Brazil’s Lula talks climate at UN, but Amazon fires back home undermine his message

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva opened the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday with a call for the world to do more to combat climate change. He mentioned the fires ravaging the rainforest back home — but not the fact they’re adding to criticism of his administration’s own environmental stewardship.

Brazil’s Amazon saw 38,000 blazes last month, the most for any August since 2010, according to data from the country’s space institute. September is on track to repeat that ignoble feat. Smoke has been choking residents of many cities, including metropolis Sao Paulo that’s thousands of miles away. Lula has cast these fires as the result of drought and criminals, and proposed harsher punishments for environmental offenders.

“The Amazon is going through the worst drought in 45 years. Forest fires spreading across the country have already devoured 5 million hectares (19,300 square miles) in August alone,” he said in New York. “My government does not outsource responsibility nor abdicate its sovereignty. We have already done a lot, but we know that much more needs to be done.”

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But enforcement has been hampered by a six-month strike at environmental regulator Ibama that ended in August — three months after his administration was aware of significantly heightened risk of fires amid the historic drought.

At the same time, members of his Cabinet have presented conflicting views of environmental and energy policies. And Lula’s rhetoric about tapping oil reserves near the mouth of the Amazon River has worried environmentalists who want Brazil to drive a global transition to clean energy. This month, he promised to pave a road in the Amazon experts say will drive deforestation.

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

“Climate was just one more topic in a along list of themes addressed by Lula, from the recent conflict in Lebanon to the urgency of regulating artificial inteliigence and the long-standing cry for U.N. reform,” Lula said. “The president promised to deliver this year a climate goal ... but did not offer a vision of what Brazil aims to do as chair of the COP 30 (climate summit) to accelerate the fight against this crisis.”

When Lula was last president, between 2003 and 2010, he repeatedly spoke about climate change, holding up Brazil as a beacon of conservation for the future and blaming rich countries for polluting the planet while failing to help developing nations maintain their forests. He campaigned in 2022 while presenting himself as an environmental alternative to his predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro, whose rhetoric stoked destruction in the Amazon. Once in office, Lula’s administration significantly reduced illegal Amazon deforestation in its first year.

But now, his calls for an awakening to the need for collective environmental action may have been heard differently, according to Brazilian political consultant Thomas Traumann.

“Lula has always attended international gatherings with a lot to say, with many calling him a champion on the environment. This time that won’t ring true,” Traumann said before Lula’s speech. “We can’t say his administration is to blame for all these fires. There’s a lot of support for them at the local level. But some of this would never have taken place if the Ibama strike hadn’t gone for so long.”

Lula announced on Friday that anyone caught setting fires in forests will pay fines of up to $1,800 per hectare. He also announced additional spending of up to 500 million reais ($90 million) to fight fires nationwide. Earlier Tuesday, he met U.N Secretary-General António Guterres to discuss next year’s COP-30 climate summit in the Amazon city of Belem. And speaking to global leaders at the General Assembly, Lula held fast to his defiant tone on climate change, seeking to hold developed nations to account.

“The planet cannot make demands of the next generation and is fed up with climate deals that are not fulfilled. It is tired of neglected carbon emission reduction goals,” he said. “Beyond facing the challenge of climate change, we are also fighting those who profit from environmental degradation.”

His call for reduced emissions stood in contrast to comments from Energy Minister Alexandre Silveira at an oil conference in Rio de Janeiro on Monday, saying Brazil will 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 for oil, Brazil will follow that market.”

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

“It is not only the executive branch; Brazil’s government as a whole that needs to prioritize protection,” she said. “Our government needs to be courageous and do what needs to be done for the environment and its people. But companies also have a lot of responsibility. They are the ones profiting from the destruction of the environment.”

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