Climate justice activists and Indigenous representatives staged a protest on Tuesday, June 17, 2025, inside the UN climate talks in Bonn, where Brazil’s COP30 presidency is seeking to position the country as a global climate leader.

As Brazilian negotiators promoted their vision for climate action in the conference, large banners were opened inside the conference venue reading “No More Fossil Fuels,” “Climate Leadership Is Not Made of Oil,” and “Our Future Is Not Up For Sale”.

The protest comes in direct response to a major contradiction playing out in real time as the Brazilian government (through the National Petroleum Agency (ANP) is conducting the 5th Cycle of the Permanent Offer of Concessions, a remarkable oil and gas auction that includes blocks in the Equatorial Margin, one of the most sensitive and biodiverse regions of the Amazon.

Ilan Zugman, 350.org Latin America and Caribbean director, says: “While the Brazilian COP30 presidency speaks of a global mutirão for climate action – a word with indigenous origins that means collective effort rooted in solidarity, community-driven transformation, and collaboration – this oil and gas auction tells another story. Expanding fossil fuels in the Amazon not only undermines the spirit of the mutirão, but it also betrays it.

“This isn’t just about emissions, it’s about injustice. By auctioning off the forest and the Amazon coast to oil companies, the government is violating the rights of Indigenous peoples, endangering traditional communities, and lighting the fuse of the very destruction it claims to prevent. We must see a plan for the just energy transition without fossil fuels – You can’t lead on climate while fueling the crisis.”

Luene Karipuna, spokesperson for the Coordination of Indigenous Organisations of the Brazilian Amazon (COIAB) and executive coordinator of the Articulation of Indigenous Peoples and Organisations of Amapá and Northern Pará, says: “Talking about the climate crisis is talking about the lives of Indigenous peoples, who are already feeling its impacts. International agreements are important, but they must translate into concrete actions within countries. Science is clear: fossil fuels are the main drivers of the crisis. We need a just energy transition built through dialogue and respect for Indigenous peoples, unlike Belo Monte dam, in Brazil, which only brought destruction. President Lula must declare the Amazon a fossil-free zone and guarantee our right to life, with direct funding to Indigenous organizations in order to address the impacts we’re already facing in our territories.”

Cacique (chief) Ninawá Huni Kui says: “Brazil is preparing to host COP30 in Belém, in the heart of the Amazon, while approving new oil and gas auctions. This is not an energy transition, it’s an energy contradiction. It’s incompatible to celebrate climate commitments with one hand while signing off on the expansion of the fossil frontier with the other. It’s even more serious when this expansion directly threatens Indigenous territories. Indigenous peoples are not just defending the forest – we are part of the forest. Attacking our bodies and our lands is attacking what still sustains the planet’s climate balance.

“There is no climate justice without historical justice. There is no future with new oil. And there is no coherence in hosting a COP while deepening the extractivist model that brought us to this crisis. Brazil can be part of the solution, but that requires political courage to say no to fossil auctions and yes to the permanent protection of all biomes and their peoples. We are here to remind the world: the COP cannot be a stage for climate marketing. It must be a turning point. And the turning point begins now.”

Clara Junger, Brazil Campaigns Coordinator at the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative, says: “Expanding oil and gas exploration while positioning Brazil as a climate leader is a glaring contradiction. The ANP’s auction of 172 blocks on June 17 undermines the country’s climate commitments, especially as it prepares to host COP30. Pushing for 47 new blocks in the Amazon River Basin not only threatens Indigenous and traditional communities but also the global climate. With just 0.06% of oil revenues allocated to the energy transition, it’s clear where the priorities lie. The world urgently needs a global agreement to phase out fossil fuels equitably, and at the very least, we must halt this reckless expansion.”

Romain Ioualalen, Global Policy lead at Oil Change International, says: “At COP28, governments committed to an equitable transition away from fossil fuels – an agreement largely being ignored by rich countries. Not only are Global North countries continuing to open new oil and gas fields, but just a handful of them are planning to massively expand oil and gas production in the next decade. While fossil fuel phaseout timelines for countries like Brazil should not be the same for rich Global North producing countries, the COP30 host is acting in fierce contradiction to the 1.5°C survival limit.

“Brazil, both as COP30 host and aspiring Global South climate champion, cannot hide behind other countries to justify its own expansion plans. As this year’s UN climate talks host, Brazil should be seizing the opportunity to enable conditions for the Global South to transition away from fossil fuels while ensuring prosperity and development – not locking themselves into destructive oil and gas expansion for decades to come.” 

Claudio Angelo, International Policy Coordinator at Observatório do Clima, says: “The Brazilian government needs to stop sabotaging the COP30 presidency. Here in Bonn, Brazilian diplomats are working hard to bring countries together to solve the greatest collective challenge of humanity, but in Brasília the order remains ‘drill, baby, drill.’ President Lula must understand that his true legacy won’t be a bunch of oil wells, but the ability to use Brazil’s influence in the only global agenda the country is truly capable of leading – the environmental one.”

Patrícia Suarez, spokesperson for the National Organisation of Indigenous Peoples of the Colombian Amazon (OPIAC), says: “Amazonian Indigenous territories have contributed for years to regulating the global climate and are fundamental to preventing climate collapse. The Amazon cannot remain at the mercy of changing governments. We welcome the current decision by the Colombian government not to expand oil concessions in the Amazon, but we demand that this becomes an irreversible policy to protect life and our territories.”

Similarly, Climate Action Network Latin America (CANLA), representing over 70 organisations across the region, has condemned the Brazilian government’s willingness to auction oil blocks in the Amazon – a move the group says endangers climate stability, biodiversity, and Brazil’s credibility as the host of COP30.

On Tuesday, June 17, 2025, Brazil is putting up 172 new oil blocks for auction, 68 of them in the Amazon, a move observers say directly contradicts the country’s climate commitments and threatens irreversible harm to fragile ecosystems like the Amazon Reef, as well as to the livelihoods of coastal and forest-dependent communities.

“This is not climate leadership. You cannot call for a global mutirão – a collective climate effort – while igniting a carbon bomb with the potential to release 11 billion tons of CO₂. That’s more than twice Brazil’s total emissions in 2023.

“We believe that Brazil has long been a key player in global climate diplomacy. But at a time when the world is looking to Brazil for leadership at COP30, this decision undermines trust, contradicts its Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), and puts decades of environmental credibility at risk.

“We urge President Lula and his government to immediately cancel oil exploration plans in the Amazon and to uphold the principles of environmental justice, long-term development strategies, democratic accountability, and planetary responsibility.

“Let Brazil lead not through rhetoric, but through action and coherence. Let the Amazon stand not as a new frontier for fossil fuels, but as a living symbol of a just, oil-free, and biodiversity-rich future. We believe you might agree with us that a liveable future needs concrete plan to leave fossil fuels in the ground.

“Let COP30 mark the turning point,” demanded CANLA.

Caio Victor Vieira, Climate Policy Specialist at the Talanoa Institute, says: “Opening an oil extraction frontier in the same Amazon where Brazil proudly claims to host a COP is politically incoherent, humanly disrespectful and damaging to the country’s credibility. The Brazilian Presidency must be part of the same collective effort it calls on the world to join and transition away from fossil fuels in an orderly, just, and gradual manner, starting now.”

Anna Cárcamo, Climate Change Politics Specialist at Greenpeace Brazil, says: “This auction is completely contrary to the COP28 decision to transition away from fossil fuels. The climate crisis requires us to accelerate the decarbonisation process, not prolong it. Every additional drop of oil also increases the impact of extreme weather events, which may affect us all tomorrow, but always disproportionately harm the most vulnerable populations in the affected regions. Every drop entails enormous losses for the near future.” Anna Cárcamo, Climate Change Politics Specialist at Greenpeace Brazil.”

Karla Maass Wolfenson, Advocacy and Campaigns Advisor, Climate Action Network Latinamerica, says: “Opening oil blocks at the mouth of the Amazon is like detonating a bomb at the heart of global trust – precisely when multilateralism is in jeopardy. There is no time for inconsistencies or political calculations when life and the protection of the natural world we all depend on are at stake. There’s no need to recall the science or voices of Indigenous peoples and local communities, as this decision has simply chosen to ignore them. From the possible future we, as people and organisations, strive to build, these actions are not only condemnable but unacceptable.”