Lula’s balancing act: Cop30 Amazon summit juggles climate and social priorities

 

"Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has welcomed world leaders to Belém for the first climate summit in the Amazon, where conservationists hope he can be a champion for the rainforest and its people.

But with a divided administration, a hostile Congress and 20th-century developmentalist instincts, this global figurehead of the centre left has a balancing act to perform in advocating protection of nature and a reduction of emissions.

At the opening of the summit on Thursday, he said his priority was social development, but humanity had to make an energy transition and halt the loss of forests.

He said: “I am convinced that despite our difficulties and contradictions, we need roadmaps to – in a fair and planned way – reverse deforestation, overcome dependence on fossil fuels and mobilise the resources necessary for these objectives.”

Those difficulties and contradictions have been starkly apparent in recent months, in which the government has announced impressive progress in reducing deforestation, while also pushing forward a number of projects that would open up the Amazon to extractivism."

read report by JONATHAN WATTS 

Lula’s balancing act: Cop30 Amazon summit juggles climate and social priorities | Cop30 | The Guardian