COP31: Lula embarks with Janones and ministers for Türkiye; Motta and Alcolumbre are not part of the entourage

Lula is expected to arrive in the country on Monday night. Tuesday (10) is reserved for preparation for the event, but bilateral meetings that have not yet been defined may take place.

Although COP31 starts this Monday, the leaders' summit will take place on November 11th and 12th, when Lula participates.

This will be Lula's first international agenda after his re-election to the Palácio do Planalto, on October 25th.

Lula's entourage

The Brazilian government delegation, which embarked from Brasília this morning, is made up of:

João Paulo Capobianco, Minister of Environment and Climate Change

Fernanda Machiaveli, Minister of Agrarian Development and Family Farming of Brazil

Alexandre Silveira, Minister of Mines and Energy

Márcio Elias Rosa, Minister of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade

Aloizio Mercadante, president of BNDES

Celso Amorim, special advisor for international affairs

Deputy André Janones (Rede-MG)

Mauricio Lyrio, Secretary of Climate, Energy and Environment at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Lula invited the president of the Senate, Davi Alcolumbre (União-AP), and the president of the Chamber of Deputies, Hugo Motta (Republicanos-PB), to join the delegation on international trips.

In addition to COP31, the head of the Executive will go to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) summit in the Philippines.

Hugo Motta was grateful for the invitation, but decided to stay in Brasília to discuss the House's voting agenda. The president of the Chamber also confirmed that he has just a few weeks until the end of the year recess – and with agendas of interest to the government itself.

Until this article was written, the president of the Senate, Davi Alcolumbre, had not yet publicly commented on Lula's invitation.

Programming

At the Leaders' Summit, Lula will hand over the COP presidency to Türkiye and Australia, after Brazil has hosted the 2025 conference, in Belém (PA). The Brazilian government will reinforce the importance of continuing the commitments made in the previous edition.

On Friday, Lula participated in a meeting of the National Energy Policy Council (CNPE) and highlighted that he would arrive at COP31 with a proposal for the world to reduce dependence on fossil fuels.

"The most important thing is that Brazil does not speak theoretically: Brazil presents proposals. Proposals from a country that discovered the pre-salt, a country that discovered a lot of oil on the Brazilian equatorial margin, and yet we continue to be a country that will continue the reduction until the day comes when we no longer need fossil fuel", he said at the time.

The president also highlighted that he will present the drop in deforestation rates in Brazil and advances in the implementation of the Tropical Forests forever Fund (TFFF).

Government interlocutors claim that the president has received requests from other countries for meetings, but, so far, no bilateral talks have been scheduled.

Results

João Paulo Capobianco, Minister of Environment and Climate Change, stated that the Brazilian presidency will deliver the documents on the roadmaps to move away from the use of fossil fuels and end deforestation by 2030, enabling the continuation of this debate that began at COP28, in Dubai, when the First Global Balance Sheet (GST1) of the Paris Agreement was approved.

The expectation is that Lula will also show the results achieved by Brazil, even providing a counterpoint to the previous administration of former president Jair Bolsonaro.

According to the MMA minister, some of the points presented will be:

Advances in the operation of the Amazon Fund, “which was paralyzed during the four years of the previous government, but recovered its capacity to raise funds with the increase in the number of donor countries and has already allocated, in the three and a half years of the Lula government, R$ 7.6 billion for projects and programs for the protection and sustainable use of the Amazon”.

Reduction of 560 million tons of greenhouse gases between 2022 and 2024;

Reduction of deforestation in all Brazilian biomes;

Presentation of the Map of the Brazilian Path to Eliminating Deforestation and Forest Degradation by 2030.

Other international agendas

On Friday (13), Lula leaves for the Philippines, where he seeks to renew the import certificate for Brazilian meat. It will be the first visit by a Brazilian head of state to the Asian country.

The Brazilian president participates, for the second time, in the 49th ASEAN Summit – first he was invited by Malaysia and now by the Philippines.

The Brazilian government participates with the aim of establishing new commercial partners, especially in a post-North American tariff context.

Another head of government participating in the event is Donald Trump. This could be the first meeting between the Brazilian and American presidents after Lula's re-election and the Democrats' victory in the US midterms.