The host of COP30, Brazil, celebrates reduced deforestation rates — yet wildfires rage and new oil drilling plans near the Amazon Delta raise concerns.
00:04The World Cup, Olympics, a Lady Gaga concert for millions.
00:08Next up is the Super Bowl equivalent for environment nerds,
00:11the UN Climate Summit, right in the Amazon rainforest.
00:14Like any mega-event, the conference has put the host under a magnifying glass.
00:18And what people are seeing is complicated.
00:21A country that fights deforestation while debating a rollback on environmental law.
00:25A master at clean energy looking to drill for new oil.
00:29So, what kind of climate player is Brazil really?
00:32And where does it stand with its contradictions?
00:37Not gonna lie, the Amazonian city Brazil chose to host the COP30 has proven a controversial choice.
00:42Not least because local hotels are cashing in, charging sky-high rates for everything from converted cruise ships to love motels.
00:49But what Belém lacks in hospitality infrastructure, it makes up for in symbolism.
00:54Belém is an impoverished city in the front lines of climate change.
01:00So, it is a city in the Amazon where you see both the key problem, that's deforestation.
01:09The impacts, we have an extended fire season.
01:13You can also see what Brazil has done to reduce emissions from deforestation, mostly the beginning of the century.
01:23Around 60 years ago, the government of the time saw the Amazon as a place to be exploited.
01:28For timber, gold, and also for its space.
01:31Since then, more than 17% of the rainforest has been raised to clear land, mostly for lucrative cattle and soy.
01:38A lot of this happened illegally.
01:40But when Luis Ignacio Lula da Silva, aka Lula, served his first term as president from 2003,
01:46he came under international pressure to slow deforestation.
01:49Because cutting down trees emits tons of carbon they store in their trucks.
01:54So his government cracked down, with immense success.
01:59In large part, thanks to his environment minister Marina Silva, she was one of the key architects of the turnaround.
02:06During President Lula's first two administrations, we managed to avoid releasing 5 billion tons of CO2 into the atmosphere.
02:15That's the largest contribution a country has ever made.
02:20The government did this by designating hundreds of new protected areas like conservation units and indigenous territories.
02:28It also improved its satellite system to ramp up monitoring and detect deforestation in real time.
02:34And it gave better training to environmental authorities and law enforcement to crack down on these spots.
02:39Under the next presidents, deforestation rates started climbing again.
02:43Especially when far-right President Jair Bolsonaro weakened environmental enforcement agencies.
02:48When Lula was re-elected in 2022, he brought Marina Silva back.
02:52And with her, a focus on combating deforestation. Because…
02:56Brazil has this very particular circumstance that most of our emissions come from deforestation.
03:04And most of it illegal deforestation.
03:07The government pledged to end deforestation completely by 2030.
03:11And so far, it's heading in the right direction.
03:14In 2024, rates dropped by more than 30% across all of Brazil.
03:19There's one problem, though, that's gotten worse in recent years.
03:22Wildfires.
03:23Brazil counted more than 270,000 of them last year.
03:27They are often started by people trying to clear trees to make space for herds or planting.
03:32But climate change can make forests and wetlands drier for longer, essentially turning them into tinderboxes.
03:37In the past two years, what they've seen is that the fires, they've been outfacing the control of deforestation.
03:47And there's another obstacle to environmental protection.
03:51A powerful agribusiness bloc in Brazilian Congress pushed for a draft law that activists dubbed the Devastation Bill.
03:57That's because it basically aimed to kill environmental licensing.
04:01Usually before opening a factory, building a highway, or doing any sort of project that could impact the environment, businesses need to receive approval from the authorities.
04:09The goal of the draft law was to change that.
04:14Most licensing would be done through the internet, where the entrepreneur fills a form and submits this form, saying, yeah, I would do everything right for the environment.
04:32The bill would also fast-track licensing for big infrastructure projects considered strategic.
04:38Think roads or oil extraction.
04:40Critics say things could get built before anyone figures out what damage they might cause.
04:45It was a huge, huge, huge, huge rollback.
04:49Lula sanctioned the law, but vetoed some of the most damaging sections.
04:53Now Congress is working to bring back many of the vetoed parts with hundreds of amendments.
04:59There is one original provision that the president did keep, though.
05:02The fast-track for big infrastructure projects.
05:05And this is something environmentalists worry could speed up the process for something pretty significant.
05:10Oil drilling near the mouth of the Amazon River.
05:16Brazil is actually a renewable powerhouse.
05:18It has tons of hydrodams and great potential to keep growing solar and wind.
05:2280% of its electricity comes from clean energy sources, but it's also a pretty big oil producer.
05:27And it wants to become an even bigger one, jumping from eighth to fourth place.
05:31That's where these untapped oil sources come in.
05:34The government just greenlit exploratory drilling there.
05:37Of course, even though we're not burning this oil, we're selling the oil for someone else to burn.
05:45Therefore, we are contributing to climate change by expanding our oil production.
05:52At the COP28 climate conference in Dubai in 2023, Brazil joined other nations in agreeing to transition away from fossil fuels.
06:00A big deal for the world's sixth-largest polluter.
06:02But the government argues that as a developing nation, it's in its right to explore for oil.
06:07It was decided that rich countries will lead the race for decommissioning and reducing CO2 emissions from fossil fuel use,
06:17both producers and consumers, with developing countries following afterwards.
06:22Brazil is quite convinced that we can use some of the wealth that the oil brings to us to accelerate the transition.
06:38But the irony isn't lost on environmentalists, both in Brazil and abroad.
06:43In terms of, hey, you are hosting COP and you are still in an expansion of fossil fuels mode.
06:50What Brazil is likely to score points with as the summit host goes back to one of its greatest strengths, fighting deforestation.
06:57At the COP30, it will officially launch the Tropical Forest Forever Facility, or TFFF.
07:02This global fund will pay countries based on how well they protect their forests.
07:06We have a chronic problem, which is that the forests, they are not of value for the trees standing.
07:16Actually, if you cut the forest, normally you will get money, whereas conserving won't yield much.
07:23So the idea here is to turn this around.
07:26What also makes this fund different is that it takes the money pledged by governments and the private sector
07:31and invests it in a financial portfolio.
07:33The idea is to pay countries preserving their forests with the returns on these investments.
07:37The main fund isn't touched.
07:39That way the donations can last in the long run.
07:42There is no doubt that Brazil is hosting these talks while towing a fine line between many contradictions.
07:47But it also wouldn't be the first COP host to do so.
07:50What we will need to do is to overcome our contradictions.
08:00They exist in Brazil, in the European Union, everywhere.
08:08The question is if the talks on Belém can lock Brazil and all other attendees into an agreement that will bridge this gap.
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