Belém, the capital of Pará and the host city for COP30, the UN conference on climate change to be held in 2025, ranks tenth among the capitals with the highest percentages of the population living with inadequate sanitation. The precarious sanitation situation is a reality in several municipalities in the North and Northeast.
There are 212,370 inhabitants of Belém living with inadequate sanitation, according to the new data from the 2022 Demographic Census released last Friday (23) by IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics). When asked, the Belém City Hall stated, regarding waste disposal in the city, that with a new tender already concluded, they project improvements in the "management of urban solid waste after 14 years of delay." The government of Pará, on the other hand, mentions new investments and works to improve services.
The number of inhabitants with inadequate sanitation represents just over 16% of the population of the capital of Pará, which in 2025 is set to welcome political and civil society leaders from around the world for another UN conference aimed at mitigating the climate catastrophe—increasingly palpable in the extreme events already occurring in parts of the world. The "inadequate," in the Census nomenclature, refers to sewage through rudimentary cesspits or holes, ditches, rivers, lakes, streams, and other diverse forms. The classification is also used for households where there is no bathroom or toilet. The situation is not exactly new and is a cause for concern regarding the infrastructure for the COP30 in Belém, which will mark ten years since the Paris Agreement. At the summit, new NDCs (nationally determined contributions) will be presented, which are the goals for greenhouse gas reductions of each country.