Brazil okays oil drilling in sensitive Amazon area

Petrobras said Monday it had received a licence to drill for oil near the mouth of the Amazon River, enraging environmentalists who said the move would undermine Brazil's hosting of UN climate talks next month.

Plans to expand oil exploration in Brazil, already the world's eighth-largest producer, are backed by President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who insists oil revenues will help fund Brazil's climate transition.

Critics accuse him of a contradictory stance as he urges world leaders to step up in the fight against climate change ahead of COP30 talks in the Amazon city of Belem from November 10-21.


Petrobras was granted a licence to drill in the Foz de Amazonas region after a five-year battle for permission to explore the area. Brazil's environmental agency Ibama said it had given the go-ahead after "a rigorous environmental licensing process."

However, Brazil's Climate Observatory NGO said civil society organisations would go to court.

"The government is sabotaging the leadership it should have at COP30," Suely Araujo, a former president of Ibama and coordinator of the Climate Observatory NGO, said. "How can our diplomats advocate for the shift away from fossil fuels...when the country is intensifying fossil fuel exploration and production?"