PLAYBOOK INTERVIEW: MARINA SILVA HAPPY G20 DAY: Brazil assumed the G20 presidency on Friday, taking the reins from India, and placing the South American behemoth in prime position to shape the global conversation for the year ahead. Brazil will also host COP30 in the Amazonian city of Belém in 2025. Laying the ground: As a result, Brazil has a particular interest in this COP, Marina Silva, the country’s environment minister and a fave of leftists, told POLITICO. “Brazil has a very clear understanding of the importance of this COP. We will be hosting COP30 in 2025. We believe good items at COP28 will lead to good outcomes at COP30,” the long-time climate campaigner said. What Brasília wants: “We’re very focused on the global stocktake — what we have achieved and what we have not achieved, so that we can leave this COP with a determination that all countries will increase their commitments and at COP30 it will materialize,” Silva said, referring to the summit’s report card on the implementation of the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement. Not so clear on fossil fuels: But the government is divided over one of the fundamental challenges of this COP28 in Dubai: whether to phase out fossil fuels. Silva, a lifelong activist who resigned as environment minister during the first government of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva because she was struggling to advance the green agenda, was brought back in by Lula earlier this year. Power shortfall: But in comments highlighting the tension within Brazil’s coalition government, Silva indicated to Playbook that her beliefs alone aren’t enough when it comes to fossil fuels: “We need to migrate to other sources, but this is an ongoing discussion within the Brazilian government. It is one thing what the minister for environment thinks, the other thing is where we go from here.” Reminder: Reuters reported this week that Brazil will join OPEC+, the club for oil-pumping countries. (Brazil is also expected to unveil a new global fund in a bid to protect the world’s remaining tropical forests. Though the country has made strides in curbing deforestation since the departure of climate bad-boy Jair Bolsonaro, not all Amazonian countries are on board.) This is not a drill! Similarly, on the contentious issue of drilling for oil, divides in Brasília are stark. Lula has backed oil drilling in sensitive areas, including the Amazon, for instance. Silva pointed out that requests to drill for oil at the mouth of the Amazon have been denied twice due to environmental concerns, but added: “This is not up to my ministry — this is a decision that is up to the government as a whole and the council of energy policy — of which we take part but we have one vote.” SPOTTED — Prime Minister Abdoulkader Kamil Mohamed of Djibouti with the biggest entourage of the day outside the plenary room Al Ghafat. — A deflated giant inflatable panda drooping face-down outside the China Pavilion in the Green Zone. — Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and former U.K. Labour Party leader Ed Miliband hanging in the pavilion on British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s big day at COP. “It was nice to see Tony Blair, who obviously has an enormous amount of experience of the Middle East,” said a polite Sunak following their encounter, our own Charlie Cooper reports. — Irish leader Leo Varadkar inviting Brazil’s Lula to visit Ireland and speaking about last week’s incident in Dublin when a Brazilian Deliveroo driver heroically intervened in a knife attack. — Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal of Nepal at the opening of the Nepalese Pavilion. It’s the first time the South Asian country has its own pavilion at COP. TODAY’S AGENDA — Signing of the “Tripling Nuclear Energy by 2050 Declaration” at 9:30 a.m, at the Rove Hotel, Blue Zone. Expected to attend: French President Emmanuel Macron, U.S. Climate Envoy John Kerry, Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson of Sweden, Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo, President Klaus Iohannis of Romania, President Andrzej Duda of Poland. — Opening of the COP28 U.N. Ocean Pavilion, in Building 87, Blue Zone, with Bloomberg Philanthropies CEO Patti Harris, John Kerry, U.N. Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for the Ocean Peter Thomson. — Local Climate Action Summit continues in the WCAS theater, Blue Zone. Includes Subnational Climate Action Leaders’ Exchange, at 1:30 pm at Al Hur, featuring John Kerry, Mayor of Rio de Janeiro Eduardo Paes, Mayor of Indore Pushyamitra Bhargav, Governor of Tokyo Yuriko Koike. — Launch of the Net-Zero Data Public Utility proof of concept in the Action Lab, Al Jeer room, Blue Zone, 11:30 am. Speakers include OECD chief Mathias Cormann, Emmanuel Macron, Mike Bloomberg, U.N. Special Envoy for Climate Action and Finance Mark Carney, U.N. Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell, UNSG High-Level Expert Group on Net-Zero Commitments Chair and CDSC Observer Catherine McKenna. — Unveiling Industrial Farming’s Hidden Climate Destruction in the Global South, in Side Event Room 9, Blue Zone, at 4:45 p.m. — Vietnam Business Forum: Mobilizing Resources for the Green Transition, with Vietnam Prime Minister Phạm Minh Chính, at the Ritz-Carlton, Dubai, 9:15 a.m. — Accelerated Partnerships for Renewables in Africa event, featuring Kenyan President William Ruto, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, in the Global Climate Action Zone, Al Hur, Blue Zone, at 10 a.m. — Vision for the Global Stocktake Outcome and Beyond: The Case for Energy Transition, organized by the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, at 4:45 p.m. in Side Event Room 5, Blue Zone. PROGRAMMING NOTE SEE YOU AT THE BEACH: Global Playbook will be taking a day of rest on Sunday, but will back in your inboxes bright and early Monday morning. WEEKEND PLANS? Get in touch with any tips, advice or best brunch spots. THANKS TO: Zia Weise, Charlie Cooper, Karl Mathiesen, Jack Lahart, Seb Starcevic. Global Playbook couldn’t happen without Global Playbook Editor Zoya Sheftalovich.
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