Brazil continues to campaign for climate action and cooperation | D+C - Development + Cooperation

In the midst of a seriously disillusioned global climate debate, Brazil recently announced some positive news: deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon has hit its lowest level in over ten years. As delegates from around the world gathered for COP30 in Belém – where, ironically, rainforest was cleared to make way for infrastructure – the host country reported progress on protecting tropical rainforests.

Of course, this is still too little given the challenges the Amazon faces. In some cases, the Brazilian government is actually thwarting its own efforts – drilling for oil is soon to begin near the mouth of the Amazon River, for instance. All the same, the political will is there, and things are moving in the right direction – and that hasn’t always been the case. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has declared his goal of completely halting deforestation in Brazil by 2030. He took advantage of the stage offered by COP30 to mobilise international funding for a new “Tropical Forest Forever Facility” to make billions available to protect forests worldwide.

At the international level, Brazil is currently championing values that are being eroded elsewhere: climate action, multilateral cooperation, the rule of law. At the G20, the government urged for a global wealth tax of two percent to be levied on billionaires and pushed to accelerate international negotiations on the issue.