COP or World Cup: Are climate crisis events turning into tourist magnets?

At the United Nations’ closing ceremony for the 28th Conference of the Parties (COP), as the United Arab Emirates passed the Presidency gavel, a video of appetizing local dishes, women dancing in colorful dresses, and inviting scenic views was displayed, like an advertisement for tourism in Azerbaijan.

“In recent years, nations are using the attention and momentum from COP not to push forward bold new climate adaptation and mitigation plans, but rather to further the fossil fuel extractive industry, and enrich tourism and travel opportunities,” AJ Hudson, a scholar at Oxford University Centre for the Environment who is boycotting COP, told Raseef22.

In 2023, Azerbaijan struck a deal with Armenia ahead of Baku’s bid to host COP29, shoveling aside the threat of an Armenian veto during the formal ratification at COP28. Azerbaijan then paid PR firm Teneo $4.7 million to manage publicity for COP29, and invested heavily in upgrading its infrastructure ahead of the event, with estimates of spending 470 million AZN (approximately 277 million USD) on city-wide renovations. Amid criticism of petro-states hosting an event dedicated to saving the planet, COP has not only become a greenwashing conference attended by representatives of the fossil fuel industry but has also allowed host countries to capitalize on tourism opportunities.

Surely enough, today marks the first ever COP Thematic Day on Tourism.

“Watching different countries in the lead up to COP is a little like watching one of the countries organizing the World Cup or the Olympics,” Amena Sharaf, Economic and Climate Justice Officer at MENAFem, and a COP skeptic, told Raseef22. “It’s really a matter of ‘marketing’ for a country. And while no one expects a country to not display any of its culture or its heritage, COP is a space of urgency.”

Negotiators at COP29 are expected to reach an agreement for a new climate fund, the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG), with money voluntarily contributed by fossil fuel-producing countries and companies. The fund seeks to raise at least $1 billion to help developing countries shift to clean energy, improve energy efficiency and boost climate resilience. So far, the negotiations have failed to deliver on the post-2025 finance goal.

“With the behind-the-scenes business transactions, massive industry influence, skyrocketing hotel prices, and overall focus on destination over substance, COP is feeling more and more FIFA-esque,” Hudson continued.

“Watching different countries in the lead up to COP is a little like watching one of the countries organizing the World Cup or the Olympics,” Amena Sharaf, Economic and Climate Justice Officer at MENAFem, and a COP skeptic, told Raseef22. “It’s really a matter of ‘marketing’ for a country. And while no one expects a country to not display any of its culture or its heritage, COP is a space of urgency.”

During the first half of this year’s two-week conference, famous Brazilian football player Ronaldinho Gaúcho made an appearance. High-level attendees have been flying in on their private jets, an ironic contradiction to the “Net Zero Roadmap for Travel and Tourism,” which launched at COP26, and the costs for accommodation are up ten times the usual rate in Azerbaijan.

“Hotel prices [in Baku] reached astronomical levels,” commented an agent with a tour company based in Dubai. A popularly cheap destination from the UAE, travel packages to Azerbaijan can go as low as 320 USD for three nights, flights included. At the time of writing, widely-used accommodation website Booking.com showed zero available hotels in Baku. The readily available accommodation options through the official COP29 website reached 1,000 USD per night.

Hotel price hikes made big waves in the news during COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh, a popular beach resort town in Egypt. “At Sharm el-Sheikh, a city us Egyptians normally go to with no issue, and one I frequented as a child, hotels and apartment renters prefer[red] foreigners to make more money off of them,” Eman Mounir, a journalist who attended both COP27 and COP28, told Raseef22. “I felt like I did not belong in my own country.”

The price of accommodation is not the only problem. Many attendees, including official delegates, are unable to afford food. A journalist currently in Baku informed Raseef22 that she only bought food at the venue when she could no longer endure her hunger. “Twenty five dollars for this?” she said as she sent a photo of a salad and a soup with flatbread.

A WhatsApp group named “Free Food COP” was created, where participants share spots to find grub. “Will there be food?” asked an attendee when an event was shared with the group. “[Another] one we are co-hosting will have food. Just come early,” responded the organizer.

“The food is incredibly unreasonably expensive [at the venue], and you cannot go to the city and come back” because of the long commute, a country delegate who requested anonymity, told Raseef22. He remarked that in the city center one can eat a “hearty meal” with an appetizer and drinks for 25 AZN (15 USD), whereas a mere sandwich at the venue costs 20 AZN (12 USD). A water bottle is 10 AZN (6 USD), which could get you two lamb kebabs in the city, according to the delegate.

To put matters further into perspective, the average per capita monthly income in Azerbaijan in 2023 was 343 AZN, about 200 USD, according to the State Statistics Committee.

Pavilions, small rooms or spaces separate from the negotiation halls that parties or observers book, have also become a prominent feature of COP. While some are used to host serious talks and exhibitions, many are used to showcase a country’s attractions and tourism initiatives to a global audience. At COP28, the interior of Indonesia's pavilion fantastically mimicked one of its expansive forests. As early as Nairobi’s COP12 in 2006, a BBC article quoted a civil society activist pointing out how some delegates “came here as climate tourists who wanted to see Africa” and “take snaps of the wildlife.”

“Perhaps the biggest injustice to this ‘instagramification’ of COP is that with each conference becoming more of a destination event, it becomes more and more exclusionary to the low-income people who are the most at risk of climate change. They can’t afford to attend or participate, even when local,” said Hudson.

A BBC article quoted a civil society activist pointing out how some delegates “came here as climate tourists who wanted to see Africa” and “take snaps of the wildlife.”

In his newsletter, Ed King, International Climate Strategist at Global Strategic Communications Council, noted that the cost of renting a coffee machine for pavilions at COP29 is 30,000 USD, compared to $7,000 last year.

“Maybe the NCQG answer is more coffee machines?” King joked.

For the amount of money poured into COP conferences, outcomes that serve people facing the climate crisis are minimal. Failures of the nearly 30-year long negotiations have been outlined in a Harvard Kennedy School report, with one of its recommendations being reigning in “the extravaganza.”

“Imagine what would happen if the vast budget put towards the growing extravagance of COP was instead put towards climate adaptation, towards building and sharing local scalable responses to climate change that could inspire, build new economies, and even save lives,” said Hudson, who is forming a climate justice coalition called AVALANCHE amid rising anti-COP sentiment.