United Nations Reports

Every year the United Nations puts on a massive, tightly stage-managed climate summit. And every year, Rebel News shows up — invited or not. We do it for one reason: someone has to be there to hold the UN, the politicians, and the lobbyists to account.

This year’s meeting — the UN’s flagship climate conference in Belém, Brazil — is no different. And, as always, it’s the same cast of characters: tens of thousands of bureaucrats, diplomats, politicians and lobbyists flying in to tell everyone else to use less, travel less, eat less, and pay more. They love to do these in luxury locations — Bali, Kyoto, Marrakech — and now they’re flocking to the edge of the Amazon.

Rebel News is sending Chief Reporter Sheila Gunn Reid and videographer Kian Simone to Belém to show you what they don’t want you to see.

Why we’re going

UN climate conferences are supposed to be about “saving the planet.” But what we’ve learned, year after year, is that the most revealing part isn’t the scripted speeches in the air-conditioned ballrooms — it’s everything that happens around the conference.

They talk about cutting emissions — and then arrive by private jet.
They demand “sacrifice” — and then get chauffeured around town to wine and dine in luxury
They brag about “green power” — and then you follow the cables and find it all runs on diesel generators.

That’s why we go. Real journalism about the UN often happens outside the official zone where they can’t control who we talk to or what we point the camera at.

Why Brazil matters

Sometimes the UN picks places where independent reporters could actually be detained or arrested for asking real questions — and when that happens, we don’t send our team. Brazil, though, is free enough for us to do our job.

This summit is also enormous. The organizers themselves expect roughly 50,000 – 53,000 people to descend on that city for this one climate conference. When you bring that many lobbyists, NGOs and politicians to one place, they soak up every hotel room, every short-term rental, even cruise ships moored nearby. That’s one reason the costs are higher than usual.

And look at the irony: to host a conference that tells farmers, drivers and homeowners to “scale back,” they cut a road through the Amazon to make it easier for VIPs to get to the venue. That’s the kind of hypocrisy we specialize in showing.

What we’ll cover

This mission is designed to do the kind of on-the-ground reporting we’ve built up over a decade of covering the UN:

Belém: What does the city look like under a 50,000-person UN influx? How hard is it to get there? Who’s actually attending?
Green hypocrisy: Is the “green” conference secretly running on diesel? Did they really carve up the Amazon for an access road?
Real scrums with real questions: Sometimes you get 26 seconds with a top UN or WHO official — so we arrive prepared to pounce with tough, factual questions.
Voices they try to ignore: Climate realists, local protesters, and the delegations that are tired of being lectured by rich countries.
Our allies in climate skepticism: We'll talk to people like Marc Morano (Climate Depot), the Heartland Institute, Friends of Science, the International Climate Science Coalition, and others who have been pushing back on UN climate dogma for years.

We have applied for UN accreditation, as we always do. But we have been barred before precisely because we were the only skeptical reporters in the building. That won’t stop us. In fact, as we’ve proven in Germany, Marrakech and elsewhere, we often do better journalism outside the controlled rooms than inside them.

Who’s going

Sheila Gunn Reid — our chief reporter and probably the Canadian journalist who has covered the most UN climate conferences from a skeptical point of view. She knows the file, the players and their tricks.
Kian Simone — the acclaimed videographer and documentarian, travelling from Toronto to Belém to shoot, edit and send video back to Canada fast.

This is an arduous, multi-leg journey: two days of travel to get there, three days on the ground, two days to get back. That’s the price of being present where the story is.

What it costs

Rebel News does not take government money. That’s why we can criticize Ottawa’s climate posturing and the UN’s overreach. But it also means we have to crowdfund trips like this.

Here’s the working budget for this mission:

Flights (Edmonton → Toronto meetup → Belém, Brazil, and back): just under $5,000 for the team
Airbnb in Belém (3 nights during the summit): about $2,500 (prices are inflated because 50,000+ people are coming and the city is booked out)
Ground transport, food, mobile data to upload video, and a local translator if needed: $1,000–$1,500

Total: $8,500–$9,000 to get two independent journalists into northern Brazil and have them report fast enough to matter.

Follow all the reports at RebelUN.com

This mission’s reports — plus our archive of past UN reporting from around the world — are being collected right here at RebelUN.com. This is the website to bookmark and share.

Whenever Sheila and Kian file a report from Belém, it will appear here.

Help us hold the UN to account

If you want independent Canadian journalists to go where 50,000 bureaucrats, lobbyists and climate insiders are meeting to plot and scheme their next steps — and to ask the questions the press gallery won’t — please chip in a donation.

Every dollar goes to making this mission possible: flights, accommodations, transport, data, and the ability to keep the camera rolling when someone powerful would rather walk away.