Plaintiffs in the Ecuadorian case against Chevron have filed a lawsuit in Brazil, seeking to enforce an $18 billion court ruling against the oil giant. The initial case concerned pollution from Texaco, which was later acquired by Chevron, in the 1970s and 1980s, when the company, working with Ecuador's state-owned oil company, dumped drilling waste into unlined pits that is alleged to have caused illnesses among indigenous people. The plaintiffs sought a judgment that would force Chevron to pay both the cost of cleanup and damages to injured groups.

Despite some criticisms that the results of Rio were "a failure of leadership" and "insipid," the summit did manage to secure some financial commitments to sustainability goals and new approaches to measuring sustainability and economic progress. United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon announced last week that more than 50 governments have committed to new energy strategies while private investors have pledged $50 billion toward a goal of doubling the share of renewable energy and the rate of efficiency by 2030.

The Brazilian state oil company Petrobras will soon begin the process of carbon sequestration in its Lula oil fields to reduce the environmental impact of its deep water exploration. The oil fields, in the region known as the subsalt, contain large amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2) that will now be re-injected into oil reservoirs or sub-sea salt caverns rather than released into the atmosphere. "CO2 re-injection is common in the industry, but it is not common offshore and certainly not at this depth and pressure," said Petrobras engineer Rivadavia Freitas.

A Brazilian court lifted an order stopping construction of the controversial Belo Monte hydroelectric plant on Thursday. The plant, which will be the world's third largest hydroelectric dam, is to be built in the Amazon rainforest, but a federal judge ordered construction suspended in February on the grounds that certain necessary environmental provisions had not yet been met. The dam has been met with heavy criticism due to its possible effects on wildlife and its potential impact on indigenous people around the Xingu river.

Brazilian officials announced last week that the government would seek $1.2 billion in fines against over a dozen companies being investigated for buying beef from farms illegally deforesting or engaging in slave labor. The complaint also implicated Brazil's Institute for the Environment, which was accused of failing to supervise the companies. However, while Brazil has managed to reduce levels of deforestation by 70 percent since 2004, other areas of Brazil may have borne the brunt of the switch away from using deforested areas as grazing lands for livestock.

The Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (IBAMA), the nation's environmental agency, announced a "zero deforestation policy" last Wednesday in response to growing deforestation. Satellite images recently released by Brazil's space research institute suggest that deforestation from March to April 2011 increased sixfold over the same period last year. Last December, a study indicated that deforestation in Brazil was at its lowest level in 22 years. However, the recently released data shows a 27 percent spike.

Brazil's congress voted to approve legislation easing rules on how much land farmers must preserve as forests. Though the bill requires millions of hectares of cleared land to be replanted, environmentalists say it makes land use regulations too lenient. "The approved bill gives a total and unrestricted amnesty to those who deforested . . . and goes against what the government itself had wanted," said Greenpeace in a statement. The final law allows federal states to decide how much forest needs to be replaced alongside rivers.

A judge in Brazil denied an injunction to stop Chevron and Transocean from operating after two offshore oil leaks, a federal court said last Wednesday. Prosecutor Eduardo Santos de Oliveira sought the injunction against the companies as part of an $11 billion lawsuit for damage at the Frade field last month, in the climate of increasing scrutiny of oil production. However, judge Guilherme Diefenthaeler ruled that the injunction would interfere with the authority of ANP, Brazil's oil regulator, to manage the oil industry.

Wind was cheaper than hydropower and natural gas in a government-organized auction in Brazil last week and is becoming the cheapest source of energy in the country. Wind farm developers agreed to sell power to utilities at an average price of 99.58 reais ($62.91) per megawatt hour, below the overall auction average of 102.07 reais. The costs promised by the wind-farm owners were 24% lower than developers agreed to in a similar auction a year ago.

A Brazilian judge halted work on the multi-billion dollar Belo Monte dam, ruling in favor of fisheries groups who argued that the dam posed a threat to the livelihoods of indigenous communities on the Xingu river. The government has said that the dam, which would be the world's third largest, is necessary to meet Brazil's growing energy needs and will provide electricity to 23 million homes. But Judge Carlos Castro Martins barred Norte Energia, the company behind the project, from building infrastructure that would interfere with the flow of the river and affect fish stocks.