Lower thirds:

00:02 Report by Beatrice Christofaro & Serdar Vardar
01:15 Claudio Angelo | Climate Observatory
01:34 Marina Silva | Environment Minister of Brazil

Script:

00:00 
A renewables powerhouse and host of this year's top global climate event – but also planning to drill the Amazon river for oil! 
 
00:17 
Brazil is now at the center of climate contradictions.  

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has promised to end illegal deforestation by 2030. And last year, according to government data, overall deforestation rates dropped by more than 30 percent, a major turnaround. 

00:37 
But the region is facing ever-worsening challenges. 
 
Fueled by the worst drought in seventy years, wildfires swept across the tropical regions of the country, and primary rainforest loss more than doubled in 2024 compared to the year before. 
 
00:55 
It’s a new kind of destruction, less chainsaw, but more fire, consuming old-growth rainforests that store the most carbon  – essential for combatting climate change - and sustain the region’s rich biodiversity. 

1:18 

Brazil gets more than 80 percent of its electricity from renewables, mostly hydropower. A clean energy leader.  

But it recently approved new oil exploration licenses at the mouth of the Amazon.  

+++SOT Claudio Angelo, Climate Observatory+++ Even though we're not burning this oil, we are selling the oil for someone else to burn. Therefore, we are contributing to climate change by expanding our oil production. 

The government argues that the profits from future exports could help finance its green transition. 

01:37 
+++ Marina Silva, Environment Minister of Brazil 
“It was decided that rich countries will lead the race for decommissioning and reducing CO₂ emissions from fossil fuel use, both producers and consumers, with developing countries following afterward.” ++++ 

02:00 
After years of rampant deforestation, Lula’s governments has made huge progress - thanks in large part to tougher enforcement and Indigenous protections.  
But the fires along with political pressure from agribusiness continue to test those gains. 
 
02:18 
At COP30, Brazil plans to launch a global fund to pay nations for keeping tropical rainforests standing, an attempt to make trees worth more alive than cut down. 

02:30 
A radical move from a country still balancing between oil and oxygen