A controversial auction of oil blocks in the Amazon by COP30 host Brazil drew bids on only 20% of the areas offered, a result that green campaigners have hailed as a partial victory as they prepare to challenge the bidding process in the courts.
Nine oil companies, led by a consortium between Petrobras and ExxonMobil, secured the rights to 34 exploration blocks – 19 of them in the Amazon basin – in last week’s auction in Rio de Janeiro, which put 172 onshore and offshore oil and gas blocks up for grabs and was hailed as a success by the energy minister.
The Amazon rainforest emerges as the new global oil frontier
Environmental and Indigenous rights campaigners led condemnation of the auction, saying it dealt a sharp blow to Brazil’s COP Presidency months before it hosts the next U.N. climate conference in the Amazon city of Belém. They say exploration in the sensitive area threatens fragile ecosystems and traditional communities, and undermines efforts to move away from fossil fuels.
Asked about such criticism, COP30’s Executive Director Ana Toni said reducing oil and gas production globally needed to happen in an orderly manner.“When we agreed that we should be transitioning away from fossil fuels, which is a global goal, we also said in an orderly, just and actable way,” she told the We Don’t Have Time platform in an interview during mid-year climate talks in Bonn.
‘Partial victory’ for climate fight
But some campaigners said the fact that most of the licences went unsold had brought them some solace. Juliano Bueno, technical director of the Arayara Institute, a Brazilian climate nonprofit, said in a statement the “weak market uptake” was a “partial victory” for climate campaigners and their actions against the auction.
“After intense mobilisation by civil society and five lawsuits, the auction was partially unsold,” Bueno said.
The Federal Prosecution Office (MPF) and the Oil Workers’ Unions had also called for the suspension of the auction, saying it represented a “serious contradiction” in Brazil’s climate commitments and inadequate environmental studies.
That came in spite of higher global oil prices due to conflict in the Middle East, which according to Nicole Oliveira, executive director at the Arayara Institute, would have generally “increased companies’ appetite to acquire blocks in the bid”.
She added that there had been no bids on blocks overlapping areas defined as directly affecting Indigenous lands or in the Potiguar Basin, where the marine-rich volcanic islands of Fernando de Noronha lie about 350 km (215 miles) off the coast.
Both the Potiguar Basin and the Foz do Amazonas basin are part of the Equatorial Margin, which stretches as far as Guyana and is seen as Brazil’s most promising frontier for oil exploration. Brazil wants to produce 20% more oil and gas by 2030.
Chevron, ExxonMobil and China’s state-owned CNPC, which snapped up offshore blocks in the auction, may have been encouraged by recent signs that Brazil’s state-run energy firm Petrobras might be getting closer to receiving environmental permission to drill in Foz do Amazonas.
‘No legal basis’
Brazilian climate campaigners say the government rushed to carry out the auction using environmental permits granted under former President Jair Bolsonaro that were due to expire on June 18 – just a day after the bidding – and which they say are incomplete.
The Arayara Institute said the bidding process can only be completed when the winning companies have presented several rounds of documents and signed concession contracts, which is expected to happen in November – when COP30 takes place. That timeframe would mean the deadline had been broken.
“Those contracts will have no legal basis whatsoever,” Oliveira said. “We’ll continue to challenge this process in court to ensure that the sale of these blocks is cancelled.”
Cláudio Ângelo, international policy coordinator at Observatório do Clima, a Brazilian environmental network, told Climate Home News an oil spill from offshore blocks near Belém and the Amazon River would devastate coral reefs, mangroves and the coastlines of both Brazil and neighbouring French Guiana.
UN expects climate finance roadmap to offer “clear next steps”
Patricia Baran, head of Brazil’s ANP oil regulator, said after the auction that the blocks acquired for exploration would have additional environmental and social protections.
But campaigners dispute that, and much of their criticism over the auction has accused the government of double standards in efforts to shift away from fossil fuels.
Ângelo called the auction a “double act of sabotage” – endangering the environment and undermining Brazil’s COP30’s leadership and the efforts of its diplomats to foster a just transition.
According to research by Oil Change International (OIC), Brazil ranks higher than Saudi Arabia in projected CO2 emissions from oil and gas expansion to 2035, though four Global North countries – mainly the United States – are driving the expansion.
Toni said it was not fair to put all the blame for increasing oil demand on producers like Brazil.
“Obviously countries producing oil have a lot of responsibilities… but consumer countries also have a lot of responsibilities,” Toni said.
The post Brazilian activists vow to fight Amazon oil auction in court, hail ‘partial victory’ over unsold blocks appeared first on Climate Home News.
But a $345 million U.S. verdict against the environmental group hangs over the case.
A lawsuit filed by Greenpeace International against the U.S.-based fossil fuel company Energy Transfer in the Netherlands is moving forward after a Dutch court recently ruled in favor of the environmental organization in rejecting the company’s bid to toss out the case.
Greenpeace’s Dutch Anti-SLAPP Case Against Oil Pipeline Giant Advances
Go behind the scenes with executive editor Vernon Loeb and oceans correspondent Teresa Tomassoni as they discuss the search for heat-resilient coral reefs that are somehow defying the odds to survive a warming planet.
The world has already lost more than half of its coral reefs, and most of what remains is at risk of disappearing in the next 25 years.
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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