By AFP - Agence France Presse
Lula promotes the oil megaproject as Brazil prepares to host COP30.
Sao Paulo (AFP) - Brazil's president this week stepped up pressure for a major oil project to go ahead at the mouth of the Amazon River, despite criticism from environmentalists, as the country prepares to host UN climate talks in November.
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, 79, wants to make Brazil a leader in the fight against global warming but has fiercely defended oil exploration as fundamental to the growth of Latin America's largest economy.
“We want oil because it will last a long time,” said Lula on Wednesday, arguing that the profits made from black gold should be used to finance the energy transition, which will be very expensive. ’
He was speaking at a time when IBAMA, Brazil's autonomous public environmental protection agency, was weighing up whether to grant state oil giant Petrobras an exploration license in an offshore area known as the Equatorial Margin.
This offshore area extends over 350,000 square kilometers (135,000 square miles) in northern Brazil and is about 500 kilometers (310 miles) from the mouth of the Amazon River.
Petrobras estimates the potential reserves in the basin at 10 billion barrels.
Brazil's proven reserves totaled 15.9 billion barrels in 2023, according to the government.
However, the project has been widely criticized since fossil fuels, such as oil, are the main cause of greenhouse gas emissions responsible for global warming.
'Making war for peace'
In the first two years of Lula's third presidential term, there were several environmental successes, with a sharp reduction in deforestation and an upward revision of greenhouse gas emission reduction targets.
But experts say that the upcoming oil project tarnishes Lula's environmental ambitions just a few months before COP30 - the 30th session of the UN conference on climate change - is to be held for the first time in the Amazon, in the city of Belém.
“You can't be a climate leader and at the same time aim to increase the production of fossil fuels,” said Suely Araujo from the Brazilian NGO Observatório do Clima.
Araujo, a former president of IBAMA, said that the argument that the energy transition can be financed with oil revenues “is the same as saying that we want to wage war to obtain peace”.
“Opening up the Amazon to fuel exploration goes against the (government's) discourse of preserving the Amazon to help regulate the climate,” said Ilan Zugman, Latin America director of climate NGO 350.org.
Almost half of the energy consumed in Brazil comes from renewable sources, more than three times the global average, according to official data.
But the country is also the largest oil producer in Latin America and the eighth largest in the world, producing an average of 3.4 million barrels of oil per day by 2024.
Lula pointed out that countries like Guyana and Suriname were already “exploring for oil very close to our Equatorial Margin”.
“We need to find a solution in which we guarantee the country, the world, and the people that we won't blow up any trees, nothing in the Amazon River, nothing in the Atlantic Ocean,” Lula said this week.
Toya Manchineri, from the Coordination of Indigenous Organizations of the Brazilian Amazon, warned that the project also threatened indigenous peoples and could cause “irreversible environmental damage, destroying forests and polluting rivers”.
Tensions within the government
After IBAMA denied Petrobras an exploration license for the Equatorial Margin in 2023, the oil giant presented a new plan that is still under consideration.
In October 2024, IBAMA demanded more details from Petrobras on how it would contain an oil spill if it occurred in the biodiversity region.
“In December, Petrobras presented a new proposal... which is being analyzed by our technical team,” the agency told AFP.
The project has also caused tensions within the government.
Environment Minister Marina Silva, who oversees IBAMA, said on Thursday that she did not intend to “exert any influence” on the agency to authorize the project.
Silva, a respected environmentalist, said it would be a “technical” decision and not a political one.
Meanwhile, the minister of mines and energy, Alexandre Silveira, a staunch defender of the project, asked IBAMA to use “common sense” and authorize exploration as soon as possible.
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