After nearly a decade of being blacklisted from UN climate summits for the crime of asking tough questions, Rebel News finally received accreditation for this year’s conference in Belém, Brazil. Briefly, we thought the UN might actually let independent journalists through the door again.

Cute, right?

The moment we arrived to collect our passes, the goalposts moved. Suddenly, we could only enter if we joined a government delegation or an NGO — two things we’ll never be. We were told we could attend the leaders’ summit… which wrapped up two weeks before we landed. Classic UN.

But working outside the gates is where the real story always is.

We tracked down the secret highway carved through untouched rainforest — built solely to ease the traffic jams created by this conference. It was hidden so well it didn’t show up on Google Maps. We hiked in on foot because officials clearly didn’t want anyone documenting a climate summit literally bulldozing the jungle.

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We showed you luxury cruise ships brought in for delegates after a custom dock was built for them — floating hotels parked beside pipes spewing raw sewage into the bay. In a city where 97% of sewage goes untreated, the optics weren’t great. So naturally, mainstream journalists avoided it.

We walked you through Nova Doca Park — “Fart Park” — a beautified sewage canal complete with fake “eco trees,” the kind you install after cutting down the real ones to host climate royalty.

We exposed the endless lines of idling diesel buses chauffeuring activists who insist you downsize your carbon footprint.

And today, we marched into a dangerous favela where locals say the UN dumped construction debris in their community. They were right. That’s the real environmental injustice here — poor residents living with the waste of global elites who lecture everyone but themselves.

If this is the kind of on-the-ground reporting you value, please help us cover this costly mission at RebelUN.com.