To host UN climate talks, Brazil chose one of its poorer cities: That's no accident

When world leaders, diplomats, business leaders, scientists and activists go to Brazil in November for the United Nations! annual climate negotiations, poverty, deforestation and much of the world's troubles will be right in their faces — by design.

- By SETH BORENSTEIN

In past conference cities — including resort areas and playgrounds for the rich such as Bali, Cancun, Paris, Sharm El-Sheikh and Dubai — host nations show off both their amenities and what their communities have done about climate change. But this fall's conference is in a high-poverty city on the edge of the Amazon to demonstrate what needs to be done, said the diplomat who will run the mega-negotiations in Belem known as COP30, or Conference of Parties.

What better way to tackle a problem than facing it head on, however uncomfortable, COP30 President-designate André Corréa do Lago, a veteran Brazilian diplomat, said in an interview with The Associated Press at United Nations headquarters.

"We cannot hide the fact that we are in the world with lots of inequalities and where sustainability and fighting climate change is something that has to get closer to people,” do Lago said. That's what Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has in mind, he said.