La Jornada: Brazil must choose between leaving oil or losing tax revenue: Petrobras

Sao Paulo. Magda Chambriand, the president of Brazil’s state-owned oil giant Petrobras, said her country must decide between moving away from fossil fuels and preserving tax revenues from that sector.

Chambriand’s statements underline the South American giant’s contradictory stance on climate change. That country has supported the need to transition away from using fossil fuels such as oil, coal and gas, which warm the planet.

He has promoted this position at the recent United Nations climate summit, which he organized last year, and in other forums, such as the meeting held in April in Colombia, focused on abandoning fossil fuels.

At the same time, Brazil is increasing new investments in drilling, including in a sensitive area near the mouth of the Amazon River, off the coast of Amapá, one of the country’s poorest states. The president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, defends this type of financing as he considers it essential for economic development.

Chambriand noted that Brazil’s climate goals must take into account its economic future, adding that phasing out oil would mean “giving up 277 billion reais ($53.2 billion) in tax revenue, because that’s what we paid last year.

“There is no climate plan without society, right? So it’s very easy to say, ‘Look, let’s close everything, let’s all go to the jungle and we’ll have wonderful air,'” he said Tuesday, referring to the country’s climate strategy, during an event organized by the Federation of Industries of the state of Rio de Janeiro.