Brazil’s decision to greenlight oil drilling near the mouth of the Amazon River has ignited a fierce national and international debate, drawing sharp criticism from environmental groups just as the country prepares to host the COP30 climate summit. The move, approved on October 20, 2025, by Brazil’s environmental agency IBAMA, grants state-run oil giant Petrobras the right to drill an exploratory well in the Foz do Amazonas Basin—an area believed to be rich in untapped oil and gas reserves.
The license specifically allows Petrobras to begin drilling the Morpho well in oil block FZA-M-059, situated about 500 kilometers (311 miles) from the river’s mouth and more than 2.8 kilometers (1.7 miles) beneath the seafloor. According to DW, this marks the culmination of a protracted five-year battle, during which IBAMA had previously denied a similar application in 2023 due to insufficient plans to safeguard wildlife in the event of an oil spill. Petrobras claims to have since addressed those concerns, leading to the rigorous environmental licensing process that ultimately resulted in approval.
Petrobras president Magda Chambriard welcomed the decision, stating, “We expect to obtain excellent results from this exploration and to confirm the existence of oil in the Brazilian portion of this new global energy frontier.” She emphasized that the license’s approval reflects Brazil’s commitment to national development. The company has indicated that drilling will begin immediately and is expected to last for five months, a period that will overlap with the COP30 climate summit set to start on November 4, 2025, in Belém, deep in the Amazon itself (Mongabay).
Yet, the timing and location of the drilling have drawn particular ire from environmental activists, who see the move as a contradiction of Brazil’s public climate commitments. Suely Araújo, public policy coordinator at the Climate Observatory and former IBAMA head, did not mince words. “Lula has just buried his claim of being a climate leader at the bottom of the ocean at the mouth of the Amazon River,” Araújo declared, referencing President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. She added, “The government will be duly sued for this in the coming days.” Araújo further described the issuance of the license as “a double sabotage,” arguing, “On the one hand, the Brazilian government acts against humanity by stimulating further fossil expansion, contradicting science and betting on more global warming. On the other hand, it hinders COP30 itself, whose most important delivery needs to be the implementation of the determination to phase out fossil fuels” (Climate Home News).
Environmental organizations such as Observatório do Clima have announced plans to challenge the license in court, citing what they allege are technical failures and illegalities in the process. The network has also labeled the move as “sabotage” of COP30, a summit whose stated goal is the gradual elimination of fossil fuels. Bruna Campos, senior offshore oil and gas campaigner at the Center for International Environmental Law, echoed these concerns, saying, “Drilling for oil while hosting a climate summit hosts a bitter irony. Oil exploration at the mouth of the Amazon threatens the Atlantic Ocean, which sustains marine biodiversity and millions of livelihoods” (Mongabay).
At the heart of the environmentalists’ alarm are the unique ecological risks posed by the project. The drilling site sits near the recently discovered Amazon Reef, a 9,500-square-kilometer (3,700-square-mile) system of corals, sponges, and algae. An earlier IBAMA evaluation warned that oil exploration in the region could damage this fragile ecosystem and other high-biodiversity areas. “The Amazon is very close to the point of no return, which will be irreversibly reached if global warming hits 2°C [3.6°F] and deforestation surpasses 20%,” warned Carlos Nobre, co-chair of the Scientific Panel for the Amazon. “There is no justification for any new oil exploration.”
Further complicating matters, a recent satellite study highlighted by Mongabay found that offshore oil platforms are among the top ocean polluters, often escaping detection due to the difficulty of tracking spills and other impacts. The complex ocean currents in the FZA-M-059 block raise the specter of an oil spill affecting up to eight countries, as noted by Philip Fearnside, a senior researcher at the National Institute for Amazonian Research (INPA).
Despite these warnings, government officials have defended the decision as a necessary step for Brazil’s energy future. Alexandre Silveira, Brazil’s Minister of Mines and Energy, asserted that oil in the Equatorial Margin region “represents the future of our energy sovereignty.” He insisted that the exploitation would be conducted “with full environmental responsibility, within the highest international standards, and with concrete benefits for Brazilians.” The ministry has touted the potential for the project to create over 300,000 direct and indirect jobs, strengthen the local economy, and boost royalty revenues. Silveira also claimed, “Brazil’s oil is one of the most sustainable in the world, with one of the smallest carbon footprints per barrel produced,” comparing it favorably to oil from Canada, the UK, and Russia (Climate Home News).
President Lula, meanwhile, has positioned oil exploration as a means to finance Brazil’s transition to clean energy. “I dream of a day when we no longer need fossil fuels, but that day is still far away. Humanity will depend on them for a long time,” he remarked in a speech earlier this year in Pará, the state hosting COP30. However, this pragmatic stance has been met with skepticism from environmental campaigners. Clara Junger, campaign coordinator for Brazil at the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative, countered, “This decision undermines commitments to the energy transition and puts communities, ecosystems, and the planet at risk. Contrary to official claims, oil revenues contribute almost nothing to the transition – only 0.06%.”
The controversy has unfolded against a global backdrop of increasing pressure to phase out fossil fuels. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) recently warned that granting fossil fuel exploration licenses could constitute “an internationally wrongful act,” while the International Energy Agency has stated that no new fossil fuel projects are needed if the world is to meet net-zero emissions by 2050. At COP28 in Dubai, countries agreed to “transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems,” and Brazil’s own environment minister, Marina Silva, has floated the idea of a COP30 roadmap to guide a “planned and just transition.”
Meanwhile, financial institutions are coming under scrutiny for their role in funding Amazon oil and gas projects. According to new data from the Banks vs. the Amazon scorecard, Brazilian and international banks have provided an additional $2 billion in direct financing for such projects since the start of 2024, including to Petrobras. Stand.earth, a green group, called on banks to implement exclusion policies to protect Indigenous communities and “help avert Amazon’s imminent tipping point.”
As the world’s eyes turn to Belém for COP30, Brazil faces a stark choice between exploiting its fossil fuel reserves and assuming a leadership role in the fight against climate change. The outcome of the legal challenges and the tone set at the summit will likely shape the country’s environmental legacy for years to come.
