Just last month, Brazil’s environmental agency Ibama announced it authorised state-run oil giant Petrobras to conduct exploratory drilling in the environmentally sensitive deep waters near the mouth of the Amazon river.
The authorisation came after years of pressure from lawmakers, Brazil’s energy sector and Lula himself, who had criticised Ibama for deferring drilling requests.
Environmentalists fear Petrobras’ potential success in the region will open the way for drilling in dozens of other oil-rich areas leased to Petrobras and international companies that are undergoing licensing processes.
Such a consolidation of the Amazon as a key frontier for fossil fuel drilling could pose a severe threat to the region’s vulnerable ecosystem, they warn.
“Leakage is intrinsic to oil drilling…. We’ll certainly see contamination and impact on biodiversity if exploration is done at scale along the Amazon coast,” said Nicole Figueiredo, head of Arayara International Institute, an environmental group.
Defending Petrobras at a news briefing earlier this month, Lula said the company has invested in and is “committed to the energy transition.”
Deforestation infrastructure
The policies that push for development in the rainforest contradict commitments made by Lula in 2023, when it was announced that Brazil would aim to achieve net-zero deforestation by 2030.
At the same time, the government announced its intention to turn Brazil into the world’s fourth biggest oil producer, up from seventh, by the same date.
Government data released last week showed deforestation in the rainforest fell 11 per cent in the 12 months through July, compared with the same period a year earlier, hitting an 11-year low.
In Brazil’s Cerrado savanna, a key agribusiness frontier, deforestation fell more than 11 per cent in that same period, to a six-year low.
But environmental groups like Brazil’s Climate Observatory are wary that Lula’s administration will advance large-scale infrastructure projects to make room for more pastures and grain crops.
“Infrastructure has historically been a facilitator of deforestation by granting land-grabbers and farmers access to forest areas,” said Laíde Costa, who fishes in the Amazon’s Xingu River and is an educator at Xingu Vivo, a movement working to protect the basin.
“There’s a great contradiction in the government saying it wants to end deforestation while it’s a big promoter of deforestation through these projects,” she said.
Deforestation and greenhouse gases from Brazil’s 240 million strong cattle herd already position it as the world’s sixth largest carbon emitter, according to the European Union’s Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research.
Both the Ferrogrão railway and the road-paving project have faced legal and licensing hurdles for years.
Nonetheless, in July, the government said it expects to initiate the bidding process to build Ferrogrão in early 2026, and in September Lula said the government was close to “a definitive deal” with environmentalists for the road paving.
Road building plays a central role in deforestation, research shows.
According to a 2014 report in the Biological Conservation Journal, 95 per cent of deforestation in the Amazon, where most tree cover loss takes place, occurred within 5.5 km (3.4 miles) of a road or 1 km (0.6 mile) of a navigable river.
Observers say Lula’s push for oil drilling and infrastructure projects could overshadow funding commitments to be made at COP30.
Lula is expected to announce the launch of his proposed Tropical Forest Forever Facility, a US$120 billion fund to help protect global tropical forests.
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