Ahead of UN climate talks, Brazil fast-tracks oil and highway projects that threaten the Amazon
MANAUS, Brazil — Months before hosting the U.N.'s first climate talks held in the Amazon , Brazil is fast-tracking a series of controversial decisions that undercut President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's lofty environmental rhetoric and show widening divisions within his cabinet.
The country's federal environmental agency approved plans for offshore drilling near the mouth of the Amazon and rock blasting along another river in the rainforest, while Congress is moving to make it harder to recognize Indigenous land and easier to build infrastructure in the rainforest.
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