⚖️ Belo Monte: a river divided

In a world experiencing the negative effects of climate change and needing to cut greenhouse gas emissions across the board, Brazil prides itself on having a “clean” and renewable energy mix. According to the latest report from the country’s Mines and Energy Ministry, precisely 50% of Brazil’s 2024 power matrix came from renewable sources — more than four times the global average.

The Belo Monte hydroelectric dam complex, the first turbines of which were switched on in 2016, was built in the eastern Brazilian Amazon as a pillar of this green transition. But the plant serves as a stark example of how large-scale clean energy infrastructure projects are not immune to generating climate controversies of their own.

In fact, in a debate held during COP30 in Belém last November, public prosecutors concluded that the major hydroelectric plant is responsible for “ecocide and ethnocide” in the surrounding Xingu River…

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