💰 The funding paradox

2025 was a year for Brazil’s federal government, led by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, to show off its green credentials. Despite contradictions related to fossil-fuel exploration and a lack of sufficient pushback to Congress’s broad loosening of environmental licensing rules, the administration achieved a passing grade, scoring solid reductions in deforestation and emissions and successfully portraying itself as an environmental “superpower” through its hosting of COP30.

With climate issues no longer commanding the same political urgency in 2026, as elections and foreign policy dominated the agenda, the fear was that the government’s green discourse at COP30 would remain largely on paper.

However, at least on the climate funding side, there has been a substantial improvement…

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