Brazil's Lula to talk climate at UN, but Amazon fires undermines message

When Brazil's President Luiz Incio Lula da Silva opens the UN General Assembly on Tuesday, he is expected to call on the world to do more to combat climate change. It remains to be seen whether he will address fires ravaging the rainforest back home and criticism of his administration's own environmental stewardship.

Brazil's Amazon saw 38,000 blazes last month the most for any August since 2010, according to data from the country's space institute. September is on track to repeat that ignoble feat. Smoke has been choking residents of many cities, including metropolis Sao Paulo that's thousands of miles away.

Lula has cast these fires as the result of criminals and proposed harsher punishments for environmental offenders. But enforcement has been hampered by a six-month strike at environmental regulator Ibama that ended in August three months after his administration was aware of significantly heightened risk of fires amid historic drought.

At the same time, members of his Cabinet