Brazilian government officials are targeting resources from the Amazon Fund, one of the main bilateral tools for countries to invest in the Amazon, to pay for a controversial road project in the rainforest.
The plan, announced in late August by the country’s Minister of Transportation, Renan Filho, was met with suspicion by environmentalists who are familiar with the fund’s guidelines.
During a press conference announcing new infrastructure investments, Filho said he plans to pitch the fund’s governing board a project to pave BR319, a road that cuts through the Amazon forest and connects two major cities in the north of Brazil — Manaus and Porto Velho.
But environmentalists argue that this is not the kind of project that the fund is supposed to support.
“The Amazon Fund is meant to keep the forest standing, to maintain its biodiversity, and to fight climate change. I don’t see its resources being used for paving. It would be completely incompatible with its guidelines,” says Sila Mesquita, president of the NGO Amazon Working Group and current representative of civil organisations in the Amazon Fund committee.
One of the fund’s creators, forest scientist Tasso Azevedo also disagrees with the Ministry of Transportation’s plan.
“I don’t think it makes any sense. This project does not fit into any of the fund’s planned support lines,” says Azevedo, currently coordinator at MapBiomas, an initiative to monitor land use in Brazil developed by a network of universities, NGOs, and technology companies.
Created in 2008, the Amazon Fund has over $1.2 billion available for projects that prevent, monitor and combat deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. The fund gets its money mainly from its largest donors — Norway, Germany and state-owned oil company Petrobras.
Controversial comeback
In 2019, the Amazon Fund was virtually paralysed by former president Jair Bolsonaro, who dissolved the committee that sets guidelines on how the money should be spent.
Because of this political move, the money was frozen for over three years, since new projects could not be analysed. Donor countries Norway and Germany also suspended new contributions during Bolsonaro’s term.
Revived by president Lula on his first day in the office, new potential investors have lined up.
Last week, Denmark announced a donation of $22 million, joining the UK, USA, Switzerland, and the EU, all of which advertised new contributions since Lula reinstated the fund.
The initiative had funded 102 projects amounting to over $360 million until it was paralysed by Bolsonaro.
But none of the supported projects were related to road infrastructure, according to the Brazilian Development Bank (BNDES), which manages the fund.
“So far, the BNDES has not received any requests for financing a road infrastructure project using resources from the Amazon Fund,” BNDES told Climate Home News.
New guidelines
The bank also highlighted that any requests are processed “in accordance with the strategic vision, guidelines and focuses” outlined in the 2023-25 Biennium, a new set of guidelines created by the Amazon Fund’s Guiding Committee.
The new rules for how the money should be spent in the next two years were set by a committee formed by representatives of NGOs, environmental agencies and governmental institutions such as Brazil’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Environment.
One of the members of this committee, Sila Mesquita, believes that the guidelines do not align with the project presented by the Ministry of Transportation.
The ministry, however, argues that the paving of BR319 would turn the road into the world’s “most sustainable highway” and would allow easier access for police patrols to monitor and prevent deforestation.
“Our commitment, in addition to guaranteeing economic and social development by granting citizens the right to come and go, is also to ensure that the BR319 is a model in terms of environmental conservation,” the Ministry of Transportation told Climate Home News.
Road through the rainforest
The BR319 is a federal highway that serves as the only link between two large states in the North of Brazil: Amazonas and Rondônia.
Built during the 1970s, the road was delivered completely paved, but was closed a decade later due to lack of maintenance. Since then, only branches of the highway are paved and allow for regular traffic.
According to BR-319 Observatory, a collective of organisations that operate in the highway’s area, re-paving the road without conservation measures and proper consultation to indigenous communities can be prejudicial to the Amazon and encourage deforestation.
The BR319 cuts through several conservation areas, including indigenous territories. Its indirect impact spans an ever larger perimeter
Several studies show that proximity to transportation networks is a major proximate driver of deforestation in the Amazon. Recent research has pointed out that 95% of the deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon happens within 5.5 km of a legal or illegal road. Considering only the official road network, most of the deforestation happens within 50 km of the nearest road.
The complete paving of BR319, planned by the current Ministry of Transportation, still depends on several approvals from the Brazilian Institute for the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (Ibama).
“For this road to be sustainable, like the government says, it needs to be beneficial for all those conservation parks and indigenous territories that it cuts through. We have to ask the people who live there what is sustainable for them. It’s not about being for or against the paving of a road: it’s about taking into consideration science, technology and the local communities as well,” says Sila Mesquita.
The post Brazilian government eyes money from Amazon Fund for controversial road appeared first on Climate Home News.
Brazilian government eyes money from Amazon Fund for controversial road
Climate Change
DeBriefed 19 June 2026: Bonn talks end in ‘gridlock’ | Energy’s ‘new era’ | Oceans in climate negotiations
Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
This week
Bonn talks close
‘SIDE-STEPPING AND STALLING’: UN climate talks in Bonn have ended in “gridlock”, according to Climate Home News. The outlet reported on the failure to balance developing countries’ need for climate-adaptation finance with “richer nations’ desire to move forward” on emissions cuts. It added that both topics were subject to “rule 16”, meaning no agreement could be reached and work will be pushed to the COP31 summit in Turkey. Inside Climate News quoted UN climate executive secretary Simon Stiell, who said the talks had seen “side-stepping and stalling”.
JUST TRANSITION: One “glimmer of hope” came from negotiations on achieving a “just transition”, reported Euronews. The news outlet said negotiators “made headway on operationalising the Belém-Antalya mechanism”, intended to support people in the shift to a low-carbon economy. However, Politico concluded that much of the focus in Bonn had “shift[ed] to efforts outside diplomatic talks – raising questions about the future of global climate negotiations”.
‘ATTACKING SCIENCE’: Agence France-Presse reported on the EU, Switzerland and “dozens of developing nations” warning of “attacks on science” by a “small group of fossil-fuels interests” in Bonn. Table Briefings explained that “the 1.5C target is increasingly being challenged” and the role of the UN climate-science panel – the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – in an upcoming assessment of global climate progress “remains controversial”. See Carbon Brief’s full write-up of the talks for more detail.
US-Iran deal
PRICE DROP: The US and Iran announced that they have reached an interim agreement to halt the war and reopen the strait of Hormuz, reported Bloomberg. Oil prices have fallen, as the “long-awaited deal” began the process of “eas[ing]” the global energy crisis triggered by the conflict, according to the New York Times. The Associated Press noted that high fuel prices will “likely outlast the Iran war”.
‘OIL GLUT’: The Financial Times reported that the International Energy Agency (IEA) has forecast a “glut of oil” emerging next year, if the peace deal holds. The IEA said this would allow countries to build new strategic reserves, as they “review their energy strategies and policies in response to the crisis”, according to Reuters.
‘NEW ERA’: Agence France-Presse reported that oil and gas companies have “few illusions about a return to normal for the Gulf energy industry after more than three months of blockage”. One analyst told the newswire that the war “showed the oil and gas industry that Hormuz risk is no longer just a geopolitical headline”.
Around the world
- OCEAN MONITOR: The Trump administration is “abandoning its plan” to dismantle a $368m ocean monitoring system key for tracking climate change after a “bipartisan backlash on Capitol Hill”, reported the New York Times.
- CORAL HAVEN: The New York Times covered preliminary research, presented at the Our Ocean Conference in Kenya, suggesting there could be three times as many “coral refugia” – where corals are relatively safe from climate change – than previously thought.
- BAD CREDIT: Down to Earth reported that the first carbon credits issued under the Paris Agreement’s new Article 6.4 mechanism are “facing scrutiny over alleged links to institutions controlled by Myanmar’s military junta”.
- OIL BACKTRACK: Reuters reported that oil-and-gas company Equinor has dropped a renewable-energy target and scaled back clean investments, while another Reuters story noted that Shell is selling off its offshore wind assets.
1.1 billion
The number of children facing “at least three overlapping climate hazards”, according to a new Unicef report covered by Agence France-Presse.
Latest climate research
- Including the “permafrost carbon-climate feedback” in climate models increases the chance of exceeding “tipping elements” – such as the Greenland ice sheets, Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation or Amazon rainforest – by up to 50% | Environmental Research Letters
- The intensity of influenza outbreaks could decline in temperate regions, but increase in tropical areas over the next century, as the climate warms | PNAS Nexus
- European snow cover has declined by 20% for December and January since the start of the industrial era, revealing an “unprecedented ongoing shrinkage of European winters” | Communications Earth & Environment
(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)
Captured
The more than 2m battery electric vehicles (BEVs), 1m “plug-in” hybrids (PHEVs) and 100,000 electric vans on UK roads are already saving drivers a total of around £3bn a year, according to new Carbon Brief analysis. This amounts to savings of more than £1,100 a year in fuel costs for each BEV driver in the UK. The analysis comes amid reports in UK media this week that the government is considering “watering down” its EV sales targets.
Spotlight
Oceans rising at UN climate talks
The state of the world’s oceans is inextricably linked to the changing climate – and many delegates at UN climate talks want to see more focus on this issue, reports Carbon Brief.
Oceans are often described as the world’s “greatest ally” against climate change – absorbing 30% of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and most of the heat generated by those emissions.
They are also the site of important climate solutions, such as huge offshore windfarms and the shipping industry’s transition to cleaner fuels.
At the same time, the oceans themselves present a growing danger to coastal communities and sea life due to sea level rise, marine heatwaves and ocean acidification.
These diverse issues have led to growing calls within the UN climate process for more focus on oceans. During climate negotiations this week in Bonn – known as SB64 – nations and civil society had a chance to air these views during an “ocean and climate change dialogue”.
‘Elevate action’
Oceans first entered UN climate outcomes in 2019, when the final COP25 negotiated text requested a new “dialogue” on “the ocean and climate change to consider how to strengthen mitigation and adaptation action”.
The following years saw this dialogue established as an annual event. However, the political weight of these discussions has been limited.
COP31 is being co-led by Turkey and Australia, but with Pacific islands playing a supporting role. These small islands sometimes self-identify as “large ocean states”, stressing the ocean’s centrality in their societies.
In Bonn, figures from across the presidency threw their weight behind this issue. Chris Bowen, an Australian minister and incoming COP31 “president of negotiations”, told attendees:
“Australia, Turkey and the Pacific see an important opportunity to elevate ocean-based climate action.”
Strategies and finance
The two-day dialogue in Bonn involved a series of panels, statements and breakout groups.
One of the main topics was how oceans are integrated into national climate plans under the Paris Agreement, known as “nationally determined contributions” (NDCs).
Three-quarters of the latest round of NDCs mention oceans, with conservation of “blue carbon” ecosystems the most frequently described action. (Landscapes such as mangroves can both absorb CO2 and protect coastal areas.)
Delegates also discussed alignment with the UN biodiversity process, as well as ocean finance, which currently makes up less than 1% of all climate finance.
(As discussions were taking place in Bonn, country officials also gathered in Mombasa, Kenya for the 11th Our Ocean Conference. Carbon Brief’s associate editor Giuliana Viglione attended the conference and will publish a full summary shortly.)
Developing countries were clear that many of the ocean-related actions in their NDCs would depend on receiving more financial support.
‘Political momentum’
With the backing of the COP31 presidency, delegates were hopeful about where this year’s dialogue could lead.
Charles Hamilton, an advisor for the Bahamas who spoke for the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) in the dialogue, told Carbon Brief that island representatives “are not traveling thousands of miles to just talk and pat ourselves on the back”. He added:
“A dialogue that just remains a dialogue is just more talk – no action.”
Given that, he said “discussions in the dialogue must move into COP decisions and the decisions must be actioned”, noting the importance of finance.
Marina Corrêa, oceans lead at WWF-Brazil, pointed to an upcoming UN climate change Standing Committee on Finance forum as a space to ramp up pressure on ocean finance.
More broadly, she wanted to see the presidencies translate their support into a “leader-level ocean initiative” that could “mainstream” oceans across negotiations.
“We have a really interesting opportunity, in terms of political momentum,” Corrêa told Carbon Brief.
Watch, read, listen
‘HOTTER THAN HELL’: An episode of the BBC’s Rare Earth podcast titled “hotter than hell” considered the issue of extreme heat, with input from experts and “people facing up to the hottest temperatures on the planet”.
NOT BROKEN?: John Drake, a professor of ecology at the University of Georgia, wrote an essay for Aeon – also re-published as a Guardian “long read” – questioning the framing of ecosystems and climate systems “breaking down”.
ON COURSE: On his Volts podcast, US climate journalist David Roberts interviewed UK climate minister Katie White, quizzing her about whether the UK will “stay the course with its climate plans”.
Coming up
- 20-28 June: London climate action week
- 21 June: Colombia presidential runoff
- 24 June: UK Climate Change Committee progress in reducing emissions 2026 report to parliament
Pick of the jobs
- Mongabay, managing editor – Africa | Salary: Unknown. Location: Global
- Contexte, environment reporter – Brussels | Salary: €45,000-€60,000. Location: Brussels
- Climate 200, communications director | Salary: Unknown. Location: Australia
- Energy Tracker Asia, energy transition correspondent | Salary: $3,000-$4,000 per month. Location: South-east Asia (remote)
DeBriefed is edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send any tips or feedback to debriefed@carbonbrief.org.
This is an online version of Carbon Brief’s weekly DeBriefed email newsletter. Subscribe for free here.
The post DeBriefed 19 June 2026: Bonn talks end in ‘gridlock’ | Energy’s ‘new era’ | Oceans in climate negotiations appeared first on Carbon Brief.
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