(Nov 12): Brazil President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva flexed his country’s green credentials last week when he had world leaders escorted to this year’s climate summit, hosted in the Amazonian city of Belém, by a fleet of custom-made electric vehicles.
But his entreaty as host of COP30 to “end dependence on fossil fuel” jarred with his simultaneous call to fund Brazil’s energy transition through the continued expansion of its oil industry.
China is deeply entwined in Brazil's attempts to do both at the same time. It was China's automakers that provided Lula with the squadron of sleek electric cars and China's state-owned oil company that won a sizable share of the exploration rights to the Amazonian oil.
Brazil and China have jointly championed climate action in recent years as part of a move to reduce their own climate vulnerability and raise their international profiles. With US President Donald Trump withdrawing from global cooperation and the world seeking new sources of leadership, their moment has come. Yet the two countries offer a different tone — emphasising the Global South’s right to develop and putting the onus on richer nations to achieve tougher emissions cuts.
The two nations’ continued development of oil “will affect their leadership” in COP30 negotiations to phase out fossil fuels, said Li Shuo, the director of China Climate Hub at the Asia Society Policy Institute. Their oil ties are only one entry in a mixed climate record that is bound to complicate talks in Belém.
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“The Brazil–China relationship is one to watch at COP30,” Li said. “In Belém, it is no exaggeration to say that if this pair chooses to steer the deal in a particular direction, the rest of the room will follow.”
For those seeking to make sense of China and Brazil’s complex approach to climate action and what it means for COP30 and beyond, here’s what you need to know.
China helped make Brazil a clean-energy king
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At the top of the two countries’ shared achievements is Brazil’s clean-energy buildout. Brazil stands out in the G20 as the country with by far the greenest grid. As recently as 2023, 89% of its electricity came from renewable energy, with Chinese investment and technology playing a meaningful role in that green success story.
Brazil was home to the most power capacity financed by Beijing as of 2022, the latest year that data was analysed by Boston University’s Global Development Policy Center. For the most part, that investment has involved Chinese state-owned enterprises backing Brazil’s hydropower dams. More recently, Chinese companies have expanded their investment into solar and wind projects in the Latin American nation, signing deals worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
“Green energy in Brazil is being driven in no small part by Chinese direct investors,” said Rebecca Ray, a senior academic researcher at the Global Development Policy Center.
Brazil’s installed solar capacity grew more than sixfold from 2020 to 2024 and Chinese solar panel imports accounted for the lion’s share of that boom, almost 100% in 2024, according to analysts at BloombergNEF. And when it comes to connecting all of these new energy sources, the State Grid Corporation of China has been all over the Brazilian map, installing conventional and ultrahigh voltage transmission lines.
The latest major development in the two countries’ clean-energy partnership is the opening of BYD Co.’s new electric-vehicle factory in Bahia. The Chinese carmaker now dominates the Brazilian market, accounting for 86% of EV sales last year.
There has been friction along the way, with Brazil’s imposition of tariffs to help increase domestic clean-energy manufacturing and labour issues at the BYD factory. But the speed and scale of Brazil’s green transition to date wouldn’t have been possible without the investment and imports it has received from China.
China also quietly became Brazil’s oil buddy
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And then there is China’s deepening oil partnership with Brazil. So far this year, China ranks as the leading buyer of Brazil’s crude oil, accounting for almost 45% of its total oil export by volume. The US is a distant second, at almost 11%.
Meanwhile, Chinese state-owned companies have invested heavily in Brazil’s oil exploration and production, a move that China National Petroleum Corp said has helped boost its profitability and also serves Beijing’s interest in strengthening its relations with so-called BRICS states, which include Brazil.
Crude oil replaced soybeans to become Brazil’s top export commodity in 2024 and the Lula administration is seeking to further raise the country’s profile in the global oil trade. Just months before COP30, the government approved joining Opec+, a group of major oil-exporting nations, as an observer.
“China had a huge role in transforming Brazil into an oil giant,” said Pedro Henrique Batista Barbosa, a Brazilian diplomat and author of the book China, Brazil and Petroleum — The Role of China in Brazil’s Transformation into an Oil Power, during a panel discussion in September.
Chinese investment in the Brazilian oil industry reached US$1 billion last year, equal to one-quarter of its total investment in the country, according to a report by the nonprofit Brazil-China Business Council. And with orders continuing to come from China, Brazil’s oil exports are “consistently high” and expected to rise over the next few years, Barbosa said.
Brazil is pushing to open new frontiers, including the auctioning last summer of oil reserves near the ecologically sensitive mouth of the Amazon River. The Brazilian Amazon is estimated to have the potential to produce as many as 60 billion barrels of oil. If all burned, that would release up to 24 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent or nearly half of global emissions in 2023, warns the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative, an environmental campaign group.
Chinese supply chains drive deforestation but that’s starting to change
Even more than energy, the agricultural sector has been the largest stain on Brazil and China’s shared climate record over the past decade. China is the top importer of Brazilian soybeans and beef, two key drivers of deforestation, which in turn accounts for about half of Brazil’s emissions.
Still, China's government and large Chinese importers have been taking more concrete action.
In 2023, China and Brazil committed to eliminating illegal deforestation and, in the same year, Chinese state-owned agriculture giant Cofco International and a subsidiary of Mengniu Group, the Chinese dairy heavyweight, signed the first agreement in China to purchase deforestation-and-conversion-free (DCF) soybeans, meaning that no natural habitat or forest is converted to farmland to grow the crop. Cofco International subsequently moved up its global target for achieving a DCF soy supply chain to 2025.
The Tianjin Meat Association also recently pledged to import 50,000 tonnes of deforestation-free beef from Brazil through a new certificate programme.
“I think it's really at the start of this increasing demand in China,” said Isabel Nepstad, founder of Shanghai-based BellaTerra Consulting. Chinese companies are seeking to meet the country's climate goals as well as facing pressure on the issue from financial institutions.
The Tropical Forest Forever Facility, one of Brazil's flagship initiatives at COP30, has so far won pledges of more than US$5 billion for a plan which aims to pay poorer nations if they meet deforestation control targets. While China has supported the TFFF in principle, the country has decided against contributing to the rainforest conservation fund, a move that reflects the limits of climate leadership.
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