Brazil’s UN climate summit chief defends Petrobras oil expansion

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Brazil’s UN climate summit chief has defended oil and gas production as being compatible with international efforts to limit global warming, ahead of the South American country hosting the world’s most important climate talks.

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s government wants Brazil to become the world’s fourth-largest oil producer. The country last month hosted an auction of oil blocks, including some in the sea close to the mouth of the Amazon river.

Almost 200 countries agreed to transition away from fossil fuels by 2050 at the UN COP28 climate summit in Dubai in 2023. Progress on national climate goals will be assessed at the upcoming UN COP30 in November, as the world remains off track on the need to cut greenhouse gases by half by 2030 from 1990 levels to limit global warming to 1.5C since pre-industrial times.

André Corrêa do Lago, president-designate of the UN COP30 climate summit taking place in the Amazonian city of Belém, played down concerns that Brazil’s stance on oil expansion was in conflict with global efforts to reach net zero emissions. 

“We are thinking of a ‘net zero’ that incorporates some years continuing to use oil. The transitioning away [from fossil fuels] allows considerable flexibility,” the senior diplomat told the Financial Times. 

“I believe that all countries are analysing how they can reach net zero in a way that is economically viable, technologically viable, and that logically should go in the direction of the transition away [from fossil fuels].”

By 2030, Petrobras, Brazil’s state-backed fossil fuel company, will increase oil production by among the most of the world’s top producers in percentage terms, according to new analysis from campaign group Global Witness based on March data from independent consultancy Rystad Energy.

The oil and gas major, controlled by the Brazilian government, is on track to produce a billion barrels of oil in 2030, or a third more than it did in 2024, the research found.

Petrobras declined to comment. Its public data shows production of both oil and gas was the equivalent of 2.7mn barrels per day in 2024 and would rise to 3.2mn bpd by 2029, although this 19 per cent increase versus the 33 per cent in the study is not directly comparable as the figures cover both oil and gas.

Global Witness investigator Patrick Galey said its research had focused solely on oil because the resulting carbon dioxide emissions from its use were more polluting over a longer period, lasting for hundreds of years in the atmosphere.

Rystad analyst Flávio Menten said Petrobras was not taking a wildly different strategy to its multinational peers, and after 2031 the research group forecast a steady production decline for Brazil.

Just over half of Brazil’s oil is exported, while the country’s electricity network is largely fuelled by hydropower and wind.

Brazil’s government argues that some of the proceeds from hydrocarbon export revenues can go towards investing in greener energy sources. Its mines and energy ministry said its transition was compatible with its economic and social needs.

The transition process was not “something radical”, the ministry said, and it was important to balance the strengthening of renewable energy sources with oil and gas exploration and production “which will still be necessary for national matrices in the coming decades.”

Corrêa do Lago said many countries, including the US and Norway, were also expanding oil production. The COP28 agreement to transition away from fossil fuels “allows countries and companies to choose different paths”, he noted.

He argued that if Brazil increased its oil production but used the proceeds to protect the Amazon from deforestation, that was “completely different” from a scenario in which the country boosted fossil fuel production and reduced renewables. 

Some countries, he said, had little choice presently but to use their fossil fuel reserves to help pay for their economic development.

But there were already signs of the shift away from fossil fuels by major economies, such as the rise of electrification in China, he added.

This year’s summit would focus on efforts to implement the agreements already made at past UN climate summits, he noted, including phasing out fossil fuels.

Campaigners such as Galey accuse Brazil of a “conflict of interest”, however, in attempting to balance its role as host of the UN climate summit at the same time as expanding oil production. 

The oil industry had shown a “mastery over the entire COP process”, Galey said, in thwarting efforts to tackle climate change at the most recent UN summits held in the petrostates of United Arab Emirates and Azerbaijan.

At the Global Tipping Points Conference and Exeter Climate Forum in the UK this week, involving hundreds of delegates from leading European scientific organisations and academia, almost 200 participants endorsed a statement calling for action from policymakers “especially [the] leaders meeting at the COP30 climate summit in Brazil later this year”.