It would stretch audience credulity if, say, the Babylon Bee were to produce a satirical item on a major climate conference hacking a devastating swath through the Amazon rainforest so rich, well-connected people who’d spewed vast clouds of carbon to get there could do a victory dance on the prostrate “carbon sink” that, six years ago, they told us had gone up in flames depriving the world of its lungs blah blah blah. But as a number of alert readers and viewers have drawn to our attention, to confirm Conquest’s 2^nd Law (variously reported but essentially that “The simplest way to explain the behavior of any bureaucratic organization is to assume that it is controlled by a cabal of its enemies”), the hypocritical nitwits behind COP30 in Belém, Brazil have done just exactly that. And in fact while we were drafting this item the Bee reposted an item from Not the Bee, their actual news arm, on this precise topic. Wuk wuk wuk.

Incidentally if you were following our on-the-ground coverage of COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan you may be puzzled at the reference to Belém because back then it was meant to be in Rio de Janeiro, or suspect that Belém is just an upscale suburb of same. Ah but nay. They were talking about Rio, and we filmed the signs so we can prove it. But now they’ve moved it to Belém, “often called Belém of Pará” according to Wikipedia under the apparent misapprehension that it is often referred to at all, though its original name was Nossa Senhora de Belém do Grão-Pará, which being interpreted is Our Lady of Bethlehem of Great Pará so admirers of Sherlock Holmes will have worked out that Belém is Portuguese for Bethlehem (and admirers of Ebeneezer Scrooge may be contemplating retiring to Bedlam in response to this story).

Meanwhile admirers of online searches will already know that Belém is also:

“the capital and largest city of the state of Pará in the north of Brazil. It is the gateway to the Amazon River with a busy port, airport, and bus/coach station. Belém lies approximately 100 km (62.1 miles) upriver from the Atlantic Ocean, on the Pará River, which is part of the greater Amazon River system… With an estimated population of 1,303,403 people – or 2,491,052, considering its metropolitan area – it is the 12th most populous city in Brazil, as well as the 16th by economic relevance. It is the second largest in the North Region, second only to Manaus, in the state of Amazonas.”

Well alright then. And it is also presumably in some shallow PR sense a better place to hold the conference than Rio given the widespread foreign association of the latter with unchecked hedonism and the awkward optics of holding COPs 27 and 28 in luxurious Sharm El-Sheikh and Dubai. (Baku presented no such optics, and indeed few of any sort, though as with Dubai there was a bit of a petrostate haze.) The problem is that having a busy bus/coach station 100 kilometres inland on the Pará river is liable to pose certain logistical challenges that flying to Rio does not.

We ourselves are not currently planning to attend COP30, having exhausted our supply of sarcasm about overblown ambitions and shriveled methods at COP29. Though we are open to persuasion, a word here meaning if our readers and viewers insist that we go and contribute funds sufficient to make the trip, supplant our rudimentary Azerbaijani with a mangled version of Portuguese (we already know the “tilde” means add an “n”, so “São Paulo is pronounced… what’s this? Sawn Pawlo, given the silent “o”) , and sip fine caffeinated beverages while ridiculing statements like:

“Speaking at a UN meeting this week, the designated president of COP 30, Ambassador Andre Correa do Lago, stressed that the summit needs to market [sic, perhaps in error] the transition from the negotiation phase to the ‘action and implementation’ phase”

And, straight from Lago’s lips if you set such store by him:

“The world is tired of seeing documents get signed and not seeing the results of these meetings”.

Perhaps but the COP-goers are not yet tired of signing said documents so the show must go on. But it may not be easy to get there. Our recent cursory search found umpteen flights from Ottawa to Rio for around $1,500; Belém though cheaper than Baku is both more expensive and a great deal more time-consuming, for instance one lasting 45 hours 20 minutes, much of it spent admiring the amenities in Chicago O’Hare.

Likewise, finding places for the absurd host of delegates, idealists and hangers-on in Belém is looking iffy. The Wikipedia entry on COP30, at least as of March 12, whimpered that:

“Several attendees have publicly complained about extremely high accommodation pricing for COP30, with one listing on Airbnb priced at US$9,320 per day, up from its normal $11 rate, and a one-person flat on Booking.com going for $15,266 per night. In response, the Brazilian government has said that it plans to make 26,000 additional lodging beds available, including spaces on cruise ships, in schools, in new hotels, and in military facilities.”

Better check those optics again.

Ooops. Too late. As the Daily Mail reports:

“An eight-mile stretch of protected Amazon rainforest has been felled to make space for a new four-lane highway in time for the COP30 climate summit. Drone footage and images have revealed thick dirt lanes cutting through the lush greenery as the Brazilian government prepare for the conference in November. The road will be used to ease traffic in and out of the city of Belém, which will host a staggering 50,000 people – including world leaders. Logs have already been spotted piled high on the sides of the cleared land and diggers have appeared paving over the wetland in the world's richest biological reservoir. The state government of Pará had previously shelved plans for the highway, known as Avenida Liberdade, due to environmental concerns. However, the project was revived along with other infrastructure plans ahead of COP30.”

Oh darn. Now speaking of languages, the “infrastructure secretary” of the state of Pará spewed some classic bureaucratese in response to this embarrassing revelation, calling it an “important mobility intervention” and a “sustainable highway”. And in full damage control mode:

“Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has defended the project, saying the summit will be ‘a COP in the Amazon, not a COP about the Amazon.’”

But but lungs of the world. As the BBC put it:

“The Amazon plays a vital role in absorbing carbon for the world and providing biodiversity, and many say this deforestation contradicts the very purpose of a climate summit. Along the partially built road, lush rainforest towers on either side - a reminder of what was once there. Logs are piled high in the cleared land which stretches more than 13km (8 miles) through the rainforest into Belém. Diggers and machines carve through the forest floor, paving over wetland to surface the road which will cut through a protected area.”

As for calling it Avenida Liberdade, you don’t need to be a polyglot to see what that label misleadingly implies. But it takes a bit of digging, sustainably of course, to see where it’s meant to go or why. The BBC story doesn’t explain what it’s connecting Belém to or vice versa, nor does the Daily Mail, though there is an Avenida Liberdade in Lisbon, Portugal, which Wikipedia says is “considered among the most expensive streets in Europe”. To which we say you ain’t seen nothing yet. But at 8.2 km it sounds as if it’s just connecting Belém to Belém (or to nothing if they don’t manage to finish it). And indeed ABC’s explanation, or lack of same, is that “It will connect two existing road systems and function as a new entry and exit route for the Belém Metropolitan Region.”

Yeah? To what? Salinópolis? Abaetetuba? Castanhal? Or the Galactic Metropolis?

Then ABC lamented that:

“The Amazon rainforest is crucial to mitigating global climate change, as it can store up to 200 billion tons of carbon, according to the World Wildlife Fund. The Amazon is also vital to the global and regional water cycles, as it releases 20 billion tons of water in the atmosphere per day.”

Well, they’ll see about that. Apparently there’s a frenzy of sustainably vainglorious construction under way; the BBC reports that:

“Brazil's federal government is investing more than $81m (£62m) to expand the airport capacity from ‘seven to 14 million passengers’. A new 500,000 sq-m city park, Parque da Cidade, is under construction. It will include green spaces, restaurants, a sports complex and other facilities for the public to use afterwards.”

Yeah. The kind of thing people say before building an Olympic Stadium. (Which weirdly Baku has, despite never hosting a single Olympic event.) The BBC then turned to a seller of herbal medicines for some wisdom on the subject and got this paste jewel:

“João Alexandre Trindade da Silva, who sells Amazonian herbal medicines in the market, acknowledges that all construction work can cause problems, but he felt the future impact would be worth it. ‘We hope the discussions aren't just on paper and become real actions. And the measures, the decisions taken, really are put into practice so that the planet can breathe a little better, so that the population in the future will have a little cleaner air.’ That will be the hope of world leaders too who choose to attend the COP30 summit. Scrutiny is growing over whether flying thousands of them across the world, and the infrastructure required to host them, is undermining the cause.”

Oh, you noticed, did you?