Earth cannot ‘sustain’ intensive fossil fuel use, Lula tells COP30

AFP/APP

Belém: Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Friday said the Earth can no longer sustain humanity’s dependence on fossil fuels, warning that without confronting this reality, the battle against climate change will be lost.

The leftist leader was addressing a pre-COP30 summit in the Brazilian Amazon, where other heads of state and government urged nations to begin transitioning away from coal, oil and gas — the main sources of planet-heating emissions.

Evidence of dangerous global warming has never been clearer: the decade since the 2015 Paris Agreement has been the hottest on record, marked by intensifying hurricanes, heatwaves and wildfires.

Lula said that addressing the future of energy would determine the “success or failure in the battle against climate change.”

“Earth can no longer sustain the development model based on the intensive use of fossil fuels that has prevailed over the past 200 years,” Lula told world leaders in Belém, where the UN climate talks are taking place.

Brazil has emphasized that each country will pursue its own course to “transition away from fossil fuels” — a pact agreed upon by all nations at a previous COP summit in Dubai in 2023.

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Lula’s remarks came just weeks after his government approved new oil exploration in the Amazon region.

However, Joao Paulo Capobianco, Executive Secretary of Brazil’s Ministry of Environment, told AFP that “Brazil hopes that this issue of phasing out the use of fossil fuels will effectively be on the agenda,” adding that, “If we truly want to enforce this Dubai decision, we have to build the roadmap.”

Rwanda’s Environment Minister Bernadette Arakwiye told delegates they faced a stark choice:

“We can continue with incremental progress while the planet burns, or we can rise to meet the scale of this crisis,” she said.

Luxury flight tax

The absence of leaders from the world’s biggest polluters — including the United States, where President Donald Trump has dismissed climate science as a “con job” — cast a shadow over the talks, but also spurred calls for greater mobilization.

France, Spain, and Kenya are among countries spearheading a proposal at COP30 for a new tax on luxury air travel, based on the principle that the small elite of premium flyers should pay more for their disproportionate contribution to global warming.

“It is only fair that those who have more and pollute more should pay their fair share,” Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez told the summit.

A source told AFP that the coalition aims to expand participation, “particularly among more European states.”

The proposal is expected to face resistance from the aviation sector, which accounts for about 2.5 percent of global carbon emissions.

Roadmap support

Lula lamented the “pressure and threats” that led the International Maritime Organization (IMO) to delay a plan to curb shipping emissions, stressing the need to develop alternative fuels for transport and industry, including ethanol.

He also noted that the latest round of talks to draft a global treaty on plastic pollution — a byproduct of oil and gas production — collapsed in August.

Even so, Brazil has won international support for a new fund to protect the world’s forests, securing over $5 billion in pledges to reward tropical countries for halting deforestation.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said on Friday that his country would “make a significant contribution to this initiative,” without disclosing an amount.

Despite some progress, the world remains off track to limit global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels — the Paris Agreement’s key target to avert the worst impacts of climate change.

UN Climate Chief Simon Stiell, however, emphasized that global cooperation since the Paris Agreement has delivered results.

“Without that act of collective courage, we would still be heading for an impossible future of unchecked heating, of up to five degrees,” he said. “Because of it, the curve has bent below 3°C — still perilous, but proof that climate cooperation works.”