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.
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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.
The Nepali government has requested $20m from the UN fund for “loss and damage”, following the devastating floods that hit the country in late August.
This amounts to just 0.7% of the $2.7bn it has estimated in “physical damage” to infrastructure and “economic losses” from the flooding, according to Carbon Brief analysis.
The $20m request would, nevertheless, make Nepal the fourth-largest claimant to the UN loss-and-damage fund, which is intended to help deal with climate-related disasters.
Developing countries have already made 176 applications to the UN fund for responding to loss and damage, requesting, in total, $2.8bn to help recover from a variety of damaging events, such as drought, floods and storms.
Yet, to date, predominantly developed nations have only pledged $0.8bn to support the fund.
This means requests to the fund are already three times larger than the total amount pledged, raising questions about its potential to respond to emergencies.
As yet, no funding has been paid out of the fund to developing countries grappling with intensifying and more frequent climate change-induced disasters since it was established in 2023.
Nepal’s needs
On 26 August, Nepal was hit by flash floods following a catastrophic rock-ice avalanche in the Himalayan border region. The flooding has killed more than 1,400 people, with thousands still missing.
Days later, the Nepali government sought an “urgent response” from the board of the UN fund for climate-driven loss and damage.
It subsequently requested $20m in “financial compensation” from the fund. This is the maximum amount that can currently be requested for a single project.
“Loss and damage” is a term used to describe how climate change is causing serious and, in many cases, irreversible impacts around the world. Nations established the UN fund in 2023, after decades of effort by climate-vulnerable nations.
Nepal’s national disaster management authority has now released an extensive rapid preliminary assessment of “damage and needs” from the floods.
As the chart below shows, Nepal’s $20m loss-and-damage claim would only cover 0.7% of what authorities describe as $2.7bn in “total damage and loss” from the floods.
When accounting for another $4.8bn in “recovery and reconstruction” costs – part of how loss and damage is internationally defined – then Nepal’s $20m claim would be just 0.3% of the needs it estimates.
Reacting to the analysis, Nepal’s climate negotiator Raju Pandit Chhetri tells Carbon Brief that the country’s $20m request was for “rapid response”, adding:
“That money is going to be a peanut if it was to be invested into reconstruction.”
Requests vs pledges
Vulnerable, developing countries have long argued that developed nations should be held responsible for loss and damage, while countries such as the US have blocked moves that could have led to them being liable for climate-related damages
From December 2025 until July 2026, developing countries made 176 applications to the loss-and-damage fund, requesting over $2.8bn in assistance.
So far, predominantly developed countries have pledged only $822m to the fund. (Some nations that are not categorised as “developed” under the UN, such as the UAE and South Korea, have also committed funds.)
Funding requests from developing countries to date are, therefore, more than triple what has been pledged.
Moreover, only around half of the money pledged so far has been paid into the fund by donor nations, with large sums from France, Italy and the UAE still outstanding.
The fund has made $342m available in its initial funding round in July 2026. However, as of September, no money from the fund has been distributed to any countries facing climate-related disasters.
According to Carbon Brief analysis, off the 176 loss-and-damage fund requests received from 118 countries, more than 60% are from least developed countries – such as Nepal – and small-island nations. So far, each individual funding request is capped at $20m.
The flood-related request is Nepal’s fourth appeal to the fund and, as the chart below shows, this makes it the fourth-largest claimant overall.
Nine other countries have made multiple requests to the fund. Madagascar – hit by back-to-back cyclones after a prolonged drought – has made six requests in total.
Drought-ravaged Suriname, Ecuador, Brazil and Barbados have specified that their funding requests are part of an “emergency response”.
‘Rapid response’
Nepal’s $20m claim has sparked a conversation on climate justice and the ability of the loss-and-damage fund to deliver, in the face of increasingly frequent extreme-weather events.
In a letter sent five days after the disaster, Nepal’s finance minister Dr Swarnim Wagle appealed to the fund’s board to mobilise an “urgent response” that would “signal” that the fund:
“[I]s capable of responding with humanity, speed, flexibility and solidarity when climate-vulnerable countries face losses and damages beyond their capacity to address alone.”
Board members from Asia-Pacific and African countries wrote a letter in support of the Himalayan country in crisis, urging the board to convene and “potentially agree to a provisional set-aside allocation of resources to support rapid response funding for Nepal”.
They pointed out that the board’s response to Nepal could offer “procedural lessons” in how to strengthen its “rapid-response” to sudden-onset extreme-weather events. Such support is explicitly part of the fund’s mandate.
On 14 September, developed-country members of the fund’s board wrote that they supported a “consultation” on Nepal, but made no commitments in terms of actual funding.
Harjeet Singh, loss-and-damage expert and global convenor of the Fill the Fund campaign, tells Carbon Brief that the fund’s board deals with most funding requests as regular projects, rather than emergencies. Singh continues:
“Developed countries gave a really cold response to Nepal’s request. They have not addressed it because they know that if this happens once, they are going to be under pressure all the time. This is unacceptable.”
Meanwhile, BBC News reported that Nepal plans to use climate attribution studies to strengthen its claim.
According to a rapid attribution study by World Weather Attribution and climate experts who spoke to Carbon Brief, factors such as glacial retreat and permafrost thaw that played a key role in the disaster have been linked to climate change. A full attribution study is pending.
Nepal’s prime minister Balendra Shah will address the UN general assembly on 24 September and is expected to raise issues around climate justice, loss and damage and the vulnerability of mountain countries.
The next board meeting of the loss and damage fund is on 15 December, two months from now, and a fortnight after the conclusion of COP31 in Turkey.
Pandit Chhetri tells Carbon Brief:
“It’s a shame that, until now, the fund has not been able to even give a penny to developing countries. And, starkly, the event in Nepal only demonstrates why this kind of fund is so important for highly vulnerable, poor, developing countries.”
Pandit Chhetri adds that, after nearly three weeks since the disaster, there is yet to be a decision on the request and that the country has “only received messages of solidarity”, with no assurance of rapid response funds. He says that it is “quite an interesting scene for [us] to observe”, adding:
“If the fund cannot respond in a crisis like this for a country like Nepal – when you have this massive destruction and devastation – then what is the use of the fund itself? That’s why it is a test for the fund, though the resources are limited.”
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The post Analysis: Nepal’s $20m ‘loss-and-damage’ claim only covers 0.7% of flood costs appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Analysis: Nepal’s $20m ‘loss-and-damage’ claim only covers 0.7% of flood costs
Hi, I’m Daniel and I am the Chief Mate. Having worked at Greenpeace for over 31 years I often work as the Captain on all Greenpeace ships.
The oceans connect everyone. Our goal this trip is to turn visibility into accountability by documenting impacts, informing the public, and strengthening protections for Australia’s Commonwealth Marine Parks.
https://www.greenpeace.org.au/team/daniel/
Hello, I am Jimmy and the Captain of Oceania. I learnt to sail in my hometown of Hobart, Tasmania. I’ve spent years navigating Tasmania’s wildly spectacular coastline, and crossed Bass Strait many times, including the Sydney to Hobart yacht races. My first time sailing with Greenpeace was in 2017 as a volunteer on the Rainbow Warrior.
It is a privilege to be a part of the Oceania project, and I hope we can achieve many things with this beautiful ship.
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