To Prep for Climate Summit, Brazil Cuts Down Rainforest

World leaders will be among the 50,000 people descending on the Brazilian city of Belem this November for the COP30 climate summit. Brazil is hailing it as historic—"a COP in the Amazon, not a COP about the Amazon." But it's attracting some controversy: Many will reach the summit via a new four-lane highway whose construction is happening in the middle of protected Amazon rainforest. The BBC sets the scene:

• "Along the partially built road, lush rainforest towers on either side—a reminder of what was once there. Logs are piled high in the cleared land, which stretches more than 8 miles through the rainforest into Belem. Diggers and machines carve through the forest floor, paving over wetland to surface the road."

Local officials are touting it as a "sustainable highway," one with bike lanes, solar lighting, and wildlife crossings. Critics say this and other new infrastructure in the works, including a doubling of the airport's capacity to 14 million passengers, runs counter to the entire idea of promoting positive climate developments. As for the deforestation element, Brazil plans to push for an antidote to that very thing at COP30. Bloomberg reports the country intends to push for more funding to reverse deforestation, with the Brazilian president-designate of the summit saying in a March 10 letter that forests will "be a central topic." (More UN climate summit stories.)