With his diplomacy of bullying, back and forth and climate denial, President Donald Trump of the United States knows how to hit where it hurts. “They destroyed the Amazon forest in Brazil to build a four-lane highway for environmentalists,” he shouted a few hours before the official opening of COP30 in Belém (Brazil), the most important event of the year to reach a consensus on global climate policy. The republican, who refused a personal invitation from President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and did not even send a delegation to Belém, chose the unfinished works of the Freedom Highway to disqualify the conclave.
This is an old project that the local authorities have taken up again and included among the new infrastructures to ease traffic during the event which will bring up to 50,000 visitors to this city at the mouth of the Amazon River. It has sparked controversy because it crosses a nature reserve, involved the felling of trees and, following the destruction, is not even operational. Some neighbors say it wasn’t necessary because it only leads to a mall of upscale shops that already has two other entrances. On a recent morning the bulldozers were still there, tearing through the trees.
Mrs. Ercila do Socorro Coelho, 59 years old, a retired cook, is clear that as we continue to clear trees, the temperature will be even more unbearable in Belém, the capital of Pará, the state that for years has led the list of the most deforesters. On the eve of the COP, prices fell dramatically in this largest state in France, with political will and more means.
Coelho understands little of the jargon of acronyms that climate negotiators use to communicate, but his life is a master’s degree in the ravages of floods and heat. “I almost don’t walk on the streets anymore. As the doctors advise me, I try to go out from eight to ten in the morning, then only by bus”, he explains. And he describes some daily scenes: “When it rains, the asphalt smokes. It’s like coming home, and immediately in the shower. You put the water on the fire and in an instant it starts to boil. At midday the tap water comes out hot”, he lists protected by the shadow of a building.
Belém is a bakery for its 1.3 million inhabitants and those who visit it, despite being surrounded by water and nestled in the largest tropical forest in the world. Last year the city suffered 212 days of extreme heat (37.3 degrees Celsius), which is five degrees higher than the average over the last decade, according to data Mongabayspecialized environmental publication. And in no other Brazilian capital does it rain so much. When torrential rains coincide with high tide, much of the city floods because it is below sea level. Ms. Coelho’s neighborhood is one of those at highest risk of flooding. The neighbors, ironically, named it Terra Firme. And this can also be seen on the maps.
Despite the many works inaugurated in view of COP30, Belém’s infrastructure is precarious. The sanitation network is minimal, 60% of residents live in favelas and traffic jams are enormous. To ease the pressure, they gave public employees holidays during the summit.
This panorama makes the COP30 venue an emblem of the 1,000 challenges faced by many cities in the Global South that suffer the daily plague of a problem that has its roots in the industrialization of the Global North, in the form of a tornado, hurricane or typhoon. Although extreme, the case of Belém is quite common. According to a federal government study, 35% of Brazilian cities (1,900 municipalities) are at risk of environmental disasters such as landslides, floods and torrential rains. Twenty ministries are preparing, together with civil society, a large national plan that includes adaptation and mitigation actions.
Brazil and developing countries are asking rich countries for money and technology to adapt to the fury of an increasingly hostile planet. “It is necessary to pay more attention, allocate more resources and have more political will to prepare vulnerable countries for the effects that are already being felt,” he tells the newspaper. O globe Maurício Lyrio, the ambassador leading Brazil’s negotiators.
For Wendel Andrade, 38, a specialist in natural resource management and local development at the Talanoa Institute in Belém, the debate on adaptation should not take a backseat to mitigation, the reduction of emissions. Andrade denounces “the serious loss of vegetation” suffered in recent years by the city hosting COP30 and the contempt of the authorities and their fellow citizens for trees.
He speaks as a researcher and resident of Belém: “For many people, trees mean earth, leaves, a hiding place for criminals, the place where the homeless urinate, an obstacle to putting the car in the garage… When the tree is a natural machine essential for living well. It is a cistern that stores water, provides shade and thermal comfort.”
And although the rest of Brazilians know it as the City of Mangueiras, for the dense tree-lined corridors dotted with mangoes that cool the streets of the noble neighborhoods, Belém has four times fewer trees per square meter than those recommended by the UN.
Close to the works on the Freedom Highway, another highway, the Marinha Highway, has just been opened to traffic, which also resulted in the destruction of a good amount of vegetation, residents explain. Where there were trees that gave them a pleasant shade that invited picnics, there are now three lanes in each direction, one for parking and another for bicycles. They have planted some trees which will take some time to provide some shade. In two months, what they call winter in Belém will arrive, the period in which it will rain more and it will be a little cooler. Then they will see how the new road will respond.
Andrade, of the Talanoa Institute, denounces that “when the world talks about solutions based on nature, Belém reproduces a model from the past, with works that are unsuitable for the environment”, such as felling trees or superimposing layers on the asphalt. He warns that the city “is a time bomb” because in the future it will be necessary to solve the problems created by the ongoing works.
«We need a robust plan for forest reconstruction and, above all, not to eliminate mature specimens», he underlines, in addition to improving the management of waste that clogs the canals. “There’s no point in asking for money for adaptation if we continue to spend it badly,” he complains.
The Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure – CDRI, an alliance of governments, UN agencies, companies and universities – estimated the huge climate-induced losses last year: storms ($173 billion), floods ($33 billion), earthquakes ($18 billion).
The inhabitants of Belém live glued to the fans. “In my house there are five of us,” explains Cintia Andrade, 33, a commercial consultant. His face lights up when he talks about the brand new municipal buses. They are air-conditioned, a relief for passengers who previously sought the windows to take advantage of any breeze.
Belém likes very cold air conditioning and, as soon as night falls, the city comes out of its hibernation. People go to the gym, go shopping. At eleven o’clock in the evening on Sunday, a few hours before the opening of the COP, long queues of customers formed with their weekly shopping in a central supermarket open 24 hours a day.
Ninahua Hunikui is an indigenous person from Acre who is having breakfast peacefully at a stall in Belém with some of the relatives with whom he came from his village to participate in COP30. They come to demand that their land be demarcated and, therefore, receive legal protection. A request which, he explains, has already taken him to France and Switzerland. While on her way to a public event, she wears a spectacular dress coke of royal falcon and macaw feathers and the face painted with black jenipapo and red urucú ink.
He says that even in his village, with 205 neighbors, the impact of the climate is evident: “Our water sources are drying up due to white deforestation. In the 70s we moved around by boat, now you almost have to push yourself even with small canoes,” explains the leader in Portuguese.
Professor and doctor, he adds: “They are also suspending my medications.” With those plants that the jungle has given to its people since time immemorial to cure them of their illnesses. Now he is on a pilgrimage to Belém in search of the protection provided by the law and with the intention of sharing his recipe for saving the planet with anyone who will listen.
