For the last three weeks I’ve been traveling in Brazil. I went from my hometown Salvador, in the northeastern part of the country to the extreme south in Porto Alegre; then I went to Rio de Janeiro, spent a week in São Paulo and got back to Salvador. Twenty-one days away from home. I could blog about my entire travel experience, but I’ll actually tell you some of what I realizations after my unique São Paulo cosmopolitan experience.

São Paulo is magical and I want to live there. The city has approximately eleven million inhabitants, and eight million cars. You can think of it as a chaotic place, with idyllic traffic jams and a cloud of pollution around it, but still, it is easy to know why people fall for São Paulo. This is the most populous city in the southern hemisphere; a cosmopolitan place in which people feel overwhelmed. By seeing so many opportunities to be a consumer, one cannot resist to what it has to offer despite its endemic issues.

In a place of incredible beauty like Brazil, as well as notorious for its social inequalities, erroneously there is little space for the climate change debate. Being the richest and most developed city in Brazil, São Paulo highlights these inequalities when the richest have a perfect knowledge on how to spend a huge sum of money in trivial stuff and how to neglect sustainability. In addition, I was profoundly ashamed of the amount of people I met who had no clue on what the COP15 could possibly mean.

For people who love the city life São Paulo is the perfect match though. Nevertheless, the environment friends would sure feel like there is no effort from paulistanos (those who were born in São Paulo) when it comes to saving the environment. While I was at the hotel for instance, I could see many people wasting food in the breakfasts. I could see the streetlights and the showcases always on during the night. I could also see people struggling to enter in the metro and others complaining on traffic jams. A typical scenario for big cities, I guess.

“São Paulo never stops!” says a friend. But… at what cost?

The city obviously has a great range of issues as any other big city. But what does it do to change its pollution scenario? The city mayor, Gilberto Kassab, a very controversial political figure is somehow looking for a way to lead the city to a new era of development, although this is not very realistic. But politics won't change São Paulo problems if its citizens don't do the same for their behavior towards sustainability.

Because of its size and the amount of roads and concrete it tends to be much warmer than the expected in the weather forecast. The pollution makes it feel warmer and extremely uncomfortable. Even during the nights I could feel the heat. In São Paulo, I could hear people complaining on the size of city, while others loving its greatness (such as me). That actually reminded me of Dyssekilde: the eco-village we all visited during the launch event of the TH!NK ABOUT IT back in September. So how can we turn places like São Paulo and New York, or Tokyo and Seoul into more environment-friendly spaces? Tough task, I’d say. But we could help suggesting an economy for the environment. It is not rocket science to realize greener spaces are better for the environment and for quality of life and they're also business-friendly.

When I went to Porto Alegre in the first part of my trip I took one of those tourist buses you can see in most places, and I was astonished by the fact that the city has 1.4 million inhabitants and 1.6 million trees, as informed by the tourist guide! In São Paulo everything is quite different. Amazed as I was in the plane, a few minutes away from landing, I heard the voice of the pilot asking the passengers to look to our right and to gaze São Paulo from the sky. I remember looking for several minutes while crossing the city. Eventually the plane turned to other direction and that huge gray land in the land continued out of my sight.

My point is: as we all know the big cities are already collapsing and São Paulo is not deprived of this fate. With more and more people joining the urban population, the most populous cities in the world become a risk to any possible agreement in COP15. How do we invest in green energy resources if the business companies involved with this market don't profit? How do we invest in these technologies when corruption haunts the society? How do we encourage people to care for the environment when they don't have a "natural environment" surrounding them? And how do we turn consumerists into less alienate people?

The busy life in São Paulo makes people alienated. It leads people to a life of a few rewards of money, development and instant pleasure. Of course there are many people involved in fighting this way of life but maybe, just maybe, life in big cities makes us unaware of the possible effects of climate change. In most Brazilian cities, but particularly in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, floodings cause massive destruction and fear. It is commom thought that any rain can possibily turn São Paulo streets into rivers  and cause landslides hence killing other dozens of people.

If COP15 succeed, I would be glad to see some effort from local governments to actually adapt the cities for the climate change effects. But this adaption cannot be limited to  infrastructure changes in urban areas, but also a complete range of targets that would include education, climate justice, raising awareness on the cause and above all things, suggest people into return to rural areas or the creation of less populated spaces just like Dyssekilde. São Paulo sure is a marvelous place, but lives are at risk in this big city everytime climate change strikes upon it.