During this term, Brazil's president has reduced deforestation, but his government is pushing ahead with projects that would open the Amazon to mining.
Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, President of Brazil, speaks at the COP30 Leaders' Summit in Belem, Pará, Brazil, in November. 6, 2025.
(Dado Galdeiri/Bloomberg Vitty Images)
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva welcomed world leaders to Belem for the first climate summit in the Amazon, where conservationists hope he can become a champion of the rainforest and its people.
But with a divided administration, a hostile Congress and 20th-century development instincts, this global leader of the left of center must balance his advocacy for protecting nature and cutting emissions.
At the summit's opening on Thursday, he made it clear that his priority is social development, but he made clear that humanity must make an energy transition and stop forest loss: “I am convinced that, despite our difficulties and contradictions, we need roadmaps to – in a fair and systematic way – reverse deforestation, overcome dependence on fossil fuels and mobilize the resources needed to achieve these goals.”
These difficulties and contradictions have become particularly evident in recent months, as the government announced impressive progress in reducing deforestation and also promoted a series of projects that would open the Amazon to mining.
First, good news. Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon fell by 50 percent during the three years of Lula's third term in office. The latest annual government data shows the smallest area cleared in 11 years. This is largely due to Environment Minister Lula Marina Silva, who has taken decisive action to combat land encroachment, illegal logging and wild mining.
Current number
As a result, the Climate Observatory estimates that Brazil's emissions, which are largely determined by the health of its forests, fell by 16.7 percent, likely the steepest drop of all the world's 20 largest G20 economies.
Those achievements were in the spotlight as Lula called for more countries to join Brazil's flagship initiative at COP30: the Rainforests Forever Fund, which aims to raise $125 billion to protect existing forests. The initiative has raised approximately US$5.5 billion so far, with investments totaling US$3 billion from Norway, US$1 billion each from Brazil and Indonesia, and smaller amounts from Portugal, the Netherlands and other countries.
Money is desperately needed to prevent the rapidly growing danger that the world's largest tropical forest will decline and reach a point of no return, at which point it will be doomed to dry out into savanna and lose much of its globally important functions of climate stabilization, water transport and habitat provision.
Senior scientists warn that this is already happening in large areas of the Amazon, especially in the states of Matto Grosso, where soy plantations are rapidly expanding, and Pará, where the meat industry is leading the destruction. The weakening of forests has also been accelerated by fires (widely used to clear land) and pollution of rivers by mercury (used in gold mining).
Antonio Donato Nobre, an Earth system scientist who has worked in the Amazon for 20 years, said the forest was already showing signs of destruction. Droughts are becoming more severe, temperatures in some deforested areas have risen as much as 7 degrees, and degradation is accelerating even as deforestation is slowing, he said. This poses a global threat, he said, not only because of the reduced ability to sequester carbon, but also because a weaker rainforest means less cloud cover reflecting the sun's heat back into space, potentially posing a greater warming threat than greenhouse gases.
Nobre said the first Amazon climate summit was an opportunity to put nature at the center of climate solutions, but it could also be a disaster if leaders pay lip service to the importance of the forest while pushing destructive projects. “My main message is be serious,” he said. “The most successful enterprise on the planet is called life. We have in our hands technology that is 4 billion years old and has gone through many cycles of destruction, rebirth and repair.”
But Lula relies on support from agribusiness and the mining sector to maintain power. villager politicians dominate Congress, control several ministries, and promote an aggressive extractivist agenda that runs counter to forest conservation. This lobby is now the driving force behind Brazilian politics.
While Lula has vetoed some of the more radical plans to scrap some environmental licensing requirements, he also appears more than willing to support other elements of his agenda to carve up the Amazon and other biomes for fossil fuel production and monoculture crops.
Three weeks ago, his government approved drilling licenses for oil and gas exploration in Foz do Amazonas, off the coast of the rainforest. The move increases the risks of forest pollution, increases the likelihood of vegetation destruction by related industries and contradicts International Energy Agency recommendations that it will be impossible to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement to limit global warming unless countries completely stop the development of new fossil fuels.
In addition, there are government plans to upgrade the BR-319 highway between Manaus and Porto Velho, which will put unprecedented pressure on the western regions of the Brazilian Amazon, which until now have been among the last healthy forested regions.
Another large untouched area lies near the northwestern border with Venezuela, but it is also threatened by plans to allow industrial mining in the territory of the indigenous Yanomami people.
“We are very worried,” said one resident of the region, Euana Yaira Yanomami, who came to Belem to share the fears of women in her community. “We don't want our people to suffer, we are very concerned and that's why we speak out because illegal mining only brings suffering to our communities. We want to see our children healthy, free of dirt and without polluting the fish.”
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Further south, the government announced in late August that it would “destatize” the federal waterways of three major rivers; Tapajos, Madeira and Tocantins, which is seen as the first step towards their privatization and transformation into hydrovia Water transport route for the transport of soybeans from Mato Grosso.
Lula, who cut his political teeth as a union negotiator, tends to focus more on the social benefits that could be gained from increased investment in the Amazon, while avoiding the much more serious risks that the climate crisis poses to its inhabitants, both human and non-human.
This was evident last week during a pre-COP30 promotional tour of forested communities along the Tapajós River. In the village of Vista Alegre do Capishahua, home to the Kumaroara people, the president said he was ready to stand up for those who protect forests and promised to improve local health care, education and housing. This was very much in line with one of Brazil's stated goals at the summit: to make social protection the foundation of sustainability.
But in the parts of his visit that are open to the press, Lula made no mention of the climate even though it is a growing concern among the local population – and the vast majority of the world's population.
Nearby village chief Luis Antonio Bentes de Souza said much of the river dried up during last year's record drought, leaving locals stranded and struggling to feed themselves. He said his vegetable garden had dried up, most of his fruit trees had died, and for the first time in his 70-year life he had been unable to grow cassava, a staple food of the Amazons.
“It’s getting hotter and drier,” he said. I worry about my children and grandchildren.”
Others spoke of massive fish kills due to heat, pollution and low water levels, and expressed fears that the situation would get worse when the river they depend on was privatized and turned into a canal for soybean barges.
These uncomfortable topics – and their politically difficult decisions – did not come up during the speeches and greetings of Lula's visit until the very end, when Environment Minister Marina Silva asked for the microphone and reminded the president why they are in the Amazon this month: “COP30 is the place where we can say that Brazil will do its part to eliminate deforestation. And the world must do its part by reducing emissions of coal, oil and gas. That's why I like it.” when, sir, you say we need to stop depending on fossil fuels.”
It was a reminder that in Belem, Lula, like many world leaders, will have a good forest angel on one shoulder and a fossil fuel demon on the other. The question is who will prevail.
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