It’s rather bad optics to see tons of trees cut down to build a road (using petroleum based asphalt) to bring the 40K+ who took fossil fueled flights to a climate conference, eh? I’m actually surprised it too this long for the doomsday cult to come up with an Excuse, but, I guess there being so much press about as of late necessitated it
Fact check: Was rainforest cut down for a highway to COP30?
World leaders, policy makers and environmentalists are currently gathering in Belem, Brazil, to discuss climate change. But every year, the World Climate Conference, or COP, also sparks criticism as thousands of attendees travel from around the world to be there. At this year’s event, dubbed COP30, one criticism in particular went viral on social media.
Claim: Amazon rain forest was felled to build a highway for COP30.
DW Fact check: Misleading
This claim has already been circulating for eight months but is currently regaining momentum while the conference is on. Some social media posts with this claim are getting more than a million views
Misleading!
But the reality behind these viral claims is more complex than the posts on social media make out.
Complex!
Yes, it is true, parts of the rain forest were felled to build a four-lane highway approximately 13.2 kilometers long close to Belem. The highway is called Avenida Liberdade. But, according to local officials, this was not done just for COP30. Plans for construction of a highway here date back to 2012, long before Belem was chosen to host this year’s conference. However other media have reported that the highway is linked to this year’s conference.
Oh, OK, it’s completely true. Everything is is just mule fritters. It matters not if there were plans since 2012: the fact is the construction started recently, in order to connect Belem to the conference center. Here was the BBC, one of the first to report this back in March 2025
A new four-lane highway cutting through tens of thousands of acres of protected Amazon rainforest is being built for the COP30 climate summit in the Brazilian city of Belém.
In other words, it was being built in March. And they did it for COP30.
DW reached out to the BBC for reaction. “The BBC report is based on state governments documents and an interview with a state government official — two of which directly link the project to COP30,” a BBC spokesperson said.
The BBC also points to a press release by the government of Para, dating back to November last year, titled, “Infrastructure projects by the State Government for COP 30 are progressing in Belem.”
Yeah, it’s not complex. It’s not complicated. It’s not misleading.
But construction wasn’t started until this year. Would it have actually begun at all were it not for COP30?
We have had videoconferencing technology since the late 1990s, but, Heaven forfend! we can’t expect the hoitiest and the toitiest to miss taking their mistresses on an exotic vacation, can we?