The government plans to use COP 30, the November 2025 UN Climate Change Conference, to reinforce Brazil’s position as a global environmental leader. The event is due to take place in the city of Belém, the gateway to the Brazilian Amazon, but a few hundred kilometres away is a thorn in the side of these plans: a coastal battle over oil exploration.
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva certainly does have something to show off at COP. Last November, using satellite data, he announced the largest drop in the Amazon deforestation rate in the last 15 years: 31 per cent. A reduction of this magnitude had not been seen since 2009, at the end of Lula’s second term, when the rate of destruction fell by 42 per cent. Brazil is now on track to meet its Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), the commitment made by each Paris Agreement signatory to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
