Thousands of acres in the Amazon rainforest have been destroyed to develop a road for a climate summit.
The BBC reports that the four-lane highway will be used for travel ahead of November’s COP30 climate summit in Belém. The outlet noted that “many say this deforestation contradicts the very purpose of a climate summit.”
A local resident condemned the road construction, telling the outlet, “For us who live on the side of the highway, there will be no benefits. There will be benefits for the trucks that will pass through. If someone gets sick, and needs to go to the center of Belém, we won’t be able to use it.”
The local, Claudio Verequete, explained, “Our fear is that one day someone will come here and say: ‘Here’s some money. We need this area to build a gas station, or to build a warehouse.’ And then we’ll have to leave.”
Adler Silveira, the infrastructure secretary of Pará, explained that the project aims to “prepare” and “modernize” the city so “we can have a legacy for the population and, more importantly, serve people for COP30 in the best possible way.” Silveira added that the highway will be “sustainable” and an “important mobility intervention.”
COP30 President Ambassador André Corrêa do Lago issued a letter earlier this week urging the “world to take collective and urgent action in a ‘mutirão’ against climate change,” a press release from COP30 said.
“Together, we can make COP30 the moment we turn the game around, when we put into practice our political achievements and our collective knowledge to change the course of the next decade,” do Lago’s letter read.
