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United States President Donald Trump said on Sunday (09/11) that Brazil had destroyed forests to build a highway for “the travel of environmentalists” to COP30, the 30th United Nations climate change conference, which starts on Monday (10/11) in Belém, Pará.
He was referring to work on a new four-lane highway that will pass through tens of thousands of hectares of Amazon rainforest.
The Pará state government proposed building the highway, called Avenida Liberdade, in 2012, but the project was postponed until then, due to environmental concerns.
The US President wrote: “They destroyed the rainforests in Brazil in order to build a four-lane highway for environmentalists to travel. This has become a huge scandal,” in addition to sharing a video from the American Fox News channel criticizing the work.
The state government is promoting the highway as “sustainable”, but residents and environmental activists have criticized the environmental impact. The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) published a report on this topic in March of this year.
At the time of reporting, the COP30 Extraordinary Secretariat, linked to the Civic House of the Presidency, said that the construction of Avenida Liberdade is neither the responsibility of the federal government nor part of the 33 infrastructure works planned for the event.
Pará state governor Helder Barbalo responded to Trump’s post and said that “instead of talking about roads, the North American president should point to ways to combat climate change,” in a post on X.
“We can celebrate the historic decline in deforestation in the Amazon region – with a focus on the state of Pará, which achieved its best result,” the governor said.
Barbalo also said that the US president should “follow the example of the Brazilian government and invest more than a billion US dollars to save forests around the world.”
He ended the review by inviting Trump to eat tacaca, a typical dish of Amazonian cuisine.
“There is still time to pass the COP30, President Trump. We are waiting for you with Takaka. Better to act than to deploy.”
credit, Reproduction
Trump did not travel to Belem to participate in the conference. The US President’s government even announced that it would not send any high-ranking officials to the event.
According to experts, the absence of representatives from the US government could constitute an obstacle to international climate negotiations.
Shortly after his inauguration, in January 2025, Trump promised to withdraw from the Paris Agreement, which supports the international commitment to combat climate change.
“This ‘climate change’ is the biggest hoax ever perpetrated in the world,” he told the UN General Assembly in September of this year. “If you don’t get rid of this green falsehood, your country will fail.”
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