QUICK & PULSE

This edition of the fortnightly newsletter brings the behind-the-scenes of Block 59, reactions to the first letter from the president of COP30, and the record of accidents in oil projects in Brazil

The 2025 calendar in Brazil has only two events: Carnival and COP30. One has passed, and the other has started immediately. And the COP arrived, with press vehicles creating special sections, a letter from the presidency to the international community, and even the first (and late) environmental scandal surrounding the works to prepare Belém for the conference.

But the oil minds of the federal government have another fundamental date on their spreadsheets: June 18. As you will read in this edition of the newsletter, on that day, an authorization from the ministries of Mines and Energy and the Environment from 2020 expires, which allowed the government to put more than 300 oil and gas blocks across the entire country up for auction, 47 of them in the controversial Foz do Amazonas sedimentary basin. If this document expires, it will be necessary to request a new one from no one less than Marina Silva – and it is easier for Canada to accept annexation by the United States than for the Environment Minister to support such a document in a COP year.

The government's haste to license the first cow of this herd, the so-called Block 59, and the pressure on Ibama President Rodrigo Agostinho. It's hard to imagine a worse timing for this than on the eve of a climate conference in Brazil, with the whole world ready to point out the insoluble contradiction between Lula's desire to be the leader of the Global South who saved the planet and transforming Brazil into the fourth largest oil and gas producer.

While the leaflet dances and Agostinho wavers, at least the country has a date to celebrate: on the 25th, the STF will decide whether Jair Messias Bolsonaro and his trained lackeys will be made defendants for attempting a coup d'état and turning Brazil into a banana republic like the United States.

Authorization to auction 47 blocks in the mouth of the Amazon ends in June; Lula accused Ibama of “appearing against the government”

The knife at the throat of Ibama President Rodrigo Agostinho, for the drilling license in the Amazon Mouth Basin, originates from a document signed on June 18, 2020, at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, by then Ibama President Eduardo Bim, who self-identifies as a psychopath, and by then interim Director-General of the National Petroleum Agency (ANP), José Gutman. With a validity period of five years, the joint statement of the Ministry of Environment (MMA) and the Ministry of Mines and Energy (MME) for the permanent offer of blocks for the exploration and production of oil and natural gas expires one day after the date chosen by the Lula government to auction 47 blocks in the Amazon Mouth Basin and another 285 scattered throughout the country. The ANP auction is scheduled for June 17.

One of the objectives of the haste to approve the drilling in Block FZA-M-59, under review at Ibama, is not to spoil the auction of the other 47 blocks in the same basin. A month ago, President Lula criticized what he called "lenga-lenga" at Ibama, accusing the environmental agency of appearing to be "against the government." The pressure for the license increased after the swearing-in of the new Senate president, the Amapa native Davi Alcolumbre, at the beginning of February.

"Why all this noise about block FZA-M-59 off the coast of Amapá, if Petrobras is not even sure it will find oil there?", asked the coordinator of Public Policies at the Climate Observatory, Suely Araújo, in an article in the latest newsletter. "The pressure with outbreaks of harassment comes from the fact that the drilling license for this block will function as a kind of gateway at sea (hello, herd!) to facilitate the future licensing of other blocks in the same region, which is environmentally sensitive and with very strong currents, which potentiates accidents in drilling or in eventual production. These conditions lead to more careful attention from the environmental agency in the analysis of license applications. If the license is granted in a shout after this noisy campaign of discrediting Ibama, the future rejection of licenses under similar conditions will be very unlikely."

The government's assessment is that a request for renewal of the joint declaration would not have support from the technical area of the environmental ministry – this has already occurred at the beginning of the year for 14 blocks in another basin, the Potiguar. Therefore, each passing day is one day less. In addition to the final date of June 18 for the authorization of the auction, there are two intermediate stages, with deadlines until March 31 and May 12, for the submission of declarations of interest accompanied by guarantees of supply from companies, according to the schedule of the 5th Cycle of the Permanent Concession Offer released by ANP.

With the FZA-M-59 license in hand, interest in the other 47 blocks at the Foz would be boosted. Now, the pen is with Rodrigo Agostinho.

Corrêa do Lago promises a "turnaround" against warming in a letter

The president of COP30, André Corrêa do Lago, sent the first letter to the member countries of the Climate Convention on the last day of October, outlining Brazil's view of the Belém conference. In an 11-page letter full of poetic flourishes, football metaphors such as "winning from behind", quotes from philosophers, and references to levers (18) and support points (7), the ambassador recognized the climate emergency as something that is "on our doorstep", emphasized the importance of multilateralism, and called on countries to a "mutual effort" against the climate crisis. He sought to define COP30 as the first of the "post-negotiation" phase of the Paris Agreement, focusing on implementation. But he simply did not say anything about what Brazil intends to do to tackle the central cause of the crisis: fossil fuels. And this was not the only omission pointed out in the letter.

Petrobras is one of the 36 companies that emitted half of the world's CO2 in 2023

In 2023, 169 fossil fuel and cement-producing companies were responsible for the discharge of 3.39 billion tons of CO2 equivalent into the atmosphere — an increase of 0.7% compared to the previous year. The data is from Carbon Majors, a database that tracks the emissions of the group of 169 major oil companies. Together, they accounted for 78.4% of global emissions from fossil fuels and cement that year. The survey also showed that the top 36 companies on the ranking were responsible for nearly half of these global emissions. Among them is Petrobras, which ranks 21st, with 412 million tons of CO2e emitted in 2023.

The five most polluting state-owned companies, Saudi Aramco (Saudi Arabia), Coal India (India), CHN Energy (China), National Iranian Oil Co (Iran), and Jinneng Group (China), account for 17.4% of global CO₂ emissions from fossil fuel sources. The five major private companies — Exxon Mobil (USA), Chevron (USA), Shell (United Kingdom), Total (France), and BP (United Kingdom) — concentrate 4.9% of the total. Read the full report here.

Oil exploration and production accidents reach record in Brazil in 2024

Contrary to technical data, defenders of oil exploration in the mouth of the Amazon often use expressions like "zero accidents" and "total safety" to minimize the risks of the activity in the region – of extremely strong currents (three to five times faster than those in the Southeast, according to the technical opinion of Ibama) and intense precipitation. Last week, another dose of reality was added to the debate with the publication of the latest data from the Dynamic Incident Panel on Exploration and Production, of the National Agency of Petroleum, Natural Gas and Biofuels (ANP), which revealed a record of accidents.

The survey showed that in 2024, there were 731 maritime accidents and 360 land accidents in oil exploration and production activities in Brazil, the highest numbers in the historical series starting in 2011. In the previous year, the figure was 718 maritime accidents and 224 land accidents. The data also reveals an increase in the number of injured people, with 183 cases in 2024 (compared to 166 in 2023), including 72 severe injuries (compared to 67 severe injuries in 2023). Both years recorded one fatality. The recorded incidents also point to the discharge into the environment of 3,656 m3 (or 3 million and 656 thousand liters) of harmful or dangerous substances such as natural gas, water, synthetic fluids, and others, as a result of discharges, leaks, spills, leaks, and other accidents. In 2023, the total volume was 1,347 m3 (or 1 million and 347 thousand liters).

COP30 gained its first global scandal with a BBC report that revealed to the foreign public last Wednesday that the government of Para simply deforested 13 km of Amazon rainforest in an environmental protection area along the Guamá River to build a road. The so-called Avenue of Freedom, which connects the metropolitan area with the capital, has the declared purpose of facilitating access to Belém for delegates who will inevitably have to stay in the cities of Ananindeua and Marituba. It is the second COP project involving deforestation: the first was Marine Street, which involved the destruction of an urban park and even gained a video on the event's social media networks (any similarity with the Transamazonian is just a repetition of history as a farce). The Presidency's Communication Secretariat (Secom) rushed to clarify that the federal government had nothing to do with it and that the ugly child is Helder Barbalho's. As if Para were doing construction in secret and as if the federal government itself had not disclosed the destruction of the forest in Marine Street. On this Friday (14/3), after the BBC's repercussions, the video disappeared from the official COP30 and Secom profiles.

An investigation by Rubens Valente at Agência Pública showed that the so-called "preliminary draft" of the complementary law on mining in Indigenous Territories presented in February by STF Minister Gilmar Mendes reproduces excerpts from a 2018 proposal by the Temer government and the Law Project 191, authored by the Bolsonaro government and presented to Congress in 2020. The proposals were rejected by the Lula government in 2023, following opposition from indigenous organizations, indigenousists, and the Federal Public Ministry. The MPF pointed out that PL 191 contained unconstitutionality and "an incurable defect." Agência Pública identified literal transcriptions or adaptations in at least 20 of the 94 articles of the text. The project also incorporated articles from a 2016 Law Project, whose author, Telmário Mota, was arrested in 2023 on charges of ordering the murder of his ex-wife.

On the last Wednesday (March 12th), the latest round of Trumpist reversals seems to have taken the destruction of environmental and climate regulation in the United States to its peak – for now, of course. The head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Lee Zeldin, announced the repeal of 31 regulatory devices, including the recognition of the harmful role of greenhouse gases that cause global warming to public health and well-being. Adopted by the EPA in 2009 during the Obama administration, the scientific discovery about the threat posed by greenhouse gases is considered the main pillar of climate action in the country. According to the head of the EPA, the measures aim to ensure the "energy sovereignty" of the US.

In addition to the 2009 decision on the threat posed by greenhouse gas emissions, the EPA is targeting the control of air pollution caused by fossil fuel-powered power plants and the measure that limits vehicle emissions such as cars and trucks.

More: Last week, the agency announced the cancellation of subsidies totaling US$ 20 billion for the financing of clean energy projects and climate-friendly initiatives granted during the Biden administration. In the wake of the budget cuts, the Trump administration also targets civil society, criminalizing organizations that received the subsidies, now under investigation by the FBI. Last Thursday, Citibank revealed that it was instructed by intelligence services to freeze the accounts of organizations under suspicion of involvement in "possible criminal violations."

Birds were not left out: a memo from February 28th that weakens one of the oldest environmental laws in the US, aimed at protecting birds, has been made public. The measure is (even more) a favor to the fossil industry, as the law penalized companies for accidents that victimized animals during oil and gas exploration and production activities.

Sea ice records record melting in February

The coverage of sea ice on the planet reached a historic minimum in February, according to Copernicus, the European Union's climate change service. On February 5th, the extent of ice reached 16.20 million km², surpassing the previous negative record of February 2023 (16.27 million km²). In the following days, the extent decreased even further, reaching 16.04 million km² on February 7th. In the Arctic, where ice should be expanding in winter, the extent was 8% below the 1991-2020 average, the lowest level for the month since satellite monitoring began, 47 years ago. In the Antarctic, the average sea ice extent in February was 26% below the 1991-2020 average for the month. Sea ice plays an important role in climate regulation, reflecting part of the solar radiation back into space. With less ice, the planet absorbs more heat, accelerating global warming and intensifying climatic imbalances. Read more here.

"In" the forest or "at" the forest?

Everyone knows that COP30 will take place in the Amazon. Everyone knows that this represents an unprecedented opportunity for the region. But not everyone knows that the focus on the forest cannot obscure the main agenda – the gradual end of fossil fuel exploration. This is what Marcio Santilli, from the Instituto Socioambiental (ISA), writes about: "Humanity's capacity to consume fossil fuels is much greater than its capacity to kill living forests, although that is also tremendous." The use of fossil fuels represents, today, 80% of greenhouse gas emissions.

And what about civil society?

Says the saying that the fans, in football, count as the twelfth player on the field. It's also true in political decisions. Tatiana Oliveira, from WWF, writes that COP30 will only be successful if governments play together with civil society, which is already facing obstacles: "Civil society participation is limited by structural barriers. The first: geopolitical inequalities, which make it difficult for national demands to influence global discussions, weakening bottom-up pressure. The second: high costs, as evidenced by the extensive news coverage of the exorbitant hotel and apartment rates in Belém during the COP. And the third: the bureaucracy of accreditation, which excludes many organizations, especially those that work directly in the territories."

The World Cup is great. Collecting stickers for the World Cup is even better. But what about COP? Do we not also have our stars? Our team of galactics? We do, and the Climate Observatory has gathered several of these outstanding individuals in the Official Sticker Album of the COP Central, which is available in print, with real stickers, and online, on the Central's website. Chico Mendes, Greta Thunberg, Chief Raoni, Dorothy Stang, and dozens of other players are there, as well as, of course, the mascot of the Central, who will soon be introduced on the OC's social networks: the always wrong Petroleco. Come and see!