Brazil, the ecological transformation and COP30

“These are difficult times. But it has always been in difficult and challenging times that humanity has found the strength to face and overcome adversity. We need more trust and determination. We need stronger leadership to reverse the escalation of global warming. The agreements already made must be put into action.”

(President Lula, speech delivered at COP27, in 2022)

After being elected to lead Brazil for a third term on October 30, 2022, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva made an unexpected choice for his first official visit as president-elect: Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, host of the 27th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP27). By attending the UN climate talks prior to taking office, President Lula sought to underscore his commitment to Brazil’s vital and constructive role in addressing the climate crisis domestically and internationally. In his own words, “the fight against climate change will have the highest priority within the structure of my government,” with Brazil pledging to act by injecting “hope combined with immediate, decisive action for the future of our planet and humanity.” ¹ At this occasion, President Lula also announced Brazil’s intention to welcome the international community in the Amazon for COP30.

As Brazil prepares to host COP30 in Belém in November 2025, the global landscape has grown even more challenging than in 2022. Political crises and conflicts have intensified. Disinformation — including on climate change — has proliferated. Developing countries continue to grapple with capital flight and structural debt while still recovering from the pandemic. Climate-related disasters have become more frequent and severe, including the tragic floods and droughts in Brazil in 2024. Against this backdrop, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded, in its sixth assessment report of 2023, that we have only until the end of this decade to prevent global temperatures from permanently exceeding the 1.5°C threshold above pre-industrial levels — a situation that would cause severe harm, lead to irreversible damage to ecosystems, and significantly increase the risk of disasters for both current and future generations. 

But it is certainly not all bad news. The International Energy Agency projects that renewables will overtake coal as the leading source of electricity generation by 2026. Global clean energy investment now outpaces fossil fuel spending by a ratio of 2:1 — a dramatic shift from parity just six years ago. ² Halting and reversing deforestation by 2030, alongside strengthening policies that uphold the rights of Indigenous peoples and traditional communities, has become both a global commitment and an ethical imperative. The International Labour Organization estimates that adopting climate-neutral and circular economy pathways could generate up to 100 million new jobs by 2030, underscoring the vast social and economic opportunities of the transition. ³

It is clear that, through strengthened international cooperation, the legal framework developed over more than three decades under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has played a decisive role in steering the global community away from a projected temperature increase of around 4°C by the end of this century. Nonetheless, progress remains insufficient to meet the Paris Agreement’s goals: reducing greenhouse gas emissions to meet the ultimate objective of the UNFCCC, enhancing adaptive capacities, aligning financial flows with the transition to low-carbon economies, and ultimately honoring the primary goal of limiting global warming to 1.5°C.

The ecological transition is undeniable and unstoppable — but it must advance at the pace that science demands. Caught between persistent political hurdles on one side and the growing embrace of the net-zero transition by economies and societies on the other, our challenge is to correct course and align national pathways with our obligations under the multilateral climate change regime. From Belém, Brazil has the mission to guide this transformation in partnership with Parties to the UNFCCC, the scientific community, civil society, the private sector, and local governments. Brazil’s journey since President Lula started his third term has been one of “hope combined with immediate, decisive action” against climate change —an effort that has reshaped our domestic agenda and set the stage for what we believe will be a successful COP30.

I – Bridging Domestic Policy and International Climate Commitments 

Brazil is firmly convinced that it stands to gain far more than it risks from the ecological transition. Our sustainable development pathway has proven that economic growth can be decoupled from environmental harm. Over the past two decades, renewables have consistently accounted for a significant share of the country’s total energy supply—exceeding 50% in 2024, and over 88% in electricity generation ⁴ . The substantial reduction in deforestation rates in the Amazon occurred alongside notable gains in agricultural productivity. More recently, an additional 50% reduction achieved in under three years ⁵ , driven by renewed political commitment to effective deforestation control policies, has coincided with a robust economic recovery following the global pandemic.

Much of Brazil’s success stems from historical responses to adversity. Similar to today, challenging times and firm commitments to agreements drove progress. The repeated oil supply shocks of the 1970s prompted sustained investments in diversifying the country’s energy mix, initially through the expansion of hydropower and biofuels, and later, from the late 2000s onward, through the adoption of wind and solar energy. These challenging times spurred Brazil to implement structural changes that continue to shape its energy landscape today.

Similarly, Brazil’s progress in tackling deforestation has deep roots. Early investments in world-class satellite monitoring systems during the 1980s laid the foundation for effective enforcement of anti-illegal logging laws starting in the early 2000s. These efforts were reinforced by the unprecedented expansion of protected areas and Indigenous lands, as enshrined in Brazil’s 1988 democratic Constitution – in essence turning existing legal frameworks into actionable policies.

In 2023, Brazil confronted a new set of challenges: rebuilding the economy and addressing and healing societal wounds left by a severe pandemic, alongside setbacks in sustainable development policies. The Novo Brasil ecological transformation plan, led by the Ministry of Finance, was designed as a comprehensive response to this new reality. Recognizing that the transition to net zero is both necessary and inevitable—and that it strengthens the fight against poverty—the government placed ecological transition at the core of the country’s development strategy. This plan deploys a wide range of policy and financial tools to steer industry, agriculture, energy, finance, and society toward a more sustainable and technologically advanced future, building on past successes and elevating them to new prominence.

Key components of Novo Brasil include the adoption of a nationwide emissions trading scheme and robust financial instruments aimed at lowering capital costs for private investments, while expanding concessional funding and grants through the Amazon Fund and Fundo Clima. This ambition is embodied in Brazil’s nationally determined contribution (NDC) under the Paris Agreement, communicated in December 2024, which commits to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 59 to 67 percent from 2005 levels by 2035 across the entire economy ⁶ .

In times as challenging as these, only political determination can drive real progress. Domestically, Brazil has paved the road to COP30 with concrete actions honoring its commitments under the UNFCCC and Paris Agreement. On the international stage, Brazil’s climate diplomacy has sought to demonstrate how such resolve can extend beyond borders—building new alliances and fostering stronger global cooperation in the fight against climate change.

II – Catalyzing Global Climate Cooperation: A Journey from Belém to Belém

In 2023, Brazil resumed its active and constructive role in multilateral climate negotiations, prioritizing ambitious efforts to meet the Paris Agreement’s targets. Scientific evidence developed since 2015 has underscored the severe risks of a global temperature rise beyond 2°C, including serious setbacks for agriculture and energy, increased poverty, and the risk of pushing the Amazon biome past a critical tipping point with global consequences. Recognizing these threats, Brazil set out to strengthen the global response to climate change, making strategic use of its leadership roles in key international forums ahead of COP30.

Building on its tradition of regional integration, Brazil convened in August 2023 the Amazon Summit in Belém. This summit brought together countries of the region to coordinate on shared challenges such as deforestation, organized crime, and the inclusion of Indigenous peoples and local communities in policymaking and scientific research. The resulting Belém Leaders’ Declaration bolstered the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (ACTO) by enhancing intelligence capabilities, promoting initiatives on sustainable water management, and strengthening institutional frameworks to safeguard livelihoods and prevent ecological collapse of the Amazon biome, among other actions. At the Belém Summit, tropical forest countries also formed the United for Our Forests coalition, committing to protect forests, support Indigenous peoples, and promote a just ecological transition. Today, this coalition brings together countries that cover almost 70% of the world’s tropical forests to design joint solutions. 

Brazil’s international engagement extended to the UNFCCC COP28 in Dubai a few months later, where it played a crucial role in shaping negotiations and reinforcing the commitment to the 1.5°C goal through the First Global Stocktake of the Paris Agreement (GST1). In this context, the presidencies of COP28, COP29, and COP30 were collectively tasked with “Mission 1.5,” a coordinated international effort to significantly boost ambition and cooperation for the next round of NDCs. 

Building on the Dubai outcomes, Brazil’s 2024 G20 Presidency represented a defining moment on the road to COP30. Under President Lula’s leadership, the G20 prioritized the interconnected challenges of hunger and climate change, culminating, for the latter, in the creation of the Task Force for a Global Mobilization against Climate Change (TF-CLIMA). This initiative brought together the world’s largest economies, which collectively represent around 85% of global GDP and three-quarters of greenhouse gas emissions, to drive a coordinated approach to the climate emergency.

TF-CLIMA united the G20’s sherpa and finance tracks to craft a joint response that embeds climate action into both national planning and international finance. It broke new ground by integrating the G20’s foreign affairs, environment, and financial ministries, along with central banks, under a single collaborative framework. This approach overcame the traditional “silos” that often separate climate policy from financial and regulatory mechanisms, enabling a more coherent and effective dialogue that resulted in unprecedented commitments, such as bringing forward net-zero targets, establishing principles for transition planning and for climate investment platforms, and endorsing financial frameworks aligned with the Paris Agreement. Through TF-CLIMA, the G20 also committed to a set of political and economic objectives that positively responded to the main pillars of the First Global Stocktake. Beyond the concrete outcomes, TF-CLIMA’s bold approach to tackling complex issues marked a unique and meaningful contribution to the G20’s structure and agenda.

Building on the G20 momentum, Brazil’s BRICS+ Presidency in 2025 advanced climate finance cooperation through the adoption of the Leaders’ Framework Declaration and the BRICS Cooperation Framework for Enhancing Financing for Climate Action. Through these agreements, the group committed ministerial and central bank authorities to harness their collective strength to accelerate climate action, promote just transitions, and align efforts with nationally defined development priorities that emphasize poverty eradication and sustainable development.

Together, these milestones—the Amazon Summit, Brazil’s leadership in the G20, and its stewardship of BRICS+—represent a carefully planned three-year journey of preparation. This sequence of actions has laid the foundations for an action-oriented COP30, aimed at deepening international cooperation and advancing a more ambitious and inclusive global climate agenda.

III – Back to Belém: the final mile through a global Mutirão. 

As I emphasized in my first address to the international community as President-designate of COP30, 2025 must be the year in which we transform our sadness and indignation into constructive collective action. This transformation begins with strengthening the traditional pillars of the COP process to enhance their effectiveness in driving implementation. Leaders must commit to ambitious NDCs and ensure the adequate mobilization of means of implementation. Negotiators must act with determination to deliver on the Global Goal on Adaptation, the Just Transition Work Programme, and the follow-up to the First Global Stocktake, alongside other key agenda items. 

Equally essential is the active engagement of non-Party stakeholders in the Global Climate Action Agenda, placing implementation at its core, with particular emphasis on executing the outcomes of the First Global Stocktake. To this end, the COP30 Action Agenda will be structured around thirty key objectives across six thematic axes—spanning energy transition, nature, food systems, resilience, human development, and finance—to accelerate Paris Agreement implementation, connect climate ambition with development opportunities and people’s aspirations, and drive transparency, monitoring, and accountability of both existing and new pledges and initiatives.

To ignite this transformative momentum, the COP30 Presidency has also launched the Mutirão—an initiative rooted in the spirit of community cooperation. Mutirão (or “Motirõ” in the Tupi-Guarani Indigenous language) symbolizes collective effort, whether in harvesting, building, or supporting one another. This initiative seeks to create a turning point in our global climate struggle by fostering a self-sustaining movement driving humanity’s transition to a sustainable future. Supported by a global framework designed to integrate and amplify local action, the Mutirão complements formal negotiations, the Action Agenda, and the Leaders’ Summit—reconnecting the climate fight with the realities faced by people everywhere.

Amid profound geopolitical, socioeconomic, and environmental challenges, it is vital that we strengthen multilateralism and the UNFCCC framework, bridge the divide between climate policies and everyday lives, and fast-track the implementation of the Paris Agreement through decisive action and systemic change. The obstacles to effective climate action are not primarily physical, technological, or legal—they are political. Overcoming these obstacles demands determination at home and sustained momentum abroad.

Brazil’s ambitious ecological transformation, exemplified by the Novo Brasil plan and the revitalization of successful policies to combat deforestation, demonstrates how domestic leadership can align sustainable development with climate goals, proving that economic growth and environmental stewardship can go hand in hand. The international momentum generated through the G20, BRICS+, the Amazon Summit, and now the Mutirão creates a unique opportunity for unity and resolve.

Decisions within the United Nations and the global community are shaped by domestic political dynamics, economic interests, and societal demands, alongside a strategic understanding of shifting global power and alliances. Building on the positive legacy of the UNFCCC, COP30 must become a defining moment—not only for this critical decade but for the remaining three-quarters of this century. We aspire for Belém to be remembered as the beginning of a global movement, heralding accelerated, enhanced, and exponential climate action through far deeper international cooperation within the multilateral climate framework.

1. Speech delivered at COP27
2.  International Energy Agency. World Energy Outlook 2024
3.  International Labour Organization,“The Just Ecological Transition: An ILO solution for creating 100 million jobs by 2030”, 24 May 2022.
4. Empresa de Planejamento Energético. Balanço Energético 2024. Summary Report
5. Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais. Terra Brasilis PRODES Database
6. Brazil’s second Nationally Determined Contribution, November 2024