Brazil: Lago Drives Toward Fossil Fuel Roadmap

What happened: COP30 President Andre Lago reluctantly withdrew language to phase out fossil fuels from Belem’s final document.

Why it matters: Over 80 national government delegations showed support for President Lula’s efforts to strike a deal on a phaseout, but large hydrocarbon producer nations — including Russia and Saudi Arabia — dragged out negotiations to force Lago to retreat.

What happened: Lago pledged to continue brokering between international coalitions, searching for a consensus roadmap before next year’s COP31 in Turkey.

On 22 November, COP30 ended with a whimper in Belem: no detailed agreement on phasing out fossil fuels.

Earlier in the month, President Lula presided over the Climate Summit, a gathering of world leaders to set the stage for the COP proceedings. At the event, he pledged to negotiate a roadmap to phase out fossil fuels, winning the support of many EU leaders and civil society along with the governments of Germany, Kenya and the UK.

However, COP30 President Andre Lago (see Featured Personality), one of Brazil’s most experienced climate action negotiators, could not bridge the gap between the administration’s aspirations and the push back against any phaseout plan handed out by hydrocarbon producer-nations committed to avoiding any detailed plan to phase out coal, crude or gas. The concerted effort to ditch the roadmap forced Lago to retract any related language from the final document to ensure consensus ratification to wrap up the global gathering.

Notably, he worked into the early morning hours on the final day to strike a deal but had to cut his losses and focus on the final draft’s language with an eye on financing emissions mitigation and adaptation projects. In the end, 195 countries approved the final document; Lago and his team called it a victory but also warned that it would take time to explain the implications.

Most importantly, the COP30 president pledged to continue working on Brazil’s second priority after the forest conservation fund — a fossil fuel phaseout plan. Lula wanted to close the COP30 with this, an objective that had stirred up controversies in the two previous COPs held in Baku and Dubai.

Working toward inserting the phaseout plans into the final document, Lula and Lago counted on overwhelming support from international civil society, which focused much of its attention in Belem on the fossil fuel question. Nevertheless, the administration and civil society failed to convince hydrocarbon producer delegations to bite on a deal.

Delegations from Colombia, Panama and the EU complained about Lago’s decision to pull the roadmap language from the final document, as well as strict language on forest preservation. He had worked to bridge international coalitions favoring both, identifying 82 delegations but falling short of a consensus across UN member states. In response, Lago pledged to drive toward a deal in the coming months; he continues to exercise his leadership over the COP proceedings until next year’s COP31 in Antalya, Turkey.

In our view, Lula and Lago did not expect to achieve a groundbreaking agreement on the phaseout in Belem; they did, however, test the waters, probing delegations from Saudi Arabia and the UAE to identify possible cornerstones for a future agreement.

As Lula pivots to the presidential election next year, we believe Lago and his colleagues in the Foreign Affairs Ministry (Itamaraty) will methodically plot out their own diplomatic roadmap for reaching a deal with the world’s largest hydrocarbon-producing nations. To achieve this goal, Lago will need to convince the COP31’s co-presidents, Turkey and Australia, to get on board — no easy task.

Banner image reproduced under CC4.0 (Credit).