As aspiring empires clash and the climate crisis intensifies, energy politics worldwide are in upheaval. In Brazil, a single energy company has become a pivot on which national politics swing.

Petrobras, Brazil’s oil and biofuels giant, is majority state owned but hugely dependent on private investment for new development. Since an epic oil find off the Rio de Janeiro coast in the 2000s, Petrobras became the nation’s single largest company, generating over 13 percent of the country’s GDP. The drilling boom was key in funding the landmark social programs of four Workers’ Party (PT) governments, as well as the corporate payoffs that set the stage for the right-wing ruse to bring them down.

As September elections pit far-right president Jair Bolsonaro against the PT’s returning champion, Lula da Silva, privatization, union power, and clean energy transition are potentially at stake. Bolsonaro’s planned privatization this year of Eletrobras, Brazil’s national electric company, makes those stakes painfully clear.