False signals pave the hypocrisy – Watt?

The BBC found jaw-dropping irony in Brazil’s preparations for the COP30 climate summit in Bellem in November 2025: The four-lane highway Avenida Liberdade, is being marketed through tens of thousands of protected Amazon Rainforest. Touted as a transportation solution for 50,000 world leaders and delegates expected to attend, the project dripped in hypocrisy, revealing the gap between the climate summit’s green rhetoric and its deforestation reality. Despite the global elites’ promotion of carbon and sustainability, Amazon (the most powerful carbon sink and biodiversity stronghold on Earth) was knocked down to launch a red carpet to indicate their parade of virtue signals.

The Pala State government put a “sustainable” label on the 13km (8 miles) scar through the jungle, with promised wildlife beams, bike paths and solar lighting. Infrastructure Secretary Adler Silveira called it a “important liquidity intervention” that modernized Bellem and left a “legacy” for COP30. But the reality on the ground tells a different story. Where the dense rainforest once stood, wood now piled up on wetlands, cutting the protected forest into pieces. For locals like Claudio Verequete, who lives 200 meters from the massacre, this is a personal betrayal. His Açai berry harvest (his family livelihood) was reduced to rubble. “Everything was destroyed,” he told the BBC. “We no longer have these incomes to support our family.” No compensation, no benefits – just walled highways built for trucks and hilltop VIPs, not the ones it replaces.

It's not just an environmental fanaticism. This is a green masterclass. Brazilian President and Environment Minister once grandly announced COP30 “a policeman in Amazon, not a policeman in Amazon,” as if holding this act in the backyard of the rainforest could avoid the crime of cutting it. They will jet among thousands of delegates, build hotels, expand airports with a $81 million federal splurge, and rebuild cruise ship ports while pretending to be the savior of the planet. Meanwhile, the ecological loss of the road is glaring: scattered habitats, damaged wildlife and the shrinking of wildlife, and veterinarians such as Professor Silvia Sardinha, who have difficulty releasing recovered animals. “Land animals will no longer be able to cross the other side,” she warned.

Hypocrisy deepens when you consider the history of Avenida Liberdade. Having been put on hold since 2012 due to environmental outcry, it has only resurrected when the reputation of Cop30 is pending. Scientists have condemned the loss of biodiversity, and locals lamented their livelihoods, but the country is imminent, covering up the destruction in buzzwords. Some market vendors, such as Dalci Cardoso da Silva, bought the spin, hoping that the travel dollar would drip. But others, like Verequete, see “The Severe Future: The Gate to More Deforestation”, where gas stations and warehouses can quickly replace what remains of their homes, while attendees on the top of the mountain ip drink cocktails and then pat their backs.

Performing environmentalism COP30 scene. Flying among global leaders to lament climate change while razing to the ground for convenience is not a solution, but a farce. As Sardinha said, senior negotiations will buzz “between businessmen and government officials” while those living in Amazon reality remain silent. This highway is not a legacy of progress. It is a disconnect between the monument of a grand climate and the dirty works completed in its name. If this is the path to a green future, it is the path built on the hypocritical crumbling foundation.

H/T Strativarius and John C

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