Oil in the Amazon: NGOs criticize COP30 in Brazil – 09/06/2023 – Environment

Representatives of NGOs criticized the risks of holding the COP30, the UN climate change conference, in Brazil, amid the clash over oil exploration in Foz do Amazonas.

In addition to the inconsistency between the project and a meeting to negotiate how the reduction of gas emissions provided for in the Paris Agreement will be carried out, the organizations also cited environmental and rights setbacks in the country, such as the time frame of indigenous lands and the weakening of Environment and Indigenous Peoples portfolios in the Lula (PT) government.

The statements were made at a press conference this Friday (9th), in Bonn, Germany, where preparations for COP28 are taking place, which starts at the end of November, in the United Arab Emirates.

The representatives also criticized a letter released by governors of states in the Legal Amazon, with the exception of Rondônia, in which the representatives, including Helder Barbalho (MDB), who should host the COP30 in Pará, defend the exploration of oil in Foz do Amazonas.

In the document, they argue that the denial of the research and of a future oil production in the region, called the Brazilian equatorial margin, 500 km from the coast, affects the interests of the population and the benefits for the forest, in addition to creating obstacles for the energy transition in the country.

Barbalho, from Pará, has defended technical criteria for the issue. “I can’t frame advocacy for science and research when it’s convenient, and when it’s not I turn the page,” he said, at an Amazon sustainability event in May.

“What I stand for: that Ibama allow Petrobras to research. From there, it establishes, based on environmentally correct criteria, which methodology and mechanism can be used for exploration with the least possible impact”.

“Eight of the nine governors support exploration. At the same time, the governor of Pará wants to bring the COP30 to Belém. We are already having problems with the oil lobby, distributing misinformation and threatening leaders”, stated Hannah Baliero, executive director of the Institute Mapinguari, from Amapá.

For her, the project does not mean the energy transition by increasing emissions and promising benefits while the country needs to discuss ways to reduce oil and gas production. “It is not a transition when, once again, the population of the Amazon will pay dearly for it.”

According to Tatiana Oliveira, representative of Inesc (Institute of Socioeconomic Studies) in the preparatory negotiations for this year’s COP, instruments such as the carbon market are not enough to deal with climate change in the country, which include the protection of human rights defenders.

“It is important to have this space to ask the Brazilian delegation to deal directly with this issue”, he stated. “What we know works is maintaining the rights of indigenous people to land, because they live and work in harmony with nature,” he said.

Helena Spiritus, who coordinates the WWF’s oil and gas transition area, followed the same line. “Those who deal with the environment and human rights face these problems. A great way for the Brazilian government to deal with this is to try to listen. Listen to indigenous peoples, traditional populations and science, like the IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change]who are saying that the era of oil and gas exploration is over.”

The decisions that Brazil will take now, according to Claudio Angelo, coordinator of communication and climate policy at the Climate Observatory, will define how much the country will need to wear out in the future.

“Climate change is a matter of human rights, they cannot be dissociated. I understand that you can lose sight of it in a place like this, because the agenda has increased and there are many issues”, he said.

“But there are three things we can do about climate change. Mitigate, adapt and suffer. And right now, we’re on a path to adaptation and suffering.”

The Planeta em Transe project is supported by the Open Society Foundations.