Climate change fights for space in Brazil’s crowded election campaign

Spate of natural disasters are lifting its profile

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Southeast Asia and South America are particularly impacted by El Niño. Colombia, Venezuela and northern Brazil face a higher risk of drought and wildfires, while southern Brazil, central Chile and northern Argentina often experience severe flooding. Graphic: Carbon Brief.

(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.)

SAO PAULO, Brazil (Callaway Climate Insights) — Earthquakes in Colombia and Venezuela, and predictions that El Niño could make this hurricane season the worst yet have suddenly put climate change back on the agenda for the upcoming elections in Brazil.

After virtually disappearing from Brazil’s campaign election platforms, the environment is beginning to appear again thanks to the earthquakes in neighboring Colombia and Venezuela and due to predictions from meteorologists that the weather pattern El Niño could make 2026 the worst hurricane season on record.

President Luiz Inacio Lula de Silva, a former union leader and candidate for the Worker’s Party, is running to be president for an unprecedented fourth term against the conservative candidate, Flávio Bolsonaro, the son of former President Jair Bolsonaro.

Jair Bolsonaro is widely known as being anti-climate change and for overseeing the deforestation of the Amazon during his reign, when deforestation increased 70% compared with historical lows. Under Lula, deforestation has dropped more than 30% and Lula has pledged that deforestation will drop to zero by 2030.

A resurgence of climate change?