A plan for new buses in the Brazilian city hosting the 2025 UN climate summit was held up by a political row that suggests the road to COP30 could get rocky
A recent row over a small fleet of air-conditioned electric buses, intended to improve travel for stressed passengers in the Brazilian city of Belém – the host city for the 2025 UN climate summit – suggests local politics could complicate preparations for COP30 in the Amazon.
“The first time I travelled by bus in Belém it was very difficult. It was so stuffy – there were so many people. It was so hot, I almost got sick,” José Martin, 26, an exchange student from Guinea, told Climate Home at a bus stop near Mangueirão stadium, a busy area of the city.
Belém has 870 public buses that carry around 470,000 passengers a day – but they lack cooling in a city where temperatures can rise to 34 or 35 degrees Celsius on Amazonian summer afternoons from July to November. Most of the buses are old, and users complain about broken seats and frequent breakdowns.
Candidates in mayoral elections have made campaign promises to modernise the bus network – also a hot topic among city councillors. But it was the prospect of hosting a global climate conference in November 2025 that boosted the push for a new, air-conditioned fleet.
The first five state-of-the-art electric buses for a pilot project were delivered in early July and should have been on the road already. The vehicles – with a range of 270 kilometres and capacity for 76 passengers – are the same model used to ferry delegates around during COP28 in Dubai.
However, their deployment was held up by a dispute between Belém City Hall and the local political opposition, which lasted for nearly two months until it was resolved at the end of August.
Old buses continue to circulate in Belém (Photo: Alice Martins Morais)
Soon after the buses arrived in the city, the Municipal Audit Court (TCMPA) published a precautionary measure, suspending the purchase contract for the initial batch of 10 buses issued by the Belém Executive Secretariat for Urban Mobility (Semob). The decision alleged flaws including overpricing and lack of planning.
In response, Semob’s head, Ana Valéria Borges, said the cost – which works out at R$3.6 million (around $636,500) per bus – took into account taxes and changes in import tariffs.
The left-wing Socialism and Freedom Party (PSOL) – of the city’s current mayor, Edmilson Rodrigues – claimed the suspension was an attempt to benefit the opposition’s mayoral candidate, Igor Normando of the centrist Brazilian Democratic Movement (MDB) party. He is backed by his cousin, Pará state governor Helder Barbalho, who is a key player in the mobilisation for COP30.
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The PSOL’s accusation stems from the fact that the councillor who took the decision to suspend the bus contract,