(From L) Azerbaijan’s COP29 President Mukhtar Babayev, United Arab Emirates COP28 President Sultan al-Jaber, Britain’s King Charles III and COP30 consultant and Brazil’s Nationwide Secretary for Local weather Change Ana Toni pose for a photograph throughout an viewers with the United Nations Local weather Change Convention of the Events Presidencies Troika, at Clarence Home, in London on July 26, 2024. FILE PHOTO/Agence France-Presse
BAKU, Azerbaijan — Brazil is not going to “draw back” from championing a phaseout of fossil fuels as host of COP30 subsequent yr, even when it’s a main oil producer, the nation’s local weather envoy mentioned Wednesday.
Ana Toni advised AFP that Brazil wished to spur a worldwide “debate” about flip a promised fossil gas phasedown into motion, together with by means of potential taxes on coal, oil and gasoline.
“This needs to be a simply transition on stopping fossil fuels,” Toni, who’s Brazil’s nationwide secretary for local weather change, mentioned in an interview on the sidelines of the COP29 summit in Azerbaijan.
READ: Halfway into COP29, local weather motion woefully inadequate
“We’ll by no means draw back from these crucial discussions as a result of it’s in our personal pursuits.”
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COP30 would be the third consecutive yr the UN’s high local weather talks have been held in a rustic that plans to develop home manufacturing of fossil fuels.
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Brazil is the biggest oil producer in Latin America, and its COP30 comes after COP29 in Azerbaijan and final yr’s COP28 within the United Arab Emirates.
Some high-profile local weather leaders final week known as for COPs to not be held in international locations that don’t help phasing out their very own manufacturing of fossil fuels, the primary driver of worldwide warming.
READ: Brazil, France launch $1.1 billion program to guard Amazon rainforest
Toni, who has held senior advisory roles with Greenpeace and ActionAid, mentioned Brazil had at all times been a local weather champion and would hold “main by instance”.
“We had been the primary ones to say, allow us to cease deforestation. The identical we’ll do with fossil fuels,” mentioned Toni, who can also be heading Brazil’s delegation at COP29.
“However that settlement must be along with the opposite international locations, and Brazil will play a really, very robust function in pushing to get the opposite international locations to take action.”
Nothing to show
In a landmark second, practically 200 international locations agreed final yr at COP28 to transition away from fossil fuels.
However the burning of coal, oil and gasoline hit file highs in 2024 and efforts to advance the transition away from fossil fuels have hit political opposition at this yr’s COP.
Toni mentioned Brazil shared related “contradictions” to the US and Norway, each fossil gas producers who additionally advocate cuts to planet-heating emissions.
She mentioned Brazil, which plans to host the COP30 within the Amazonian metropolis of Belem, was pushing nations to think about tackle fossil gas use by means of taxes or ending subsidies.
Forward of COP30, all nations are imagined to submit up to date plans for slashing their emissions of greenhouse gases.
Final month, the UN mentioned present nationwide plans fell “miles brief” of what was wanted to keep away from extreme penalties of local weather change.
Forward of COP29, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s left-leaning authorities introduced it will minimize emissions extra dramatically than had been deliberate.
Local weather activists mentioned Brazil didn’t go far sufficient, however Toni mentioned it was probably the most bold plan of any growing nation.
“We don’t have something to show to anybody,” she mentioned.
Earlier than COP30, Toni first should assist break an deadlock at COP29, the place she has been appointed together with UK Vitality Secretary Ed Miliband to land a profitable financing deal by Friday when the summit is meant to conclude.
She mentioned failure to succeed in a deal on financing vitality transitions and variations for growing international locations may deflate international local weather motion proper as Brazil prepares to take the reins.
“That’s precisely what we don’t wish to occur. So the success of COP30 is dependent upon the success of COP29,” she mentioned.