President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, 79, aspires to make Brazil a leader in the fight against global warming, but has fiercely defended oil exploration as key to the growth of Latin America's biggest economy.

"We want oil because it will be around for a long time," Lula said Wednesday, arguing that the windfall from the black gold should be used "to finance the energy transition, which will be very expensive."

He was speaking as Brazil's environmental protection agency IBAMA, an autonomous public body, is mulling whether to grant state-owned oil giant Petrobras an exploration license in an offshore area known as the Equatorial Margin.

That maritime area extends over 350,000 square kilometers (135,000 square miles) across northern Brazil and lies some 500 kilometers (310 miles) from the mouth of the Amazon River.

Petrobras estimates the potential reserves in the basin at 10 billion barrels.

Brazil's proven reserves amounted to 15.9 billion barrels in 2023, according to the government.

However, the project has been highly criticized, given that fossil fuels such as oil are the main cause of greenhouse gas emissions responsible for global warming.

- 'Wage war to obtain peace' -

The first two years of Lula's third presidential mandate saw multiple environmental successes, with a sharp reduction in deforestation and the upward revision of greenhouse gas emission reduction targets.

But experts say the looming oil project tarnishes Lula's environmental ambitions, just a few months before COP30 -- the 30th session of the UN climate change conference -- is held for the first time in the Amazon, in the city of Belem.

"You can't be a climate leader and at the same time aim to increase the production of fossil fuels," said Suely Araujo, from Brazilian NGO Climate Observatory.

Araujo, a former IBAMA president, said the argument that the energy transition can be financed with oil revenues "is tantamount to saying that we want to wage war to obtain peace."

"Opening the Amazon to fuel exploration goes against the (government's) discourse on preserving the Amazon to help regulate the climate," said Ilan Zugman, Latin America director of the 350.org climate NGO.

Almost half of the energy consumed in Brazil comes from renewable sources, more than three times the global average, according to official data.

But the country is also Latin America's largest oil producer and the eighth largest in the world, producing an average of 3.4 million barrels of oil per day in 2024.

Lula has pointed out that countries like Guyana and Suriname were already "exploring oil very close to our Equatorial Margin."

"We need to find a solution in which we guarantee the country, the world and the people that we will not blow up any trees, nothing in the Amazon River, nothing in the Atlantic Ocean," Lula said this week.

Toya Manchineri, from the Coordination of Indigenous Organizations of the Brazilian Amazon, warned that the project also threatened Indigenous peoples and could cause "irreversible environmental damage, destroying forests and polluting rivers."

- Tensions within government -

After IBAMA denied Petrobras an exploration license for the Equatorial Margin in 2023, the oil giant presented a new plan which is still under consideration.

In October 2024, IBAMA demanded more details from Petrobras on how it would contain an oil spill should one occur in the biodiverse region.

"In December, Petrobras presented a new proposal ... currently being analyzed by our technical team," the agency told AFP.

The project has provoked tensions within the government as well.

Environment Minister Marina Silva, who oversees IBAMA, said Thursday that she did not intend to "exert any influence" on the agency to authorize the project.

Silva, a respected environmentalist, said it would be a "technical" decision and not a political one.

Meanwhile, the minister of mines and energy, Alexandre Silveira, a staunch defender of the project, urged IBAMA to use "common sense" and authorize the exploration as quickly as possible.

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