Brazil says it’s a climate leader. Not everyone buys it

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🗞️ Driving the news: Brazil arrived at COP30 aiming to showcase itself as a global climate leader — but its domestic environmental contradictions are overshadowing the message
• While President Lula da Silva highlights an 11-year low in Amazon deforestation and Brazil’s 90% clean-power grid, his government is simultaneously advancing offshore oil drilling near the Amazon, supporting a highway through the rainforest, and facing congressional moves to gut environmental permitting laws
• The result: growing skepticism among activists, Indigenous leaders and climate diplomats about whether Brazil can credibly lead the global climate agenda

🔭 The context: As the U.S. retreats under President Trump, major emerging economies — especially Brazil, China and India — increasingly shape global emissions trajectories
• Brazil is the world’s 5th-largest emitter and 7th-largest oil producer, with most emissions coming from land use and agriculture
• Lula champions environmental protection but also maintains a long-standing developmentalist philosophy that prioritises infrastructure, fossil expansion and industrial growth
• Even as he launches the new Tropical Forest Forever Facility to finance rainforest protection, funding commitments fall far short of targets, and critics warn that oil expansion undermines Brazil’s credibility

🌍 Why it matters for the planet: Brazil’s choices will strongly influence whether the Amazon reaches an irreversible tipping point — a shift that could accelerate global warming
• With emerging economies projected to drive most emissions growth this decade, Brazil’s balancing act between economic development and climate ambition carries global consequences

⏭️ What’s next: COP30 participants expect few major breakthroughs. Without bold new commitments from Brasília — particularly on fossil fuel expansion — its claim to climate leadership remains contested

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