Few national elections carry as much environmental weight as Brazil's presidential race. And this one is being watched from far beyond the country's boundaries. Home to the largest section of the Amazon rainforest, Brazil is guardian of a carbon sink of vital importance, making the country's conservation policies globally relevant.
Environmentalists have already voiced alarm at Flávio Bolsonaro — son of right-wing former president Jair Bolsonaro — coming out 2% ahead of incumbent Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in the first round of elections. "It's going to be a second coming of Bolsonaro, therefore a more radical Bolsonaro," said Claudio Angelo, international policy coordinator at Climate Observatory, a network of Brazilian NGOs. "At the risk of sounding alarmist, I would say Lula's re-election is the only thing standing between us and the end of the Amazon." The Amazon rainforest stores huge amounts of the carbon dioxide (CO2) released into the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels.
As a result, it helps regulate the Earth's climate. For decades, the tropical forest has acted as one of nature's most powerful defenses against climate change. But it has also suffered from widespread deforestation.
During Jair Bolsonaro's presidency, from 2019 until 2023, environmental agencies were weakened and enforcement efforts curtailed, meaning tropical forest was cleared at unprecedented rates. "The environment agenda was disregarded and the level of control the government had on pollution overall, but specifically on deforestation, was reversed," said Claudio Forner, head of climate policy at Berlin-based think tank Climate Analytics. Over Bolsonaro's four-year term, an estimated 45,586km2 of the Amazon was destroyed, an area bigger than the size of Denmark.
And the forest is not as resilient as it once was, with scientists warning that parts of it are now emitting more carbon than they absorb. Lula came to office with a message of protection for the Amazon. Besides calling for an end to deforestation by 2030, he increased monitoring of the forest and strengthened Brazil's environmental enforcement agency IBAMA.
Deforestation has plummeted under his leadership, with 2026 set to be its lowest level in a decade. That represents a 41% drop overall compared to Jair Bolsonaro's tenure. Experts have already criticized Flávio Bolsonaro's record on forest protection.
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