Brazil drilling licence undermines commitments ahead of COP30
The timing of the Amazon licence’s announcement so close to COP30 has been highly criticised.
Less than three weeks ahead of COP30, on October 20th, Brazil’s environment agency Ibama gave energy major Petrobras a licence to drill for oil and gas at Block-59, in the Amazon Basin.
Ibama’s decision echoes president Lula da Silva’s pro-oil stance, reiterated at the 47th ASEAN Summit in Indonesia, where he once again declared that no country can afford to abandon fossil fuels.
The outcome was considered “inevitable” by both critics and supporters.
Petrobras’ drilling operation started the same day the ruling was issued and is expected to last for five months. If commercially-viable reserves are confirmed, exploration will require a new licence. According to the company’s CEO, production could begin within seven years.
The permit paves the way for further exploration in the region and feeds into expectations that future licences will be streamlined. It will “certainly influence oncoming oil auctions, as it sends hesitant companies a message that their projects will go through,” Lucas Kannoa, head of legal affairs at Arayara International Institute, told Gas Outlook. “If such an environmentally sensitive area is open to exploitation, what is off-limits?”
Ibama’s decision occurs amid efforts to roll back legal environmental safeguards. In August, as Lula da Silva partially vetoed a bill that eased requirements for licensing procedures, he sanctioned a special environmental licence to fast-track “strategic projects” — a mechanism proposed by the Senate with Amazon oil exploration in sight.
“Brazil must understand that international scrutiny has changed. Speeches are no longer enough: the world demands consistency,” Gisela Hurtado Barboza, Peruvian attorney and a campaigner at environmental NGO Stand.Earth told Gas Outlook. She considers that the licence sends off an alarming message contrary to COP30’s objectives, and erodes the moral capital the country had been accumulating over the past couple of years. “Enthusiasm has shifted to skepticism.”
Controversial licence
An official statement from the Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change, generally perceived as the project’s main opponent within the government, declared the licence was the “result of a rigorous environmental review process.”
But Ibama’s decision has drawn criticism and caused divisions within the agency, as part of the staff considered Petrobras’ response to a simulated accidental oil spill — the last phase of the process — to be insufficient. “Petrobras used outdated data and carried out the simulation using a technically flawed model,” Suely Araújo, climate policy coordinator at Brazilian climate policy coalition Observatório do Clima and former Ibama president, told Gas Outlook.
In his first interview following the ruling, Ibama’s current president Rodrigo Agostinho said Petrobras had implemented all the adjustments requested following the simulation. Still, the licence introduced a series of added conditions, including real-time monitoring, emergency protocols, and 13 support vessels ready for spill containment. Non-compliance could lead to its suspension or revocation.
In response to what were described as “legal violations and technical flaws” in the process, eight civil society organisations, among which Observátorio do Clima and Arayara featured, filed a lawsuit to annul the licence. The lawsuit identifies three fundamental flaws that could lead to the annulment: failure to ensure free, prior and informed consent to affected communities; deliberate use of outdated data leading to modelling flaws that put biodiversity at risk; and neglect of the project’s climate impacts.
“We expect a court injunction shall suspend this license as soon as possible,” said Kannoa. He believes the presence of international delegations at COP30 could sway the judiciary toward a favourable ruling.
Implications for COP30
The timing of the licence’s announcement so close to COP30 has been highly criticised. Observatório do Clima called it a “double act of sabotage”: it threatens humanity by “going against science and betting on more climate change,” and undermines COP30, “whose most important outcome must be the implementation of the commitment to phase out fossil fuels,” writes the coalition.
Still, the announcement ahead of COP is generally seen as the least bad option. According to Agostinho, holding off until after the event would be hypocritical and replay the conduct of that of former president Jair Bolsonaro, who in 2022 deliberately omitted deforestation data at COP27, held in Egypt.
Anonymously, Brazilian diplomats assessed the choice as a possible response to the unease shown by petrostates as Minister of the Environment and Climate Change Marina Silva mentioned transitioning away from fossil fuels during pre-COP. If the country didn’t reiterate its dependence on the industry, it could end up isolated among other large producers.
Publicly, Brazilian authorities defend that transitioning away from fossil fuels must happen in an orderly, just and equitable manner. The COP30 presidency evaluates strategies to advance the debate, including the designation of criteria such as historical responsibility, economic capacity and dependence on non-renewable energy sources to determine who should start.
“Brazil maintains that developed countries must take the lead,” said Barboza. While legitimate under the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities, she believes the approach can be interpreted as a way to postpone domestic commitments. “How the country behaves in the coming days will be decisive in determining international trust and the success of COP30,” she concluded.
(Writing by Amanda Magnani; editing by Sophie Davies)