JANUARY 8 — The last three United Nations climate conferences – COP28 in Dubai, COP29 in Baku, and COP30 in Belém, Brazil – offer lessons that extend beyond climate negotiation outcomes. They reveal how the location of climate diplomacy shapes who can participate, and how host cities absorb the impacts of what may be termed ‘COP tourism’.

COP tourism refers to the temporary but intense influx of delegates, civil society groups, researchers, media, and observers into a host city during a Conference of the Parties (COP). While this surge can generate economic activity and global visibility, it also places significant pressure on urban transport systems, accommodation markets, and governance capacity.

The economic impact was expected to exceed R$870 million (ca. RM640 million). According to Brazil’s national statistics agency (IBGE), hotel prices in Belém increased by about 155 per cent during the COP30 period, while airfares rose by around 25 per cent. For context, this scale of price increase far exceeds the typical peak-season or major-event surges observed in Malaysian cities, including Kuala Lumpur, even during large international conferences or festive periods.

Attendance figures highlight significant variations across the host cities. COP28 in Dubai attracted nearly 97,000 on-site participants, the largest COP to date. COP29 in Baku hosted approximately 67,000 participants, while COP30 in Belém recorded around 56,000 on-site attendees. Belém’s smaller numbers do not signal declining global interest in climate action. Rather, they reflect structural realities related to accessibility, affordability, and urban capacity.

Dubai exemplifies the global hub model. Extensive international air connectivity and a vast hotel inventory lowered participation barriers, enabling record attendance and widespread tourism spillover across the city. Baku, while not a mega-hub, benefited from its role as a regional gateway between Europe and West Asia, allowing it to host a sizeable conference with more spatially concentrated impacts.

Belém represents a different – and deliberate – choice. Hosting COP30 in the Amazon foregrounded Indigenous knowledge, climate justice, and the lived realities of forest communities. For many participants, it was a rare opportunity to visit Brazil and the iconic Amazon region, which has long been embedded in global imagination yet deeply real in its contemporary environmental and social challenges. For some, early perceptions of the Amazon had been shaped by films and popular portrayals of wildlife such as anacondas, piranhas, and capybaras (including me!). COP30 also created space for direct engagement with Indigenous perspectives that are often marginalised in global climate forums.

Beyond the conference venue, the COP30 off-day enabled participants to experience the Amazon region more directly on individual arrangement. On Combu Island, we visited and learned about a community-based enterprise founded on a grandmother’s vision to sustain traditional cacao-based livelihoods while keeping production local and community-centred. In fact, Combu Island also became a common meeting point for many COP30 participants due to its proximity to the city.

However, this symbolic positioning came with logistical trade-offs. In preparation for COP30, infrastructure works to improve access to the venue included road construction that required clearing parts of the Amazon rainforest, drawing public scrutiny. Limited international flights, reliance on domestic connections, and constrained accommodation capacity contributed to sharp price increases, with cruise ships deployed as supplementary accommodation for conference participants.

These constraints had uneven impacts. Civil society groups, youth delegates, and researchers, especially those from developing countries, were disproportionately affected. Many reduced delegation sizes or relied on virtual participation. COP30 was not smaller in ambition, but more selective in who could attend physically.

Looking ahead to COP31, Turkey’s role as a regional connector between Europe, Asia, and the Middle East offers opportunities to improve physical accessibility and affordability for a wider range of participants. COP31 will be a key moment to observe how host cities apply lessons from recent COPs, particularly in terms of managing accommodation pressures, transport connectivity, and hybrid participation models, in order to ensure climate negotiations remain inclusive and accessible to voices of all.

For urban planners and policymakers, the lesson is clear. COP tourism functions as a stress test for cities, revealing how transport systems, accommodation markets, and governance structures respond to sudden global attention. Participation levels are shaped not only by political interest, but by infrastructure readiness, planning capacity, and affordability.

Looking ahead, future COPs should consider more robust hybrid formats. Well-designed hybrid participation can reduce carbon footprints, widen access, and strengthen inclusivity regardless of host city location. COP30 reminds us that climate diplomacy does not take place only in conference halls, but across cities themselves – and how we plan those cities matters.

* Professor TPr Dr Goh Hong Ching is a professor at the Department of Urban and Regional Planning, Faculty of Built Environment, Universiti Malaya, and may be reached at gohhc@um.edu.my

** This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail.