Is Lula Brazil’s green candidate?

Every week seems to bring a new worrying piece of environmental data to Brazil. Amazon deforestation, which hit a 15-year high last year, could once again exceed 10,000 square kilometers in 2022. In the month of August alone, deforestation alerts were up by 81 percent year on year. And the number of Amazon fires in the first nine months of this year has already surpassed that of the whole of 2021. The list goes on.

This environmental destruction has devastating consequences for the survival of Brazil’s indigenous peoples, for the weather cycles that sustain the country’s important agricultural sector, and for global efforts to tackle climate change and keep global temperatures from rising below 1.5 degrees Celsius. 

And it has been accelerated by the policies and inaction of the far-right government of Jair Bolsonaro, who champions large-scale development in the Amazon and often questions scientific data.

Many in Brazil now hope that the October elections — in which Mr. Bolsonaro is seeking a second term — will be an opportunity to steer the country’s environmental policies back on track.

Former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is the only candidate capable of beating Mr. Bolsonaro, and he has therefore become environmentalists’ de-facto choice at the ballot box. Yet Lula’s green credentials are far from impeccable.

In fact, a fortnight ago, Lula had fewer environmental commitments in his government plan than center-right candidate Simone Tebet, a senator who represents the agricultural...