Lula’s win gives Brazil an opportunity to cement its climate leadership, but challenges remain

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva winning his fourth term as Brazil’s President has also interrupted a series of right-wing electoral wins in Latin America. That said, Brazil and Mexico are now the sole left-wing governments among the region’s largest economies. And while it would be reductive to believe the left is more welcoming of climate action and the right is more disdainful, Mr. Lula also faces significant challenges in his role on the issue both in Brazil and beyond.

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His foremost opportunity will be to have Brazil cement its mantle of leadership. Brazil is somewhat unique: it is Latin America’s largest economy, the world’s fifth-largest by area, host to most of the Amazon and, crucially, has diplomatic relationships with the European Union, the U.S., China, the BRICS countries, and many other developing economies — potentially allowing Mr. Lula to negotiate across the divides that currently frustrate climate agreements. In fact, China has made tariffs on clean energy technologies a priority for the COP31 summit, set to commence in under a fortnight in Türkiye, with Beijing arguing against protectionist trade measures while the EU and the U.S. have raised concerns about dependence on Chinese manufacturers.

On the regional level, Brazil straddles several problems, including deforestation in the Amazon, illegal mining, forest fires, and a degrading river basin, that demand region-wide cooperation, including the representation of Indigenous groups. Mr. Lula revived such cooperation to a commendable degree through the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organisation (ACTO), by hosting the Belém summit in 2023, and by making further commitments at the Bogotá summit in 2025.

However, the optimism Mr. Lula warrants is tempered by the Belém Declaration in 2023 failing to establish a binding collective deadline to end deforestation in the Amazon rainforest and to prohibit the development of new oil projects in the region. Both the dependence of the Amazonian countries on agriculture, petroleum, and mining and the powers and resources available to their regulators are markedly different, and political changes are not conducive to sustaining regional cooperation.

Mr. Lula’s fourth term could thus keep ACTO going, especially on cross-border enforcement and in preserving a forum for governments to negotiate on conflicting political priorities. But given the divergent economic incentives and weak national institutions, lasting change means ACTO also developing common monitoring and financing arrangements.

On a more global level, Brazil has come to play a major role in climate negotiations because of its simultaneous status as a major oil producer and, especially under Lula, a strong advocate of international climate cooperation.

In fact, the day after Mr. Lula’s election win, the Netherlands announced that it intends to contribute up to $500 million over a decade, on certain conditions, to Brazil’s ‘Tropical Forest Forever Facility’ (TFFF). The pledge brings the sum of commitments announced thus far to $7.8 billion, against the target of $10 billion by the end of 2026. Lula’s continuing government will help establish the TFFF in its formative years and steady its hand as a potentially new international financial institution.

In the same spirit, Colombia and the Netherlands convened the first international conference dedicated to transitioning away from fossil fuels in April. Fifty-seven countries, including Brazil, participated to develop proposals for financial cooperation, among other matters, and planned for a second meeting in 2027.

As well, at the COP30 climate talks that Brazil presided over last year, Mr. Lula supported proposals to develop an international roadmap to transition away from fossil fuels, drawing support from more than 80 countries, but the summit could not see through due to opposition from Russia and Saudi Arabia, among others. The April conference has thus emerged as a parallel mechanism to effect action.

Yet another avenue in the same vein is the EU-Mercosur relationship. The EU and the South American trade bloc signed their interim trade and partnership agreements in January. The latter’s ratification will be significant because they require governments to comply with the Paris Agreement — and could allow Mr. Lula’s climate diplomacy to work through UN negotiations as well as trade and investment relationships to create longer-lasting economic commitments. On the flip side, it may also create greater incentives to convert forestland for other use, so Lula and his peers will have to institute more effective protections.

All this said, while preserving cooperation is essential to effective climate action, it will amount to little if it does not also cut emissions. In fact, continuity in international climate diplomacy could prevent regression without also yielding the acceleration required to meet climate goals. The UN Environment Programme has already found that even if all countries deliver on their pledges vis-à-vis the Paris Agreement, the world is on course to warming by 2.6°C by the end of the century.

Brazil’s incoming conservative Congress is also likely to constrain the Lula government’s ability to sustain expenditure — even if his term provides continuity through 2030, an important year that numerous climate-related commitments use as a deadline or milestone year. That Mr. Lula’s win is a record also raises the prospect of policy whiplash, especially against programmes that depend on his personal political authority, when his last term ends.