Brazil — which will host the UN Cop 30 climate summit this year — has the tools to lead the global fight against climate change, but it will need to address serious issues, such as its fossil fuel expansion plans, policy expert at climate umbrella group Observatorio do Clima Stela Herschmann told Argus. Edited highlights follow.
Can Brazil lead a new global climate narrative?
Brazil has all the conditions and capacity to be a climate leader. Observatorio do Clima has proposed a climate target for Brazil to be the first country to become carbon negative by 2035 because it has that potential.
Brazil needs to make the right choices in long-term planning and in addressing the root causes of emissions in the short term. But it is heading in the opposite direction. Going from the ninth-largest oil producer to the fourth-largest oil producer is exactly the opposite of what one would expect from a climate leader. We know from various scientific studies that we can't open any more new oil wells in the world, let alone move toward an expansion of this magnitude.
Should Brazil take a more aggressive stance on eliminating fossil fuels?
Brazil is one of the countries with the most aggressive [fossil fuels] expansion plans in the world.
In addition to these absurd plans to expand fossil fuels, Brazil has been polluting its very clean energy matrix in recent years.
So, this is also a process that we need to reverse, especially because these are medium- and long-term investments in energy and transportation.
And if today we lock in wrong choices, we will see that these investments made based on fossil fuels will have a high risk of becoming investments that won't yield the financial return that was calculated. So, in addition to making a fair contribution to the fight against the climate crisis and having this leadership role, Brazil also cannot make the wrong choices for the good of its economy.
Can you dig deeper into Brazil's action agenda for Cop 30? How can it help countries comply with the Paris Agreement?
Brazil announced a six-pronged, 30-goal action agenda for Cop 30.
Brazil placed the pillar of official negotiations with the leaders, which takes place before Cop 30 begins, of popular mobilization and the action agenda, which falls outside the scope of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
The action agenda is a parallel space that has a lot of flexibility to be shaped by each Cop presidency, because that's where bilateral agreements take place. It can help us comply with the Paris Agreement, but it's not a direct link to it because the goals each country presents for it are nationally determined goals. It will be up to each country to present its compliance, whether yes or no, and to what extent.
Will Cop 30 be focused on climate financing?
I haven't heard the Cop 30 presidency say that this will be a conference focused on climate finance. Quite the opposite, actually. But this Cop, even though it's not the Cop for climate finance — that was Cop 29, which had a very poor outcome — will inevitably have to address climate finance.
Cop 29's poor outcome further undermined the confidence of developing countries, leaving a bitter taste in the mouths of negotiators, especially those developing countries. They're so unhappy that this topic keeps coming up [and is yet to be resolved].
And that's what happened at the Bonn meeting this year: The topic of finance, especially public finance, ended up stalling the Cop agenda. Brazil tried [to move the conversation], with the idea of creating a roadmap to move away from the new collective quantified goal's (NCQG) target of $300bn, which was decided last year, to reach $1.3 trillion, which was roughly the level developing countries said they needed.
But that doesn't solve the discontent and the request of developing countries, which is that the negotiations should focus primarily on private financing.
So, yes, financing will be a major topic at Cop 30, even though Brazil has tried to avoid it. But this isn't a Cop focused on this issue. I think it's a stumbling block, to be more precise.
