“They think we’re stupid, because we live in a slum!” says Pawer Martins. A musician and activist, Martins is furious. He lives in Vila da Barca, a socially disadvantaged neighborhood on the shores of the Baia do Gaujara estuary, just south of central Belem, a city of 1.4 million inhabitants in the northern Brazilian state of Para.
Construction is going on a few meters away from his home.
It’s not just the noise and the smell of the site that angers him. Soon, a pumping station will begin operation at the site, spewing wastewater from surrounding rich neighborhoods directly into Vila da Barca, from where it will then be pumped to Belem’s first large-scale wastewater treatment facility. Wastewater from Vila da Barca, however, will continue to flow directly into the estuary. “We got nothing out of it,” says a disillusioned Pawer.
Wastewater for the poor, parks for the rich
“COP30” is printed on every billboard shielding the construction site. The pumping station and the large-scale treatment facility are part of a multi-million dollar investment that was made with the climate conference in mind.
The water treatment facility was opened in October. Until then, Belem and its nearly 1.4 million inhabitants had practically no sewer system. Less than 4% of all sewage gets treated here, and only 20% of inhabitants are connected to a municipal sewerage network, according to Trata Brasil, an organization that systematically tracks water and wastewater data.
“It’s a great achievement for our city that Belem is now getting a sewer system,” says Pawer, “but now we’re gonna get the shit out of the Doca.”
The Nova Doca Canal, a straight, palm-lined promenade leading through the wealthy neighborhoods of Reduto and Umarizal today, was, until very recently, a stinking, open sewer. In October, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva personally reopened the renovated canal as well as an adjacent park that was created as part of the project.
One hears a lot of positive reactions to many of the investments made in Belem in the COP30 run-up. “Belem got some makeup!” says an Uber driver.
“People have discovered Belem, sales have gone up, too,” says juice seller Nazare Barros. “COP30 has brought us a lot of advances — it’s a leap of at least 10 years.” Many are also excited that the world will now get to know about Para’s rich culture — its Afro-Indigenous cuisine, the many fruits of the Amazon and Carimbo dancing.
Just getting running water with sanitation promised next year
In Vila da Barca, some still feel overlooked. Until very recently, many in the neighborhood didn’t even have running water. Suely Constante, a housewife and nurse, lives in the oldest part of Vila da Barca; right on the water, where houses built on stilts jut out over the river.
“When I speak about the past, I have to cry, because I think of how my mother used to carry containers of water,” she says. In this case, the past means up until just a few weeks ago. There has only been running water here since residents protested against the water treatment plant and reporters became aware of the situation in Vila da Barca as COP30 approached.
Until then, very few houses had running water, and what came out of the faucet was yellow. Ultimately, in the wake of several media reports highlighting the issue, Mayor Helder Barbalho was forced to act.
In August, he came to the neighborhood to personally promise residents water within 45 days and city sanitation connections by April 2026. Barbalho used the visit as an opportunity to produce an effective Instagram reel, sporting a construction helmet and a Belem t-shirt.
Out on Suely Constante’s terrace, she proudly shows off the water pressure. She looks at COP30 with both optimism and pessimism. “COP30 has been good for the city,” she says. “Not for us here in the community.”
Feeling climate change every day
Regardless, Pawer Martins believes COP30 is good for Belem. He says the world should come and feel how hot it is here. Belem is on track to become the second-hottest city in the world by 2050, according to a study conducted by the Federal University of Para (UFPA). It’s already so hot here that one sees ever more people with umbrellas, not against rain — though that, too — but against the blazing sun burning up the city’s asphalted streets.
An Uber driver says it no longer rains at the same time every day like it used to. Now it comes as a deluge or hardly at all. “It’s insufferable,” says Pawer, “and when you’re poor, you have no right to an air-conditioner.
The fact that Belem is dealing with the effects of climate change was certainly one reason President Lula insisted that the world gather there — controversy be damned: Forests were clear-cut to make way for roads, accommodation prices went through the roof, delegations had to be put up in cruise ships and sex motels for lack of sufficient beds.
In the end, people were thrown out of their homes because landlords wanted to rent their apartments to conference attendees for big money. The homeless were “removed” from the city. Just days before COP30 began, Brazil’s Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (IBAMA) — with the express blessing of President Lula — green-lighted oil drilling in the Amazon basin.
But when Lula opened the conference, he promised heads of state and government that “COP30 will be the COP of truth.” The point of the meeting should be about action, not talk. Despite the contradictions, expectations remain high regarding Brazil, for previous installments have been held in autocratic oil states — without indigenous peoples, traditional communities and activists.
It is also the first climate change conference to take place at the heart of the crisis itself. Attendees will have the opportunity to see and experience the rainforest that they have previously discussed at length in Bonn, Dubai and Paris, with their own eyes, and to speak with the people who are fighting to protect it.
Pawer Martins and the residents of Vila da Barca will be there, too. “We’re ready to talk, even with big corporations, to make them understand that climate change is happening now. We have to do something now — otherwise it will only get worse.”
This report was written on a press trip with the German Catholic aid organization Misereor; it was translated from the original German by Jon Shelton.
