Brazil is set to host COP30—the key decision-making forum of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change—later this year. As the host country, the world at the very least expects to see their climate leadership and commitment to environmental protection. Yet ironically, as the BBC recently reported, Brazil is clearing the Amazon rainforest to build a highway specifically designed to transport delegates to this global climate summit. But is this accurate?
The BBC story, Amazon forest felled to build road for climate summit, highlights a troubling contradiction: destroying ‘the lungs of the world’ to facilitate a conference meant to protect it.
The writer wastes no time in expressing the irony. He begins the first paragraph by exposing what he considers the hypocrisy: “A new four-lane highway cutting through tens of thousands of acres of protected Amazon rainforest is being built for the COP30 climate summit in the Brazilian city of Belém.”
The writer continues two paragraphs down to remind the reader that the Amazon plays a vital role in absorbing carbon for the world and providing biodiversity. Then, in case the reader doesn’t grasp what is wrong with this construction, they add that many say this deforestation contradicts the very purpose of a climate summit.
This is where we think either the writer decided a compelling story was better than fussing over details or is completely ignorant about this road; but considering his admission several paragraphs later that the idea was mooted in 2012, we can conclude that he decided not to let facts get in the way of a good story.
And it wasn’t just the BBC; The Telegraph and Daily Mail all took the same angle and several other international outlets.
Obviously, any construction in the Amazon forest is worth every bit of media attention, considering the key role it plays in absorbing greenhouse gases. The concern, however, is the attempt to connect this construction with COP30 or insinuate that this construction is the result of the upcoming climate summit in Belém.
At least ABC News presented the facts and let the reader deduce whether they should call out any hypocrisy. To begin with, their headline: Satellite appears to show new highway cutting through Brazil’s Amazon rainforest was factual; indeed, satellites show that.
The lead paragraph, while pointing to the fact that Brazil will be hosting COP30, doesn’t say it is the reason for the construction but admits that it will definitely ease movement when COP30 takes place. We could come off as though we are splitting hairs, but the business of journalism is about the details—especially when reporting on some of the most important topics of our time, like climate change, and where climate deniers are looking for every opportunity to undermine such reporting. It becomes our duty to defend the truth even when it costs us a good story.
Nevertheless, it is such stories that help us understand that local actions have global consequences, and we applaud the journalists for drawing the world’s attention to what some may think is a local development issue yet carries global consequences.
We hope journalists in Kenya can look to this example as a way of connecting local environmental and climate justice stories with the wider global climate concerns while remembering the facts of a story are just as important as the story itself.
