Lula's bid to style himself climate leader at Cop28 undermined by Opec move

Source: The Guardian

Lula’s bid to style himself climate leader at Cop28 undermined by Opec move

Brazilian president’s plans to approve new fossil fuel projects sit awkwardly with pledge to meet 1.5C target

Jonathan Watts
Sat 2 Dec 2023 12.00 GMT
Last modified on Sat 2 Dec 2023 15.08 GMT

The Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has roared into Cop28 with a mega-delegation of more than 2,000 people and grand ambitions to address inequality and protect the world’s tropical forests.

Lula, as he is known, said his country was leading by example: “We have adjusted our climate goals, which are now more ambitious than those of many developed countries. We have drastically reduced deforestation in the Amazon and will bring it to zero by 2030,” he said.

But any pretensions he might have had to broader climate leadership on cutting fossil fuels were weakened on Thursday when his energy minister, Alexandre Silveira, chose the opening of the planet’s biggest environmental conference as the moment to announce that Brazil plans to align itself more closely with the world’s biggest oil cartel, Opec.

Brazilian climate campaigners said the timing and symbolism were horrendous and a sign of the divisions within a country that has made huge strides to reduce deforestation of the Amazon, even as it has ploughed ahead with oil exploration in ecologically sensitive areas.

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Read more: https://archive.is/ZF9LE

Original Guardian link (registration required): https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/dec/02/lula-climate-leader-cop28-brazil-undermined-by-opec-move