A new highway project in Brazil, intended to help access to the COP30 climate summit in Belém, has sparked controversy due to its route through a protected area of the Amazon rainforest.
The road construction has led to the felling of trees, raising concerns about environmental impact and highlighting hypocrisy in climate actions.
It aims to ease traffic to the city, which will host more than 50,000 people – including world leaders – at the conference in November.
Much more to do
Carlos Nobre and Marielos Peña-Claros, for Project Syndicate, wrote: “A top priority for the conference – for which countries should already be preparing – should be to secure a global commitment to achieving zero deforestation in the Amazon by 2030 and net-zero global GHG emissions before 2050.
“Now, with the Amazon’s survival in the balance, we need immediate, concrete, collaborative efforts to slash emissions and channel more resources toward climate-change adaptation and ecosystem conservation. If COP30 fails to deliver, we risk losing the Amazon altogether.”
“The Paris Agreement is working, but there is much more to do,” Brazilian diplomat Andre Correa do Lago wrote in a letter released on Monday outlining his presidency’s vision for the COP30 summit.
Claudio Verequete, who lives about 200m from where the road will be, used to make an income from harvesting açaí berries from trees that once occupied the space.
He told the BBC: “Everything was destroyed.
“Our harvest has already been cut down. We no longer have that income to support our family.”
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