A huge fire during talks at the COP30 climate summit put negotiations for a greener future on hold.
Thousands of attendees fled after the fire erupted at one of the exhibition pavilions in Belem in Brazil on Thursday.
Authorities said the fire was under control with no injuries reported.
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres had appealed earlier in the day for a deal from the summit, welcoming calls from some for clarity on the hotly disputed subject of weaning the world off fossil fuels.
(Picture: Xinhua/Shutterstock)
Brazil’s tourism minister Celso Sabino said he did not know when delegates would be able to return. Representatives for two separate negotiating teams, including the bloc representing small island states, said they left the venue awaiting instructions on when they could return.
The summit in the Amazon city of Belem, Brazil, had already missed a self-imposed Wednesday deadline to secure agreement among the nearly 200 countries present on issues including how to increase climate finance and shift away from fossil fuels.
Emissions from burning fossil fuels trap heat in the earth’s atmosphere and are by far the biggest contributor to warming.
There are less than 48 hours until the scheduled end of the summit to find a consensus, which host nation Brazil has framed as a crucial step to ramping up international climate action and demonstrating that there is broad support to accelerate turning decades of promises and pledges from the COP summits into concrete action.
‘One thing is clear, we are down to the wire, and the world is watching Belem,’ Guterres said.
