Brazil to Consult Scientists and Industry on Fossil Fuel Phase-Out Roadmap

Amid diplomatic progress and domestic contradictions, Brazil is attempting to turn its proposal to gradually phase out fossil fuels into a global roadmap. Studies backing the roadmap presented at COP30 in Belém involve international agencies, scientists, and representatives from the fossil fuel industry.

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By Fabio Bispo

A roadmap still without a defined direction – and one that exposed the central contradictions and disputes of the climate crisis – began to take shape in Belém with the closing of the COP30 climate conference.

The COP30 Presidency’s initiative for the roadmap is expected to rely on technical studies involving scientists, international agencies, and representatives from the oil sector. Proposed by President Lula during the opening of the Leaders’ Summit, held prior to the conference, the “roadmap to end fossil fuels” dominated debates throughout the two weeks of the meeting and won the support of dozens of countries. Just weeks earlier, the Brazilian government authorized the drilling of oil wells off the Amazon coast.

With no mention of fossil fuels – whose burning is the main driver of global warming – in the negotiation texts, the proposal became one of the most talked-about topics at the COP. It shaped parallel meetings and diplomatic efforts, but faced strong resistance from oil-producing nations, led by Saudi Arabia, Russia, and India, which argued that the issue was not part of the official agenda.

In the middle of the second week, Lula returned to the Blue Zone, where negotiations take place, to try to forge a consensus. A preliminary version of the Mutirão document (the main political package of the Belém agreement) even mentioned the creation of a “voluntary roadmap” for the phase-out of fossil fuels within the Paris Agreement. With debates on financing and adaptation stalled, the so-called roadmap for the end of fossil fuels was the great political outcome expected from the meeting. But the proposal did not make it into the final text, which avoided any mention of fossil fuels.

A group of 29 countries – including Colombia, Chile, Panama, Germany, and Denmark – threatened not to sign the agreement without the inclusion of the roadmap, but eventually gave in.

“The score was something like 85 to 80, which we more or less identified, and as you know, it has to be 195 to 0,” said Ana Toni, CEO of COP30, citing an estimated score of the divergence on the topic among the countries at the convention.

Without an agreement among the 195 delegations, the Brazilian solution was to push the issue to an alternative path, announced by André Corrêa do Lago, the COP30 President, at the final plenary session on Saturday. Under his direct coordination, the presidency promised to deliver, by COP31 in Turkey, a technical document to support new discussions on the end of fossil fuels. The roadmap, however, is not binding on the UN Climate Convention and does not create obligations for the fulfillment of the Paris Agreement targets, serving only as a voluntary platform for dialogue between the countries that supported the initiative.

The first meeting of this group is scheduled for April 2026 in Colombia, during the first international conference dedicated to the transition away from fossil fuels.

At COP30, Colombia gained prominence by declaring its entire Amazon region an oil-free zone. On that occasion, it challenged other nations that are home to the world’s largest tropical rainforest to follow suit.

Division Exposed in the Final Plenary Session

The solution found by the presidency of COP30 sparked immediate reactions during the final plenary on Sunday.

Countries including Colombia, Panama, and Uruguay demanded that the mention of the “transition away from fossil fuels, in a fair, orderly, and equitable manner” be kept in the mitigation program.

The Colombian negotiator interrupted the session and declared: “This is the COP of truth, the COP of trust, and it cannot support a result that ignores science.” She reminded the assembly that “almost 75% of global CO2 emissions come from fossil fuels” and that “there is no mitigation if we cannot discuss the transition based on science and justice.”

In contrast, Saudi Arabia, Russia, India, and Nigeria reacted with irony and criticism to the Latin American pressure. The Russian representative accused the countries in the region of “behaving like children who want all the candy.” Nigeria stated that “the energy transition cannot be imposed” and must respect “national economic realities,” while India, on behalf of the BASIC group, a bloc of four recently industrialized countries (Brazil, South Africa, India, and China), rejected reopening the debate on fossil fuels.

As the debate was ongoing, the UK Secretary of State for Energy Security and Zero Emissions, Ed Miliband, left the plenary session and summarized the ambiguity of the outcome to journalists: “I would have preferred that the transition away from fossil fuels had been included in the text, but key countries objected. Even so, there are sufficient elements in this agreement for Brazil to launch this crucial roadmap. It is progress, albeit limited.”

The European Union, for its part, advocated for continued discussions on the energy transition, but agreed to support the text of the climate agreement presented at the plenary session, known as the Belém Package, without mentioning fossil fuels.

“Science clearly tells us that global emissions need to drop much faster. Europe is doing its part. We had hoped that Belém would give us a global response to accelerate ambition and action, and show how we will close the gap to 1.5°C. The package before us is, to some extent, a missed opportunity. Still, the EU will not oppose this package.”

Brazil’s Minister of the Environment and Climate Change Marina Silva was the main advocate for the Brazilian proposal from the outset. In her closing remarks, she evoked the Rio-92 Conference, which gave rise to the COPs, and stated that if she could go back in time, she would tell herself that “urgency should prevail over any other interest.”

“Although it has not yet been possible to reach a consensus for this call to be included in the decisions of this COP, the support it has received from many parties and from society strengthens the commitment of the current presidency to develop two roadmaps: one on halting and reversing deforestation and another on transitioning away from fossil fuels in a fair, orderly and equitable manner. Both will be science-driven and inclusive,” Silva said.

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Building the Roadmap

According to Corrêa do Lago, the roadmap will be developed based on studies already commissioned by the Ministry of the Environment to define pathways for energy transition. “The objective is to build a robust technical document, based on evidence and dialogue between energy-producing and energy-consuming countries,” he explained.

According to the diplomat, Brazil intends to involve scientists and the oil industry itself in the plan’s development, with support from institutions such as the International Energy Agency (IEA), the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), and even the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), which, according to him, “has a lot of research on the subject.”

“We want to gather as much intelligence as possible about fossil fuels and organize this information through meetings, seminars, and studies,” said Corrêa do Lago.

According to him, the roadmap’s development should be based on technical studies, including proposals already commissioned by the COP30 Presidency. InfoAmazonia has learned that one of these studies is the report Transition from Fossil Fuels in Energy Systems, prepared at the request of Brazil’s Ministry of the Environment and presented as input for the roadmap. The study was conducted by the consulting firm Catavento and supported by the Brazilian Institute of Petroleum, Gas and Biofuels (IBP), representing the oil sector, and the Climate and Society Institute (iCS). The second version, which also includes the coal sector, was delivered to the COP30 Presidency in August.

“We have already started this study, the minister [Marina Silva] had already requested it, and Ana [Toni] had commissioned it. We began this study with a piece of work that I think showed us that it would be possible for us to do this. And more than possible, it’s extremely interesting. Because the first piece of work we commissioned already showed us the world in a different way,” announced Corrêa do Lago.

The study analyzes the ability of 11 countries to adapt their energy matrices and groups them into three categories, defined according to the urgency and feasibility of transitioning away from fossil fuels. In this set, Brazil is classified as having a “moderate potential for adaptation,” behind Germany, China, Canada, and the United States. These are considered the leaders in phasing out fossil fuels due to their economic autonomy and greater capacity to finance technologies for internal transitions in their countries.

At the other end of the spectrum among the countries evaluated, India, Saudi Arabia, and Nigeria are in the group of “adapters”, which, according to the study, require more support to advance in the energy transition.

In practice, this means that Brazil, which is trying to lead the global debate on the end of fossil fuels, would continue exploring for oil for several more years. This solution mirrors the internal dilemma of the Lula government regarding exploration in the Amazon estuary and the pressure from foreign companies such as the American firms ExxonMobil and Chevron, the main winners of the last auction on the Brazilian Amazon coast.

According to the COP30 Presidency’s press office, the proposal is similar to the Baku to Belém Roadmap approved as a side measure to last year’s COP29 summit in Azerbaijan. The roadmap brought together the efforts of the two nations to ramp up climate finance to $1.3 trillion, the amount estimated to be needed by developing nations to combat the climate crisis. The roadmap was built on a series of studies, analyses, and research indicating how much nations need to combat climate change and promote the energy transition.

Bittersweet Outcome

The fossil roadmap proposed by Brazil survived politically, but left COP30 without normative strength.

According to Caio Victor Vieira, a Climate Policy Specialist at the Talanoa Institute, “COP ends with a bittersweet feeling.” Despite some progress in the debates on Just Transition, adaptation financing, and the revision of climate transparency mechanisms, he believes that the final text did not address the emergencies that require immediate responses.

Vieira pointed out that the Brazilian proposal, even if parallel, sends an important message about the situation of the member nations of the UN Climate Convention. He remains skeptical about the results of the measure adopted. “[The roadmap] opens up institutional processes that could end global problems once and for all, but it is still a very fragile sign that this will be done; it postpones this deadlock, which could be resolved here in Belém, to a process that will take at least a year. While it is historic, it is also a dilution over time that we can no longer afford,” he said.

According to Greenpeace, the outcome fell short of what was needed. “The Presidency’s decision to create two roadmaps – one for zero deforestation and one for ending fossil fuels – feels like a consolation prize. Of course, this will allow the work to continue next year and ensure that the momentum created in Belém is not lost. But it is not the progress we expected, and that the world desperately needs,” said Carolina Pasquali, Executive Director of Greenpeace Brazil.

More on the topic: Reactions Pour in After Weak COP30 Agreement

Uncertain Future

When questions by InfoAmazonia on when Brazil would announce the end of fossil fuels, Minister Silva said that “President Lula himself has said that he is convinced we need to create roadmaps.”

“If you make the roadmap, it’s the studies – which are a very complex process that will determine the timelines. If you state it a priori, you are disregarding that something of this nature and complexity can only be done based on data and evidence,” Silva added.

On November 17, the National Agency of Petroleum, Natural Gas and Biofuels (ANP) approved the inclusion of 275 new exploratory blocks for oil and gas exploration in the Permanent Concession Offer notice, including areas for exploration in the Amazon and other regions of the country.

So far, Brazil has not set a date to end its own exploration of fossil fuels.

Featured image: UN Climate Change/Zô Guimarães via Flickr.

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This story was originally produced by InfoAmazonia through the Socio-environmental Collaborative Coverage of COP30, and published with edits by Earth.Org. Read the original story here.