Oil in the Amazon and works drive Lula’s ‘cattle’ – 12/20/2023 – Environment

Lula returned to power updating the speech, but not the project. The tone of reconstruction of the post-Bolsonaro environmental policy, established at the beginning of the administration, could come to an end in this second year of government, which signals a willingness to pass the tractor — or, to use a term coined by Bolsonarism, the “cattle” — and approve, at any cost, the execution of major infrastructure works fraught with socio-environmental controversies.

While Bolsonaro provoked crises of international proportions by encouraging deforestation in the Amazon, Lula could find himself in diplomatic embarrassment if he goes ahead with the oil exploration project in the Foz do Amazonas basin without the necessary environmental assessments.

In an interview with Sheetthe Minister of Mines and Energy, Alexandre Silveira, stated that he had decided together with the Ministry of the Environment and the Civil House that research for oil exploration in the region will continue even without the AAAS (Environmental Assessment of Sedimentary Area) — which had been requested by Ibama for the environmental license.

The strategy is close to the Bolsonarist herd, characterized by the deregulation of environmental standards, by relying on legal opinions to overturn standards of a technical nature.

The AAAS are not provided for by law, but by an interministerial ordinance created in 2012 — under PT management. Therefore, the conclusion of the opinion of the AGU (Attorney General of the Union) that, from a legal point of view, the assessment is not required is axiomatic.

Like Silveira, the former Minister of the Environment in the Bolsonaro government, Ricardo Salles, resorted to AGU opinions before deciding to relax environmental standards. In 2020, in the same recording in which he made the term “boiada” known, Salles guided his fellow ministers on the legal certainty that the opinions gave to decisions. “It’s seeming, pen; seeming, pen”, he intoned at the time.

The trampling of the environmental rite — whether in the form of Bolsonaro herds or PT tractors — also ignores the populations that will be affected in the region. According to research commissioned by CNN Brasil from Atlas Intel, the population in the equatorial margin region is divided over the potential of oil exploration.

For 36%, Petrobras should only go ahead if it has the licenses and carries out impact studies. Another 26% are in favor of exploration, 18% are against it and 19% were unable to give their opinion. The risk of oil exploration in the region is high, according to 39% of those interviewed.

After the AGU opinion was leaked to the press in August, during the Amazon Summit, the Minister of Mines and Energy returned to the spotlight during COP28, the UN climate conference, at the end of November, announcing that Brazil would join to OPEC+, an expanded group of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.

Although he denies that it was a deliberate provocation, Silveira states that the announcement served as a message to developed countries at the COP.

But messages that call into question the socio-environmental integrity of regions critical for climate balance, such as the Amazon, can cause shocks in diplomacy. The test of international leadership that Brazil faces in 2024 is in line with the PT’s willingness to explore oil at any cost in the region.

Earlier this month, the world reached an unprecedented consensus at COP28 when deciding to transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy. Brazil supported the decision, under the condition that developed countries take the lead in the transition. Now, as president of the G20, Brazil is tasked with seeking consensus on this agenda within the group — which consumes two-thirds of the world’s oil.

The countries with the biggest oil and gas expansion plans until 2050 are in the G20 — the United States alone accounts for a third of planned investments in the world, followed by Canada and Russia. The group also focuses on the countries with the greatest capacity to begin the gradual elimination of dependence on fossil fuels: the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Canada. The data is from Climate Transparency.

To coordinate the G20 countries towards the energy transition and also to accelerate the process of reviewing climate goals until COP30 —which will be chaired by Brazil in 2025—, the government will need to quickly do its homework and prepare its own energy and climate project, especially if it wants to be taken seriously by the world in its announced “1.5°C mission”.

Brazil took on the task of adjusting the new climate goals for COP30 to the objective of containing global warming by up to 1.5°C. But, according to the UN climate panel, current oil exploration is already enough to exceed this ceiling, which would imply a commitment to the gradual elimination of fossils, instead of opening new exploration fronts.

Just like in previous PT administrations, marked by missteps, such as the licensing of the Belo Monte hydroelectric plant, the impasse between the developmental project and socio-environmental safeguards is likely to be repeated in other government projects linked to investments under the new PAC.

In addition to the paving of BR-319, which connects Manaus to Porto Velho, investments in other roads planned in the PAC worry the government’s environmentalist wing due to the impact on the increase in deforestation in the Amazon, as could happen around BR-080, BR- 158, BR-242 and BR-364. The construction of Ferrogrão, a railway that will transport soy from Mato Grosso to export ports in Pará, is causing alarm for the same reason.

Another impact that should make licensing difficult is the removal of rocks for more than 30 km from Pedral do Lourenço, in Pará, for the construction of the Araguaia-Tocantins waterway, in a region of riverside populations and fishermen.

After weakening the environmental portfolio in the first semester in negotiations with the center, and giving in, in August, on the time frame for indigenous lands, the government may now find itself favored by the loosening of environmental licensing, which has different projects being processed in Congress .

In 2024, between climate extremes and other traumas from socio-environmental disasters in the country, the biggest risk on the agenda should be concentrated in Brasília, where, between Parliament and the Executive, the herd will be able to roam.