Brazil is one of the relatively few countries in which the national flag includes a written inscription. The motto Ordem e Progresso - Order and Progress – was adopted in 1889. The implied aspiration is currently being put to the test in a hotly contested, divisive presidential election, now at the run-off stage between the incumbent left-wing veteran Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Flávio Bolsonaro, son of right-wing ex-president Jair Bolsonaro, who last year was sentenced to 27 years in prison for planning a coup d'état.
For the world looking in, the perceived threat to the preservation of the Amazon rain forest is probably the main concern should Bolsonaro convert his unexpected lead in the first round of voting to victory on 25 October. The rain forest has been aptly described as a critical global climate regulator by functioning as a massive carbon sink, a regional water pump, and a natural cooling system. Clearing trees for agriculture, particularly soya bean production, cattle ranching, and mining removes forest cover, disrupts the water cycle, and releases stored carbon back into the atmosphere.
During his four-year term, President Lula oversaw a significant 50% reduction in the rate of deforestation. Bolsonaro claims to be committed to ending ‘illegal deforestation’ by 2029, chiefly enabled by satellite monitoring to identify violations. However, sceptics fear his business-oriented, deregulation platform will lead to a weakening of environmental enforcement agencies like the federal agency, the Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (IBAMA), and current protections for indigenous territories, meantime rewarding mining and commercial agriculture interests.
Focusing on the Amazon rainforest tends to overshadow Brazil’s energy transition achievement to date, considering the potentially polluting activity required to make its $2.64 trillion economy the 10th largest in the world. Brazil’s status as the seventh largest oil producer in the world (and thus the target of environmentalist wrath) is well known to the geoscience community. It continues to contribute its seismic experetise for finding oil, with continuous survey and processing work in the offshore sector. The search began with the pre-salt provinces of the Santos and Campos basins (initiating the pioneering of production in previously untapped water depths) and now extends into the Equatorial Margin along the northeast coast.
Focusing on the Amazon rainforest tends to overshadow Brazil’s energy transition achievement to date.
What makes Brazil an economic powerhouse is its agriculture and agribusiness (a whole lot of coffee, soybeans, beef, coffee, sugarcane, and oranges); natural resources and mining (iron ore, bauxite, tin, manganese, and gold as well as offshore oil); a diverse manufacturing and industrial base; and, importantly, a large domestic workforce and consumer market. Yet, Brazil was responsible for only 1.25% of the world’s CO2 emissions in 2024, ranking about 12th globally, well behind major emitters such as China and the US, which between them are responsible for nearly 45%, according to a Worldometer estimate.
For those emissions, offshore E&P is scarcely the major culprit. Changes in land use, mainly deforestation, cause 23-25% of total emissions, agriculture (38%); energy, including transport, electricity, heat and fuel combustion, aviation and shipping (25-28%), waste (5.5%) and industrial processes and product use (5.5%). In 2022, a study by S&P Global found that total absolute greenhouse gas emissions from offshore oil and gas production in Brazil reached 16 million metric tons (MMt) of CO2e, an intensity not significantly higher than the intensity of 11 kgCO2e/boe for North Sea production but twice as high as the Gulf of Mexico and three times as high as offshore NW Australia. Continuous efforts are being made to improve this metric with lower-carbon platform technology, reservoir reinjection, flaring limits, and carbon capture initiatives, including dedicated geological storage.
The plus side of the country’s energy transition pathway is evident in the statistics. According to the Energy Research Office of Brazil’s Ministry of Mines and Energy, 49.4% of the country’s energy matrix in 2025 was renewable, and its electricity matrix reached 86.6% renewables, compared with the global average of 14.5%. Virtually the entire 213 million population has access to electricity, and its renewable capacity trails only China and the US. The renewable diversification dates back to 2001, when rationing exposed the country’s dependence on hydropower. Today, according to various data sources, hydropower still accounts for the majority of supply at 55% to 60% of the country's electricity from major dams such as Itaipu, Belo Monte and Tucuruí. Wind and solar make up roughly 23% to 24% of the electricity mix (an issue here is transmission, because generation is mainly focused in the northeast of the country away from the industrial southeast). Bioenergy and ethanol represent about 27% of the energy matrix via sugarcane and forestry remnants.
Ongoing energy transition will clearly depend on a compliant president.
Further ‘order and progress’ in pursuing the country’s ongoing energy transition will clearly depend on a compliant president. Constraints abound. More fossil fuel development investment, advocated by Bolsonaro, is already becoming an increasingly important contributor to the Brazilian economy (10% of Brazil’s total GDP and about 17% of industrial GDP), and there is no stopping the wheels of agriculture, minerals and mining, and industrial production. Regulatory red tape is said to be dampening growth of the economy. All this has to be balanced against any climate change mitigation measures and particularly the carbon-light gains in electrical power generation. This in itself is proving ill-equipped to accommodate the amount of renewable capacity available. But that is a whole other story.
Views expressed in Crosstalk are solely those of the author, Andrew McBarnet, EAGE Editor Emeritus. He can be contacted at andrew@andrewmcbarnet.com.
