Brazil's October Election Could Determine the Fate of the Amazon

On October 4, Brazilians will decide not just who leads their country, but potentially whether the Amazon rainforest survives the next decade intact. The stakes couldn’t be higher: this election represents what climate experts are calling a “do-or-die moment” for the planet’s most critical ecosystem.

The Bolsonaro Factor

Former president Jair Bolsonaro, currently under house arrest, cannot run. But his 45-year-old son Flávio is on the ballot, and analysts fear he’ll govern exactly like his father did, only worse. During Jair’s presidency from 2019 to 2023, Amazon deforestation soared to a 15-year high in 2021, jumping from 7,536 square kilometres in 2018 to 11,594 square kilometres by 2022.

“We have nothing to believe Flávio will do anything differently from his father,” says Claudio Angelo, international policy coordinator at Brazil’s Climate Observatory. “If anything, the signs are that it’s going to be far worse.”

Flávio’s record as a senator includes proposing legislation that threatened Brazil’s native vegetation, and in recent interviews, he’s refused to acknowledge climate change exists, preferring vague references to “extreme climate events” and “cyclical periods.” This isn’t just semantics. Climate denialism translates directly into policy decisions that affect millions of hectares of irreplaceable rainforest.

A Global Crisis Masquerading as Local Politics

While corruption scandals have dominated Brazil’s election coverage, the international community sees one overriding question: what happens to the Amazon? The 4.2 million square kilometres of rainforest regulate global climate patterns and hold enormous carbon reserves. As climate change accelerates, this role becomes increasingly vital.

“The Amazon is a key element in whether climate change escapes human control, which is very close to happening,” warns Philip Fearnside, an ecologist at Brazil’s National Institute for Amazonian Research. If the forest collapses, the resulting emissions increase “would be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.”

The environmental damage during Jair’s presidency wasn’t accidental. Experts say he actively encouraged land-grabbing and illegal mining through pro-development rhetoric while deliberately gutting environmental agencies, rendering them powerless to stop forest invaders.

Lula’s Track Record

Flávio’s opponent is President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who has already demonstrated a different approach. Since returning to office in 2023, Lula restored environmental agency authority, effectively halving Amazon deforestation to 5,731 square kilometres between August 2024 and July 2025.

Izabella Teixeira, Brazil’s environment minister under Lula previously, notes the contrast: “It’s still hard to believe what happened” during the Bolsonaro years. Yet Lula’s government isn’t perfect. His administration has promoted infrastructure projects like improving the BR-319 Amazon highway and backed new oil exploration near the river basin, both of which drive deforestation.

Still, the choice remains stark. Lula has oversaw climate innovations including a self-sustaining fund paying tropical nations for forest preservation, plus a global roadmap away from fossil fuels. Under a Flávio administration, Angelo predicts Brazil would withdraw from climate diplomacy entirely.

Empty Promises

Flávio’s campaign pledges zero illegal deforestation by 2029. Fearnside sees the trick: “There are two ways to achieve that. One is to actually stop deforestation. The other, more likely way, is to just legalise the deforestation that’s going on.”

Indigenous organisations like APIB fear Flávio would open Indigenous lands to critical-mineral extraction. They call his potential victory “the return of a death project.” Combined with his stated intention to appoint five new supreme court judges, political constraints that limited his father would virtually disappear.

“Wildcat mining would explode, deforestation would go up and everything we already had during the first Bolsonaro administration would come back even stronger,” Angelo warns.

This election transcends Brazilian politics. It shapes global climate diplomacy at precisely the moment when science tells us the Amazon approaches an irreversible tipping point. The difference between 5,731 square kilometres of annual deforestation and 11,594 might seem abstract in a headline, but it’s the difference between a forest that survives and one that transforms into savanna, releasing decades of stored carbon into an atmosphere already stretched to its breaking point.

Source: New Scientist