the same video, the Governor of Para Helder Barbalho said that it is a "great privilege for the whole country" to host the event and added that it "increases the responsibility" of the country's climate agenda, regarding the environment and the rights of indigenous people, as reported by CNN.

In 2019, Brazil was chosen as the host for the COP meeting, however, the country withdrew its offer just after Lula's far-right predecessor Jair Bolsonaro got elected and came to power.

Bolsonaro has been called a climate change sceptic and faces the accusation of dismantling environmental protections when he was in power.

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Lula, who began his third term as Brazil's president in January, has made the promise to stop illegal deforestation in the Amazon by 2030.

The COP meeting is scheduled to take place in Dubai this year.

COP is the annual United Nations Climate Change Conference in which states hold discussions and agree on the steps to be taken to deal with the environment.

The climate summit last year saw negotiators from around 200 countries take the historic step of agreeing to establish a “loss and damage” fund which is meant to help vulnerable nations cope with climate disasters and agreed that the world needs to decrease greenhouse gas emissions by almost half till 2030.

(With inputs from agencies)

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