Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has asked his government to draft by February guidelines for a national roadmap to transition away from fossil fuels, an idea he championed during COP30.
In a directive issued on Monday, the Brazilian leader requested the ministries of finance, energy and environment, together with the chief of staff’s office, to come up with a proposal for a roadmap to a “just and planned energy transition” that would lead to the “gradual reduction of the country’s dependence on fossil fuels”.
The order also calls for the creation of financial mechanisms to support a roadmap, including an “Energy Transition Fund” that would be financed with government revenues from oil and gas exploration.
The guidelines, due in 60 days, will be delivered “as a priority” to Brazil’s National Energy Policy Council, which will use them to craft an official fossil fuel transition roadmap.
At the COP30 climate summit in Brazil, President Lula and Environment Minister Marina Silva called on countries to agree a process leading to an international roadmap for the transition away from fossil fuels, after Silva argued earlier in June that “the worst possible thing would be for us to not plan for this transition”.
Yet, to the disappointment of more than 80 countries, the proposal for a global roadmap did not make it into the final Belém agreement as other nations that are heavily reliant on fossil fuel production resisted the idea. Draft compromise language that would have offered countries support to produce national roadmaps was axed.
Brazil seeks to set an example
Instead, Brazil’s COP30 president said he would work with governments and industry on a voluntary initiative to produce such a roadmap by next year’s UN climate summit, while a group of some 25 countries backed a conference to discuss a just transition away from coal, oil and gas that will be hosted by Colombia and the Netherlands in April 2026.
Experts at Observatório do Clima, a network of 130 Brazilian climate NGOs, welcomed Lula’s subsequent order for a national roadmap and said in a statement it sends signals abroad that Brazil is “doing its homework”.
“President Lula seems to be taking the roadmap proposal seriously,” said Cláudio Angelo, international policy coordinator at Observatório do Clima. “If Brazil – a developing country and the world’s eighth-largest oil producer – demonstrates that it is willing to practice what it preaches, it becomes harder for other countries to allege difficulties.”
The Amazon rainforest emerges as the new global oil frontier
Brazil is one of a number of countries planning a major expansion of oil and gas extraction in the coming decade, according to the Production Gap report put together by think-tanks and NGOs. Much of the exploration is set to take place offshore near the Amazon basin, which is poised to become a new frontier for fossil fuel development.
Significant funding needed
Natalie Unterstell, president of the Brazilian climate nonprofit Talanoa Institute and a member of Lula’s Council for Sustainable Social Economic Development, welcomed the national roadmap proposal in a post on LinkedIn, but emphasised it must tackle Brazil’s goal of becoming the world’s fourth largest oil producer by 2030.
Another key question is whether the Energy Transition Fund it envisages will be large enough to catalyse a real shift over to clean energy, she added. “Small and fragmented tools won’t move the dial,” she wrote.
Some Brazilian states have tested a model similar to the proposal for a national Energy Transition Fund. In the oil-producing state of Espirito Santo, for example, a percentage of the state government’s oil revenues go to a sovereign fund that invests in renewable energy, energy efficiency projects and substitution of fossil fuels with less polluting alternatives.
Colombia seeks to speed up a “just” fossil fuel phase-out with first global conference
Andreas Sieber, associate director for policy at campaign group 350.org, said a meaningful roadmap for Brazil would need to secure “adequate, fair and transparent financing to make the transition real on the ground”.
He also called for “a truly participatory process – involving scientists, civil society, workers whose livelihoods are at stake, and frontline and traditional communities whose rights must be upheld – while ensuring that those with vested fossil fuel interests do not shape the outcome”.
