Sao Paulo, Brazil – In the far north of Brazil, where the Amazon River collides with the sea, an environmental dilemma has awakened a national political debate.
There, the Brazilian government has been researching the possibility of offshore oil reserves that extend from the eastern state of Rio Grande do Norte all the way to Amapá, close to the border with French Guiana.
That region is known as the Equatorial Margin, and it represents hundreds of kilometres of coastal water.
But critics argue it also represents the government’s conflicting goals under Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula Da Silva.
During his third term as president, Lula has positioned Brazil as a champion in the fight against climate change. But he has also signalled support for fossil fuel development in regions like the Equatorial Margin, as a means of paying for climate-change policy.
“We want the oil because it will still be around for a long time. We need to use it to fund our energy transition, which will require a lot of money,” Lula said in February.
But at the start of his term in 2023, he struck a different stance. “Our goal is zero deforestation in the Amazon, zero greenhouse gas emissions,” he told Brazil’s Congress.
As the South American country prepares to host the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP30) later this year, those contradictions have come under even greater scrutiny.
Nicole Oliveira is one of the environmental leaders fighting the prospect of drilling in the Equatorial Margin, including the area at the mouth of the Amazon River, known as Foz do Amazonas.
Her organisation, the Arayara Institute, filed a lawsuit to block an auction scheduled for this week to sell oil exploration rights in the Equatorial Margin. She doubts the government’s rationale that fossil-fuel extraction will finance cleaner energy.
“There is no indication of any real willingness [from the government] to pursue an energy transition,” Oliveira said.
“On the contrary, there is growing pressure on environmental agencies to issue licenses and open up new areas in the Foz do Amazonas and across the entire Equatorial Margin.”
Last Thursday, the federal prosecutor’s office also filed a lawsuit to delay the auction, calling for further environmental assessments and community consultations before the project proceeds.
But on Tuesday, the auction proceeded, with oil exploration rights in the region getting scooped up by consortiums that included Chevron, Exxon and the state-owned petrol company Petrobras.
A government reversal
The fate of the Equatorial Margin has exposed divisions even within Lula’s government.
In May 2023, the Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (IBAMA) — the government’s main environmental regulator — denied a request from Petrobras to conduct exploratory drilling at the mouth of the Amazon River.
In its decision, the IBAMA cited environmental risks and a lack of assessments, given the site’s “socio-environmental sensitivity”.
But Petrobras continued to push for a licence to drill in the region. The situation escalated in February this year when IBAMA again rejected Petrobras’s request.
Lula responded by criticising the agency for holding up the process. He argued that the proceeds from any drilling would help the country and bolster its economy.
“We need to start thinking about Brazil’s needs. Is this good or bad for Brazil? Is this good or bad for Brazil’s economy?” Lula told Radio Clube do Para in February.
On May 19, the director of IBAMA, a politician named Rodrigo Agostinho, ultimately overruled his agency’s decision and gave Petrobras the green light to initiate drilling tests in the region.
Petrobras applauded the reversal. In a statement this month to Al Jazeera, it said it had conducted “detailed environmental studies” to ensure the safety of the proposed oil exploration.
It added that its efforts were “fully in line with the principles of climate justice, biodiversity protection, and the social development of the communities where it operates”.
“Petrobras strictly follows all legal and technical requirements established by environmental authorities,” Petrobras wrote.
It also argued that petroleum will continue to be a vital energy source decades into the future, even with the transition to low-carbon alternatives.
Roberto Ardenghy, the president of the Brazilian Petroleum and Gas Institute (IBP), an advocacy group, is among those who believe that further oil exploitation is necessary for Brazil’s continued growth and prosperity.
“It is justified — even from an energy and food security standpoint — that Brazil continues to search for oil in all of these sedimentary basins,” he said.
Ardenghy added that neighbouring countries like Guyana are already profiting from “significant discoveries” near the Equatorial Margin.
“Everything suggests there is strong potential for major oil reservoirs in that region. The National Petroleum Agency estimates there could be around 30 billion barrels of oil there. That’s why we’re making such a major effort,” he said.
A ‘risk of accidents’
But critics have argued that the area where the Amazon River surges into the ocean comprises a delicate ecosystem, lush with mangroves and coral reefs.
There, the pink-bellied Guiana dolphin plies the salty waters alongside other aquatic mammals like sperm whales and manatees. Environmentalists fear exploratory drilling could further endanger these rare and threatened species.
Indigenous communities at the mouth of the river have also resisted Petrobras’s plans for oil exploration, citing the potential for damage to their ancestral fishing grounds.
In 2022, the Council of Chiefs of the Indigenous Peoples of Oiapoque (CCPIO) formally requested that the federal prosecutor’s office mediate a consultation process with Petrobras, which has not taken place to this date.
The federal prosecutor’s office, in announcing Thursday’s lawsuit, cited the risk to Indigenous peoples as part of its reasoning for seeking to delay the auction.
“The area is home to a vast number of traditional peoples and communities whose survival and way of life are directly tied to coastal ecosystems,” the office said.
However, in its statement to Al Jazeera, Petrobras maintains it had a “broad communication process” with local stakeholders. It added that its studies “did not identify any direct impact on traditional communities” resulting from the drilling.
But some experts nevertheless question the safety of oil exploration in the region, including Suely Araujo, who used to chair IBAMA from 2016 to 2018.
Now the public policy coordinator for the advocacy coalition Observatório do Clima, Araujo pointed to practical hurdles like the powerful waters that gush from the Amazon River into the ocean.
“The area is quite complex, with extremely strong currents. Petrobras has no previous exploration experience in a region with currents as strong as these,” Araujo said. “So it’s an area that increases the risk of accidents even during drilling.”
Still, she fears there is little political will within the Lula government to stop the oil exploration — and that awarding drilling licences could be a slippery slope.
“All the evidence is there for this licence to be approved soon,” she said, referring to the project planned near the river mouth.
“The problem is that if this licence gets approved — let’s say, the 47 new blocks in the Foz do Amazonas that are now up for auction — it will become very difficult for IBAMA to deny future licences, because it’s the same region.”
Oliveira, whose organisation is leading the legal fight against the exploration licences, echoed that sentiment. She said it is necessary to stop the drilling before it starts.
