'Historic Mistake': Brazil Opens Up Amazon to New Oil Drilling Ahead of Global Climate Summit

As climate leaders and policymakers arrive in Belém, Brazil next month, for the global climate summit that officials have pledged will stand apart from previous conferences due to its emphasis on "implementation," the country's government-run Petrobras firm will be drilling for oil just over 200 miles away in the Amazon, after the company was granted a license Monday.

Petrobras said it plans to begin drilling immediately in a project that will last about five months at the mouth of the Amazon River—the Foz de Amazonas region.

Despite President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's reputation as an international climate leader, he has claimed that oil revenue will help fund Brazil's transition to renewable energy, but Ilan Zugman, Latin America and Caribbean director at the grassroots climate action group 350.org, said Monday that in granting the license, the Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (IBAMA) was "doubling down on a model that has already failed."

Petrobras is planning to drill an oil well at an offshore site, Block 59, that is 310 miles from the mouth of the Amazon.

IBAMA previously denied Petrobras the license, saying the company had not provided adequate plans for how it would protect wildlife in the case of an oil spill.

"The history of oil in Brazil shows this clearly: huge profits for a few, and inequality, destruction, and violence for local populations."

In September, the agency approved a pre-operational environmental assessment and said a new "fauna simulation" would take place after the license was issued, allowed Petrobras to prove after obtaining permission for drilling that it would protect wildlife.

The Amazon region is home to about 10% of the planet's wildlife, and climate advocates have raised alarm that the river's currents would swiftly bring the damage from an oil spill straight to the habitats of many animals and plants.

Brazilian NGO the Climate Observatory said the approval of the license "sabotages" the 30th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP30), which World Meteorological Organization Secretary-General Celeste Sauro said recently "aspires to be a turning point, a moment when the world shifts from ambition to implementation."

Last year was the first year to exceed 1.5°C above average preindustrial temperatures, and the previous 10 years have been the warmest on record. Scientists and the International Energy Agency have warned that no new oil or other fossil fuel projects have a place on a pathway to reaching net-zero global carbon emissions by 2050.

“The decision is disastrous from an environmental, climate, and sociobiodiversity perspective," said the Climate Observatory.

The group told The Guardian that civil society organizations would be taking the Brazilian government to court over the license, saying its approval was rife with "illegalities and technical flaws."

Despite IBAMA's approval, an opinion signed by 29 staff members at the agency in February said they recommended denying the license due to the risk of “massive biodiversity loss in a highly sensitive marine ecosystem."

Zugman called the decision a "historic mistake."

"The history of oil in Brazil shows this clearly: huge profits for a few, and inequality, destruction, and violence for local populations," said Zugman. "Brazil must take real climate leadership and break the cycle of extraction that has led us to the current climate crisis. We urgently need a just energy transition plan, based on renewables, that respects Indigenous, quilombola, and riverside peoples and guarantees them a leading role in decisions about climate and energy—including at COP30."

Earlier this year, Indigenous leaders representing dozens of Amazon ethnicities and tribes signed a declaration demanding that officials at COP30 "nullify oil blocks that have not had the consent of Indigenous people," "halt investment in new oil infrastructure," and create phase-out plans for oil and gas operations.

Nick Young, co-head of story and communications at Greenpeace International, called IBAMA's decision "disastrous."

"A spill here would be catastrophic and uniquely hard to contain in the Amazon plume," said Young. "And in addition to the risk of oil spills, the science clearly shows that we cannot afford to burn even existing oil reserves, let alone new ones."

"For us all to have a future, the oil industry can have no future," he added. "It makes zero sense to allow them to find new oil to throw on the fire."