Brazil’s Lula speaks on climate at UN, but Amazon attacks in Brazil undermine his message

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva opened the United Nations General Assembly Tuesday by calling on the world to do more to combat climate change. Fires are ravaging the rainforest in my home — but not the fact that they contribute to increasing criticism of his administration’s environmental management.

The Brazilian Amazon saw 38,000 fires last month, the most in an August since 2010, according to data from the country’s space institute. September is on track to repeat that heinous feat. suffocating the inhabitants of many citiesincluding Sao Paulo metropolis It’s thousands of miles away. Lula has blamed the fires on drought and crime, and has proposed tougher penalties for environmental offenders.

“The Amazon is going through the worst drought in 45 years. The forest fires that are spreading across the country have already devoured 5 million hectares in August alone,” he said in New York. “My government is not abdicating its responsibilities or renouncing its sovereignty. We have already achieved a lot, but we know that there is still much to do.”

But enforcement has been hampered by a six-month strike at environmental regulator Ibama, which ended in August – three months after his administration became aware of the dramatically increased risk of wildfires amid the historic drought.

At the same time, members of his cabinet have presented conflicting views on environmental and energy policies. Lula’s rhetoric on the exploitation of oil reserves near the mouth of the Amazon River is worrying environmentalists who want Brazil to be the engine of a global transition to clean energy. This month, it promised pave a road in the Amazon According to experts, this will lead to deforestation.

Lula’s speech was on point, but “the climate leader the world was waiting for did not show up,” the Climate Observatory, made up of 30 Brazilian nonprofits, said in a statement.

“Climate was just one of many topics that Lula addressed, from the recent conflict in Lebanon to the urgency of regulating artificial intelligence to the long-standing cry for UN reform,” Lula said. “The president promised to achieve a climate goal this year… but did not offer a vision of what Brazil intends to do as president of COP 30 (climate summit) to accelerate the fight against this crisis.”

During his last term, between 2003 and 2010, Lula repeatedly spoke about climate change, presenting Brazil as a model of conservation for the future and criticizing rich countries for polluting the planet without helping developing countries preserve their forests. He campaigned in 2022 as an environmental alternative to his predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro, whose rhetoric stoked the destruction of the Amazon. Once in power, Lula’s government significantly reduced illegal deforestation in the Amazon during its first year.

But today, his calls for awareness of the need for collective environmental action may be heard differently, according to Brazilian political consultant Thomas Traumann.

“Lula has always come to international meetings with a lot to say, and many have called him an environmentalist. This time, that will not be true,” Traumann said before Lula’s speech. “We cannot say that his administration is responsible for all these fires. They have a lot of support at the local level. But some of these events would never have happened if the Ibama strike had not lasted so long.”

On Friday, Lula announced that anyone caught setting fire to forests would be fined up to $1,800 per hectare. He also announced additional spending of up to 500 million reais ($90 million) to fight fires across the country. Earlier Tuesday, he met with U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres to discuss next year’s COP-30 climate summit in the Amazonian city of Belém. And addressing world leaders at the General Assembly, Lula maintained his defiant tone on climate change, seeking to hold developed countries to account.

“The planet cannot meet the expectations of future generations and is fed up with climate agreements that are not being respected. It is fed up with carbon reduction targets that are being neglected,” he said. “Beyond the challenge of climate change, we are also fighting against those who profit from environmental degradation.”

His call for emissions cuts contrasts with comments by Energy Minister Alexandre Silveira at an oil conference in Rio de Janeiro on Monday, saying Brazil would explore offshore oil reserves near the Amazon.

“We cannot and will not give up on knowing the country’s true oil potential,” he said. “As long as there is demand for gas and oil, Brazil will follow that market.”

Environmentalist Tica Minami said at a protest outside the oil conference that Lula’s administration “has sent mixed signals in its policies.”

“It is not just the executive branch, it is the Brazilian government as a whole that must prioritize environmental protection,” she said. “Our government must show courage and do what is right for the environment and its people. But companies also have a great responsibility. They are the ones who profit from the destruction of the environment.”

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