A four-lane highway is being built for the COP30 climate summit, cutting through tens of thousands of acres protected area of the Amazon Rainforest.
COP30 will be held in Belém in Brazil. In order to accommodate for the 50,000 people coming for the climate summit, they’ve began building this new highway.
The Amazon Rainforest is a vital part of stabilizing the global ecosystem, and is under extreme threat. Deforestation and fires are a continuing problem, and this new threat to protected area is concerning. Not only is it vital to providing food, medicine, wood and water to local areas, but to the whole world.
COP30 is the 30th United Nations Climate Change Conference. The purpose of these climate change summits is to continue to implement the Paris Agreement and propose solutions to the current climate crisis world wide. It is a yearly summit, where all world leaders who are part of the UN gather to negotiate and agree on what action to take.
The fear of this new highway being built through the Amazon is that it creates easier access points. This could increase the risk of illegal deforestation and logging. This would further impact the locals of the area, as the rainforest provides a large amount of jobs. Further concerns is with treats being cut down for this new highway, which will then increase the amount of CO2 pollution in the area. On the contrary, some say this new highway will actually help local businesses, by making the city of Belém more accessible. With COP30 being hosted in Belem, the area is getting much needed renovations, which hopefully boost quality of life in the area.
Still, many are criticising this new development, saying that it may contradict the purpose of COP30. It is clear that the Amazon Rainforest is one of the most important ecosystems in the world. With the COP30 President-Designate himself stating “The Amazon, one of the world’s most vital ecosystems, now at risk of reaching an irreversible tipping point,”. Yet, while saying this, they are still cutting through protected areas of the amazon to make things easier for the climate summit.
The impact this highway will have once built to the Amazon Rainforest is unclear, but the outrage of locals and environmentalists tells us its not likely to be good.
Featured image: pexels.com
