Jim Warren is a recovering academic as retired adjunct professor and lecturer in environmental sociology at the University of Regina.
Leaders attending the COP30 U.N. Climate Summit pose for a group photo in Belem, Brazil, Friday, Nov. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)
Worlds are colliding at the COP30 climate change conference in Belem, Brazil. Virtue signaling conference promoters have run head on into hard reality.
Organizers of the UN sponsored conference were gobsmacked when Indigenous protesters crashed the gates at the conference site and battled with security guards. The protesters were claiming ownership over the rain forest and demanding the right to manage its resources.
UN officials were stunned to discover that the noble Indigenous stewards of the sacred rain forest were also demanding admission to the conference given that approximately 500 of the official delegates, claimed by organizers, were members of Indigenous communities. The international environmental movement was just discovering what many Western Canadians have known for decades.
You see many of the people living in rich countries may have one or more ancestors who may have been alive in Europe during European colonialism’s heyday and through the magic of intergenerational guilt the descendants now owe apologies and huge reparations to the formerly colonized.
Conference delegates were further embarrassed when climate alarmists in the mainstream media attacked the host country for drilling for oil just 100 miles out in the Atlantic near the mouth of the Amazon and coral reefs. It turns out Brazilian president Luiz Lula da Silva, darling of the world’s democratic socialists, is presiding over an oil boom.
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A CNN report aired on November 10, the first day of the conference, complained “This new fossil fuel boom is happening just as the impacts of the climate crisis—driven by fossil fuels—is beginning to bite in ever more alarming ways. People in South America are dying in floods, fires, storms, and droughts made longer and more catastrophic by climate change.” (It is interesting how journalists from mainstream media organizations automatically blame bad weather on climate change without bothering to provide any supporting evidence.)
Prior to the early 2000s, Venezuela held the title of South America’s oil giant. It still has the world’s largest proven oil reserves, 304 billion barrels. Prior to 2003, when Hugo Chavez became president, Venezuela was one of the world’s major crude producers and exporters. Pre-Chavez, Venezuela was producing around three million barrels of oil per day (bpd). Production collapsed under the Chavez regime’s gross mismanagement. Today, Venezuela produces 1.1 million bpd, a little more than one-third of pre-Chavez production.
South America’s current oil boom is being led by a couple of relative newcomers; Brazil and Guyana. But there are several other significant producers on the continent including Venezuela, Argentina and Columbia.
The table provided in the Annex to this column lists oil production by country for South America and compares that data with the production of the world’s top four producers.
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Brazil’s oil boom had its early beginnings around 20 years ago. As of 2025, it is the world’s sixth largest oil producer, 4.9 million bpd. Since 2024 crude oil has been the country’s single most valuable export commodity. The current president and Amazon defender, Luiz Lula da Silva, has presided over 11 of the boom years. Unlike his democratic socialist counterpart in Canada, Justin Trudeau, da Silva did not thwart oil development by placing insurmountable regulatory barriers in its path. However, like Hugo Chavez, da Silva has been milking oil revenues to support social programs. Some observers worry that if social welfare demands on revenues become excessive they will cut into the money available to maintain current production and invest in growth.
Guyana’s oil boom was launched in 2015 with Exxon Mobil’s discovery of the Stabroek Block offshore oil field. In just ten years Guyana has gone from virtually zero production to an estimated 900,000 bpd in 2025.
The exponential increases in production in Brazil and Guyana can’t help but affect the global market for petroleum. It suggests that Canada could someday face additional competition for its US customers.
The fly in the ointment that could frustrate the fortunes of South American oil is the region’s chronic political instability. Oil exploration in Columbia was plagued by the kidnapping of company employees by Marxist revolutionaries and drug gangs (often one and the same). More recently, Venezuela has threatened to invade Guyana in support of a longstanding territorial claim and for control of a section of the Stabroek Block. The US has been sabre rattling and threatening to go to war with Venezuela. Argentina is an economic basket case—a serial defaulter on its international debt commitments. It has been run by military oligarchies and juntas in the past, one of which was stupid enough to pick a fight with Margaret Thatcher over the Falkland Islands. And, Brazil teetered on the brink of a coup when da Silva defeated former army captain Jair Bolsonaro in the 2023 national election.
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Of course as the Danish say, “it is difficult to make predictions, especially about the future.” The way things are going in the US, it could fall into an economic tailspin that would cause the size of its oil imports to shrink.
By the way if you are interested in attending COP30 they probably have room for you. The leaders of several prominent nations including Canada and the world’s three most significant greenhouse gas emitters, China, India and the US didn’t show up.
Delegations from many of the world’s smaller countries decided they couldn’t afford the expense of $1,000 per night accommodations in Belem’s hotels or the luxury cruise ships docked on the Amazon to supplement the local options. Others complained that the isolated location of the conference required more expensive connecting flights than is the case when the COPs are held in the world’s major urban centres.
Last week’s rumble in the jungle is just one of the many disappointments confronting delegates to COP30 and the environmental movement. In most of the world’s wealthier democracies the “green meanies” who thought they could end growth in petroleum production on behalf of net zero goals have experienced setbacks. This is mainly because voters in Europe and the US have reacted badly to anti-emissions measures which increase the already high cost of living.
Recent history in South America, shows that oil has a future that will extend to 2050 and beyond.
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Annex
Share of 2023 global oil production of 81.8 million barrels per day and reserves for the top four producers and top 10 South American producers.
Sources: derived from several publicly accessible data bases and lists including Our World in Data, Statista,
Exxon Mobil’s estimate for the Stabroek Block production for 2025 and the Wikipedia entries for List of countries by oil extraction, and List of countries by proven oil reserves.
Donny Duncan, president and CEO of Millennium Land, is the guest on the Pipeline Online Podcast at 1 p.m. Monday, Nov. 17. You can watch live on:
X at https://x.com/Pipeline_Online (best option)
YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/brianzinchuk
of Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/pipelineonlineca
The Pipeline Online podcast is now on Apple Podcasts, available in both video and audio. You can find it here. Please follow.
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/pipeline-online-podcast/id1791695209
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