Brazil’s attempts to lead on climate change are falling short as COP30 nears
Lula's climate agenda has stalled as Trump tariffs, other economic crises take center stage
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(Michael Molinski is a senior economist at Trendline Economics. He’s worked for Fidelity, Charles Schwab and Wells Fargo, and previously as a foreign correspondent and editor for Bloomberg News and MarketWatch.)
BRASILIA, Brazil (Callaway Climate Insights) — When Brazil agreed to host the United Nations’ climate change conference in Belém, the Brazilian government thought it was an opportunity to solidify the country’s leadership efforts at climate change and help bring in foreign investments to help protect the Amazon from deforestation.
But as the November COP30 conference approaches, Brazil is finding its own efforts at climate change ─ indeed those of the entire would ─ have been diverted away from climate change in favor of more tangible, economic actions. And Brazil itself is not the climate change leader that it once was.
This month, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva unveiled a $5.5 billion plan to support local companies affected by the 50% tariff imposed by U.S. President Donald Trump.
“We cannot be scared, nervous and anxious when there is a crisis,” Lula said. “A crisis is for us to create new things.”
But that “crisis” seems to have diverted Brazil’s interests away from climate change.
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Brazil’s mixed bag on climate change
While Brazil has won plaudits for its investments in clean energy and gained some progress on halting the deforestation of the Amazon, it has backtracked on fossil fuels, encouraged mining and cattle grazing in the Amazon, and has failed at bringing down its own emissions of carbon and methane gas.
Brazil is now ranked as “insufficient” by Climate Action Tracker.
“Our calculations show Brazil’s total emissions will reach between 1,162 MtCO2e (million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent) and 1,197 MtCO2e in 2030 under current policies, almost 25% above 2005 levels. Brazil is not on track to reach neither its 2025 target nor its 2030,” Climate Action Tracker said. “To peak and then rapidly decrease emissions, as required in order to limit warming to 1.5°C, Brazil will need to sustain and strengthen policy implementation and accelerate mitigation action in all sectors— including a reversal of present plans to expand fossil fuel energy sources.”
Hosting COP30 has put enormous pressure on Brazil to lead the world and show that it is a role model for the rest of Latin America. Increasingly, though, COP30 is already shaping up to be a disappointment before it has even started. And if that happens, Brazil will likely shift the blame for its failures at COP30 to other countries.
“Most people think of the COP as a meeting where people negotiate texts, and that many times these texts are not implemented, and they don’t reach the everyday lives of people, and they don’t reach the lives of companies,” said Andre Correa do Lago, Brazil’s president-designate for COP30, in a recent conference in Barbados. “What I think is that we have to show in a more convincing manner how much these negotiations are translated into action.”
Can anything be done without the US at COP30?
Unfortunately, many countries, especially the U.S. government, are acting with less urgency. Last year, global temperatures surpassed the threshold of 1.5°C, which countries agreed to when they signed the Paris Climate Agreement in 2015.
Trump has already withdrawn from the climate agreement and will not attend COP30. Even other U.S. politicians and diplomats are being denied entry to Brazil to attend the conference.
But COP30 could still be salvaged if other countries like China and some European countries step up to assume leadership roles. China is rapidly investing in clean energy, while the U.S. has defunded its wind and solar sectors and has built back up its fossil fuels sector.
And don’t count Brazil out just yet. Since Lula took office in early 2023, deforestation rates in the Amazon have dropped by about half. Brazil is rapidly building a carbon capture program, which became law last year which establishes a legal framework for carbon capture, transportation, and storage. Meanwhile, oil giant Petrobras has been using a form of carbon capture for enhanced oil recovery for years, injecting captured CO₂ back into reservoirs to boost oil and gas production.
Also, 90% of Brazil’s power sector is dominated by renewables, making Brazil’s power grid one of the world's cleanest. Though the lion’s share of renewables is primarily due to hydroelectricity, Brazil has ramped up wind and solar in the last five years from about 11% to 25%.
What a successful COP30 would look like
If Brazil or China can get other countries on board in time for COP30, here is what needs to be done:
Get more countries involved in saving the Amazon. Brazil has neither the funds nor the will to do it alone. Foreign investments are needed to halt deforestation.
Accelerate the implementation of Paris Agreement goals. Countries need to submit enhanced climate change goals aligned with the 1.5°C target, outlining clear actions and targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Commitments to phase out fossil fuels and ramp up renewables
Concrete steps for creating the vehicles to implement climate change financing toward a $1.3 trillion annual target.
So far, Lula has remained relatively quiet about what Brazil needs to get out of COP30. Lula was widely praised by other Latin American presidents for defying Trump on tariffs. Will he use the same amount of grit when it comes to the environment and retake leadership at COP30?
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