The UN will take its next climate summit to the Amazon after two editions in countries. It will be in Belém, a city of Brazil with a precarious infrastructure and located in the largest tropical jungle in the world, which prepares for forced marches to welcome the thousands of people who will disembark in November to participate in the COP30. Reflection of the environmental cost of celebrating the summit in is the construction of a four -lane and 13 kilometers highway that crosses a protected area in the metropolitan area, with an eye on decongesting the infernal traffic of Belém and receiving visitors, including negotiators of the next agreements for.
Every new infrastructure in the Amazon is usually controversial. To the controversy on this road in Belém or the rest of Brazil, the government’s dilemma is added about whether to authorize the exploration to search. President Luiz Inacio Da Silva is a supporter, his Minister of Environment and Climate Change, Marina Silva, no.
The baptized as Avenida de La Libertad, in Belém, is a highway that should be ready for the summit and intends to connect the cities of the interior of the State of Pará with the capital. The works, with the consequent logging of trees, have begun after the environmental authorities gave the approval after years of controversies due to the ecological impact. The matter is controversial because the highway crosses an area protected by law of 7,500 hectares that was created three decades ago to preserve two springs that supply the city and a park. In addition to their environmental value, these lands have a.
Belém is one of the great cities of the Amazon, capital of a state called Paraá that is greater than France and Spain together. With an economy very dedicated to the agricultural sector and a high rate of violence, it is. Located south of the mouth of the Amazon River, the city of the next COP has 1.3 million inhabitants and such poor infrastructure that. Legacy of disorderly growth decades.
Bringing the Cop to Belém was a personal effort of President Lula. There will congregate between November 10 and 21 tens of thousands of visitors, including heads of state and government, representatives of NGOs and companies.
Despite its multiple shortcomings, Lula chose the Amazon city by pedagogical eagerness against the comfort offered by Río or São Paulo. The veteran politician considers essential that negotiators know this ecosystem first hand, vital to regulate the planetary temperature. He wants that, above the often romantic story, experience the reality and challenges he faces. “I’m not going to decorate her [la ciudad]I will not get the poor out of the street, I will not do what can not be done. I want our Belém to see as it is, ”he insisted recently.
When the Governor of Paraá, Helder Barbalho, ally of Lula, inaugurated last June the works of the highway – another scar in the jungle – stressed that he will relieve the intense traffic of entry and exit of Belém, but also mentioned green aspects: 30 passengers for fauna, bike lanes, solar energy lighting and three pedestrian viaducts.
As the COP approaches, Belém’s problems emerge to receive the delegations from the countries and activists, which this time will be welcome. Input, the hotel capacity is insufficient. Belém lives a speculative fever with prices of resort Swiss for critical dates. It can be cheaper to buy an apartment now than renting one for two weeks of the summit. The airport is in works to double its capacity, they are building a huge park …
The Brazilian president minimizes complaints and encourages visitors to adapt: “If you don’t have a five -star hotel, sleep in one of four. If you don’t have one of four, sleep in one of three. If you don’t have a three -star hotel, you sleep looking at the sky, it will be wonderful, ”he said.
The last COPs were held in Azerbayán and the United Arab Emirates, countries with economies strongly dependent on hydrocarbons. Although Brazil also extracts oil, it stands out because it is one of the nine Amazon countries and has a respected environmental policy – except in the Bolsonaro stage.
While waiting for the COP and boasts spectacular results against deforestation, and flirts with looking for oil in the Amazon basin, attracted by the fabulous findings of its Guyana neighbor. The Brazilian Institute of Environment, which depends on the homonym ministry, analyzes months ago the request of the Petrobras company to investigate the oil potential in that sensitive area. The agency’s technicians oppose, as published by the local press. While Lula argues that it can be explored sustainably, environmentalists take their hands to their heads and claim that you go to the new deposits.
