One of the controversies about COP30 was the construction of a road to the south of Belém in the months before the climate meeting. In March 2025, the BBC reported on the road construction under the headline, “Amazon forest felled to build road for climate summit”. The article went viral on social media.
Why are you writing about this now?
I’ve been meaning to write something since March. I’m afraid didn’t quite get round to it. This morning I read a Substack note with a link to the BBC article from someone who should know better:
Who wrote this note?
It’s not really relevant, except as an explanation of why I’m writing this now. To be fair on the person who wrote this note, he did explain in the ensuing discussion that the road had been planned for a long time, but had not been built because of the environmental impacts. “But hey, piggyback it off a climate summit and it’s all good,” he wrote, sarcastically.
This is my attempt at a fact check on whether the road construction had anything to do with COP30.
Was any of the Amazon rainforest cleared to make way for a road built for COP30?
A 13 kilometre four-lane road is under construction in an area of protected rainforest to the south of Belém. The BBC journalist Ione Wells writes that,
The state government of Pará had touted the idea of this highway, known as Avenida Liberdade, as early as 2012, but it had repeatedly been shelved because of environmental concerns.
Now a host of infrastructure projects have been resurrected or approved to prepare the city for the COP summit.
And in a short BBC news film, Wells says that “preparations for the summit have already cut down some of the last remaining protected forest in this area”. She also says that, “It’s one of many projects to get the city ready to host tens of thousands of people.”
But Pará’s governor Helder Barbalho approved the road in 2020, before Brazil had been chosen as the host country for COP30. Jair Bolsonaro was president at that time.
UPDATE — 5 December 2025: On 15 June 2024, the Pará government gave the authorisation for the start of construction of Avenida Liberdade and the final environmental license. That authorisation came six months after Brazil was selected to host COP30.
UPDATE — 9 December 2025: In July 2025, the Public Defender’s Office of the State of Pará filed a legal case about the impacts of the road on communities living in the area of rainforest. Here’s the beginning of the summary of the case on the Climate Litigation Database website (emphasis added):
In July, 2025, the Public Defender’s Office of the State of Pará filed a Public Civil Action (ACP) with a request for urgent relief against the state of Pará, the Pará State Institute for Forestry and Biodiversity Development (IDEFLOR-BIO), and the company Terra Meio Ambiente. The aim is to protect the right to land tenure and agricultural activities of the Nossa Senhora dos Navegantes traditional community and other traditional riverside communities that make up the Belém Metropolitan Region Environmental Protection Area (APA Belém). It is alleged that these communities are being illegally impacted by the state’s public works for the construction of Avenida Liberdade, known as Estrada da COP.
The Special Secretariat for COP30 put out a response to the BBC article that states that the road construction “is not under the responsibility of the federal government nor is it part of the 33 infrastructure projects planned for COP30”.
The COP30 Secretariat adds that the headline of the BBC article “misinforms readers by misleadingly suggesting a connection between the construction project and the federal government’s actions in preparing for the Conference”.
So, Belém is building a road. But it wasn’t for COP30.
Yes. Here’s a map, showing the COP30 conference centre, Belém airport, and the road (in red). It’s pretty obvious that the road is not being built for the benefit of COP30 participants. Apart from anything else, the road is only expected to be completed in 2026.
It is a road through the rainforest though.
The BBC article explains the impacts of the road on communities living in the rainforest. Claudio Verequete lives about 200 metres from the road. He used to earn money by harvesting açaí berries. “Everything was destroyed,” he told the BBC. “Our harvest has already been cut down. We no longer have that income to support our family.”
He received no compensation from the state government.
The BBC spoke to Professor Silvia Sardinha, a wildlife vet and researcher at a university animal hospital close to the new road. The animal hospital rehabilitates injured wild animals then releases them into the forest.
The road carves an area of protected forest into two. Wildlife movement will be disrupted. “We are going to lose an area to release these animals back into the wild, the natural environment of these species,” Sardinha told the BBC. “Land animals will no longer be able to cross to the other side too, reducing the areas where they can live and breed.”
Here are before and after satellite images from Planet Labs:
Pará’s governor, Helder Barbalho, told The Guardian that the road was being built to high environmental standards, with walls to prevent roadkill, and many animal crossings.
Communities protested against the road, stopping work for two days in October 2024. They were demanding to be consulted. Another protest followed in July 2025.
Has the BBC corrected its article?
No. When DW contacted the BBC for a fact checking article, a BBC spokesperson said, “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.”
The BBC also referred DW to a press release from the government of Pará, dated 28 November 2024, with the headline, “State government infrastructure projects for COP 30 move forward in Belém.” The construction of Avenida Liberdade was included in the press release.
But by 14 March 2025, two days after the BBC article had been published, the press release had been edited and all mention of Avenida Liberdade was removed.
Oh dear, oh dear.
Indeed. Predictably enough, Donald Trump jumped on the bandwagon. Here’s what he had to say on Truth Social during COP30:
Trump didn’t link to the BBC article, then.
Er no. Trump isn’t exactly a fan of the BBC. He says he’s going to sue the BBC for somewhere between US$1 billion and US$5 billion. Instead, he linked to a Fox News piece, which features climate change denier Marc Morano.
Although Morano was in Belém his appearance on Fox News makes clear that he hadn’t bothered to find out anything about the road — such as whether construction was actually finished.
Instead, Morano repeats the lie that the road was “for this UN climate summit”:
This has been an amazing thing because this highway went through the rainforest that they’ve been trying decades, “We’ve gotta save the rainforest, we need climate trees,” and here they just cut it down so you could have all the limousines, and SUVs, and all the private jets come in and people can move freely at this summit.
Morano is not a climate scientist. He seems to know little about Brazil. Had he wanted to point out Brazil’s hypocrisy he could have mentioned the fact that the country plans to become the fourth largest oil producer in the world. Not long before COP30, Brazil announced the auction of exploration rights for 172 oil and gas blocks.
Do you want to summarise this horror story, or shall I?
Feel free, I’m exhausted.
OK. Here goes. An area of protected rainforest has been cleared to make way for a road south of Belém. It was not part of the COP30 plans, although the government of Pará did put out a press release giving the impression that it was. The BBC wrote that Brazil was clearing the Amazon rainforest to build a road for COP30. It went viral. Climate deniers used the story, long after it had been fact checked, for their nefarious ends. The road was not finished when COP30 took place.
Thank you.
Well, Chris, why not at least offer a pragmatic "solution" for the animal migration?? Between the fragmented forest parcels of Switzerland, the government also engineers special bridges just for the deer, foxes, wild pigs, mountain lions, and frogs to cross over our highways. In certain spaces we also have dedicated volunteers that build low cloth walls to catch wondering toads and frogs so that they also can be safely transported to lay their eggs. Surely Brazil have enough intelligent inhabitants that can aid their wildlife???
I read an article repeating that the highway was built with COP 30 as justification. Having learned that Brazil planned oil extraction auctions, that doesn't surprise me, and I bought that. Thank you Chris for debunking the truth and fighting against climate misinformation.