COP30 is currently underway in Belém, Brazil, and today there was a moment of concern because a fire broke out in the so-called Blue Zone of COP30, which is administered and controlled by the United Nations and where the meeting rooms and various pavilions of the countries and international organizations participating in the event are located.
We're going to speak with Marcelo Mena, former Minister of the Environment, who is there at COP30. How are you, Marcelo? Good afternoon. Hello, how are we? Fine. Um, I imagine you had quite a scare. I wasn't there, but I had already returned, and I was more or less there reporting that I still have a pavilion there that was operational, so we had a team there on standby.
So, what I understand is that there was a fire in what's called the Blue Zone, which is the area where the pavilions are located, where the delegations are, and where the negotiations are taking place. You can only get there with UN credentials, and therefore, that's where the heads of state are, among other things. Right.
And what we understand is that a fire started near the pavilion of one of the countries of, I think, an African country, a few meters from our pavilion, and that meant a total evacuation. So, an email just arrived saying that activities in the area won't resume until [time] because they're also negotiating today. Because the text [text] ends here on Saturday, and therefore they're in the middle of negotiations, and therefore, there will be many people who will be up late tonight and will probably return around [time] when the facility reopens.
Now, the authorities acted quickly, the evacuation protocol itself was followed for everyone there, as we can see on Vivo TV, many people [and] significant fires there in the pavilions. Yes. So, this, to give you a little background, is an event center that was expanded, a much larger center in area, and it has a floating structure, inflated in a way, right?
It's a fabric structure, and that's what you can see is on fire, and therefore that part is exposed. There are definitely rains that occur every afternoon when the temperature starts to drop, and therefore that part will be largely unusable, not only the immediate area but the surrounding area as well. But what some Chileans who were there told me is that the culture that Chile usually has regarding disaster preparedness—where there are meeting points, where there are evacuation routes, where there are evacuation leaders, where there are risk prevention specialists—is not ingrained at this summit.
And I saw that there were many firefighters and civil defense personnel in general, but they felt that there weren't necessarily flame or fire detectors, nor was there immediate enough clarity to evacuate. But the situation was indeed under control today as well.
So, looking at the glass half full in terms of what Chile means, we have a culture much more associated with this type of disaster because of the various things that have happened to us, but that doesn't necessarily extend to everyone. Marcelo Mena, former Minister of the Environment, thank you for answering the radio call, and I hope everything is going well there at COP30. Yes, it's a pleasure. Thank you very much. I hope you're doing well.
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