Trade war risks curbing access to key green tech, Brazil climate chief warns

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The risk of a global trade war is “a very big concern” that would damage the world’s ability to tackle rising temperatures by limiting access to crucial technology, the chief executive of this year’s UN COP30 climate summit has warned.

Brazil is due to host the world’s most important environmental talks in November, but the country’s climate secretary Ana Toni admitted they would take place in “very difficult circumstances”.

Since taking office in January, President Donald Trump has launched a sweeping attack on climate policies in the US, including pulling the country out of the landmark Paris agreement for the second time, while his threatened tariffs have sparked fears of a global trade war.

“The trade war is a really big concern because some countries have technology for decarbonisation that other countries need,” Toni said in an interview with the Financial Times. “We cannot slow down the process because of trade wars in terms of exchanging technologies, products and so on.”

A London School of Economics paper last year found that Trump’s promised tariffs would “significantly impact the affordability of electric vehicles” in the US alone.

“Having fluid and free trade for specifically low carbon products is really important,” Toni said. “So trade wars don’t help us. They really make our lives harder for the process that we need to face, which is global decarbonisation.”

Academic research suggests duplicate supply chains caused by tariffs can increase emissions, but bolstering domestic manufacturing can also cut demand for heavily-polluting long-haul shipping.

Toni argued there was still widespread support from countries outside the US for addressing climate change, adding that the UK, Europe and China all supported a “multilateral approach”.

“We have to have a successful COP” despite the geopolitical turmoil, Toni said. “Climate change is not going to wait for the geopolitical scenery to change.”

She said this year’s COP needed to shift away from a focus on negotiations — arguing the “rule book” for the Paris accord was now largely agreed — and instead focus on how to “accelerate action”.

She noted that the summit, which will take place in the Amazonian port city of Belém, will be the first held “since we’ve gone over 1.5C” above pre-industrial levels over a calendar year.

This is not a breach of the Paris agreement’s goal to limit the temperature rise to 1.5C above the pre-industrial period, which is measured over decades rather than one year, but scientists warn last year’s record-breaking temperatures signalled that climate change was accelerating faster than expected.

Brazil’s leadership of the COP conference has come under scrutiny in recent months, with criticism of its decision to explore for more oil, join the OPEC+ oil group and allow the construction of a road through forest in Belém.

Despite being a big oil producer, Brazil is “going to do this transition” away from fossil fuels, Toni said, arguing their membership of OPEC+ could help drive dialogue about reducing nations’ dependence on oil and gas.

She also played down concerns about deforestation caused by the construction of the road in Belém. The road was not being built specifically for the summit, she said, insisting it was instead infrastructure required for the city.

“No one is proud to deforest even one tree but sometimes it is needed.”