The Civil House will spend around R$550,000 on daily allowances and tickets to send 11 employees to Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, where COP29, the United Nations global climate conference, will take place.
The justification is that the mission “represents a unique training opportunity for the Extraordinary Secretariat team for COP30”, which will take place next year in Belém. The UN is the organizer of the conference.
The forecast for spending on daily allowances alone is around R$420,000, varying from R$26,000 to R$51,000 per server, depending on the length of stay in Baku.
According to the Civil House, daily costs are governed by a decree and are intended to cover accommodation, food and travel costs during work on an international institutional mission.
The conference will take place from November 11th to 22nd. According to the Official Gazette of the Union, the minimum period of leave will be 15 days and can reach 27 days — this being the case for five employees. Another four participants in the delegation will be entitled to 18 nights.
The length of stay for the delegation from Pará, the state that will host the conference in 2025, is much shorter. There will be six days in Baku, from November 10th to 16th. The delegation will be made up of 27 people, including governor Helder Barbalho (MDB) and vice-governor, Hana Ghassan Tuma (MDB).
In a statement, the government of Pará stated that the delegation will be made up of the team from the COP30 State Committee, dedicated to organizing the event in Brazil, the team that conducts environmental programs, consultants and communications employees.
The main objective of the event is to formulate a new target for financing climate actions. The new formula should replace the promise, made in the Paris Agreement, of contributing US$ 100 billion per year for measures against climate change in poor countries.
The Azerbaijan conference still lives with expectations about whether it will be possible to achieve significant progress after the climate meeting in the United Arab Emirates, last year.
At COP28, in Dubai, for the first time the document with the final resolutions explicitly mentioned fossil fuels. Countries have committed to building energy systems that move away from these polluting sources.
Azerbaijan is an important oil and gas producer in the world.
As host of the event in 2025, the government of Pará will make a presentation on the state’s experiences with actions to combat deforestation and promote low-carbon emission activities as alternatives for creating a green economy for forest countries.
In 2023, the state delegation that went to Dubai had 38 members. This year, Pará’s mission is smaller because the expectation is that the Baku conference will be leaner than the one held in the United Arab Emirates.
As for the Civil House delegation, the extraordinary secretary for COP30, Valter Correia, directors and project managers will travel. The CV of the delegation members includes three architects, a federal police officer, two journalists and an expert on indigenous people.
When contacted, the Civil House stated that “the 11 civil servants who will travel are part of the Extraordinary Secretariat for COP30, which is responsible for organizing the conference in Brazil”.
According to the Civil House, they will be in Baku to monitor the preparations and the holding of COP29, in addition to participating in strategic meetings, with the aim of “Brazil being fully aligned with international standards and requirements”.
“These interactions are fundamental to assimilating good practices, as well as avoiding deficient experiences”, he says.
According to the Civil House, “the tasks include observations and debates” related, for example, to accommodation, logistics, security, technology and communication.
When asked about the daily cost and dates, the government stated that “the objectives to be achieved with the technical observations and coordination necessary for each directorate determined the employees assigned to compose the mission and the respective length of stay.”
