After Risking Turning Brazil Into a ‘Climate Criminal’, Bolsonaro Agrees to Environmental Commitments

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Over the past few months, the environmental factor has become crucial to the future of the Bolsonaro government. On one hand, Joe Biden, victorious in the U.S. elections, is considering the establishment of a group of ‘climate criminal‘ countries, of which Brazil could be part. On the other, the MERCOSUR agreement with the European Union could fail due to the rise in deforestation rates in the Amazon.

These factors seem to have finally weighed on the Brazilian President, who on Sunday, November 22nd, hinted at the possibility of undertaking new commitments in the environmental area during his speech on the second day of the G20 conference, the group of countries with the world’s largest economies.

The address was delivered through teleconference, due to the novel coronavirus pandemic. Unlike the speech delivered on Saturday, he did not address the racial issue in the country, evidenced after the murder of black man João Alberto Silveira Freitas in a Carrefour supermarket store in Porto Alegre.

“We are building a country open to the world, willing not only to seek new trade agreements but also to undertake new and greater commitments in the areas of development and sustainability,” said Bolsonaro. “While we seek greater economic openness, we are aware that trade agreements are increasingly influenced by the environmental agenda,” he added, at the very beginning of his address, a time when the most significant points of speeches are usually raised.

This is the first time that the Brazilian government has publicly assumed this position. To date, Bolsonaro had been shocking other countries with speeches like the one delivered in September, at the opening of the United Nations (UN) annual assembly, in which he stated that, both in the Amazon and the Pantanal, “indigenous and peasants” would be responsible for the devastating patch burning that affected the biomes, without mentioning factors such as the action of farmers, prospectors and land grabbers.

Just last week, during the BRICS virtual summit – a group that includes Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa – Bolsonaro had threatened to disclose the names of countries that import illegally harvested wood from Brazil. This was done while his government reduced the inspection of illegal timber sales.

In March this year, the chairman of the Brazilian Institute of Environment and Resources (IBAMA), Eduardo Bim, abolished the rule that established that the agency should authorize the shipping of all these goods from Brazil. The rule was aimed at reinforcing the control over the export of wood, in an attempt to curb the smuggling of products.

“Unjustified attacks”

However, still during his G20 address on Sunday, Bolsonaro again complained that the country is the target of “unjustified attacks by less competitive and less sustainable nations” – a constant allegation of Bolsonarist rhetoric.

According to the President’s speech, over the past decades, Brazil has become one of the world’s largest agricultural exporters. “We feed almost one and a half billion people and guarantee the food security of several countries,” said the President. Nevertheless, according to him, 66 percent of the national territory is preserved with native vegetation.

What the government regards as “preserved” remains to be seen. This year, fires destroyed at least 15 percent of the Pantanal – the largest devastation in the region’s history. Simultaneously, the Amazon had the worst wave of fires in the past decade, according to the National Institute of Space Research (INPE). Its satellites detected over 32,000 hot spots in the world’s largest rainforest.

The Amazon region also recorded 964 square kilometers of deforestation in September, the second-worst number for the month since the Real-Time Deforestation Detection System (DETER) first began issuing forest cover warnings in 2015.

The Amazon, incidentally, should become a focal point in the new relationship between Brazil and the U.S. after Joe Biden reaches the White House, scheduled for January 20th, 2021. During his campaign, Biden made a point of addressing the issue in more than one occasion, referring to the Amazon as “an ecosystem that needs to be protected, indispensable to the planet”.

There was also the promise to create a US$20 billion fund, jointly with other nations, to protect the forest – coupled with a warning to the Brazilian government: “Stop destroying the forest. If you don’t stop, you will suffer significant economic consequences”, in addition to the creation of the list of “climate criminal” countries. The goal is to force governments to strive to meet the Paris agreement goal of preventing a global temperature increase of more than 2ºC.

According to the Vox website, Biden intends to renew the United States’ commitments to the Paris climate agreement, from which Trump has withdrawn. In this context, Brazil has been perceived as a kind of environmental villain, which does little to prevent deforestation or fires in the Amazon and Pantanal. On the contrary, it weakens the control and punitive instruments of those responsible for the crimes.

Bolsonaro’s reaction so far has been to appeal to a kind of anti-diplomacy: he has not yet recognized Biden’s victory in the U.S. and still issued veiled war threats, saying that “when you run out of words, you need to have gunpowder, if not, it won’t work,” referring to the protection of the Amazon against an alleged threat from Biden.

Within the government, vice-president General Hamilton Mourão has been trying to calm the mood. On one hand, in interviews, he said that “as an individual” he recognized that Biden’s victory in the elections “is increasingly more irreversible”.

On the other, he promoted a tour of the Amazon with ambassadors from several countries – several of whom publicly warned Brazil of the adverse commercial effects of the government’s lack of initiatives to fight deforestation – despite the fact that the delegation failed to visit devastated areas. As a result, Mourão has garnered prestige among the military leadership, unhappy with Bolsonaro.

Meanwhile, Minister of the Environment Ricardo Salles is losing prestige within the government, who continues to try to “pass new laws” in the country’s environmental regulations and is collecting suspicions regarding his personal assets, such as those involving his apartment in São Paulo. Since Biden’s victory, he – along with Foreign Minister Ernesto Araújo – has had his name listed for a replacement.

Both are members of the radical wing of the government and, in diplomatic circles, representatives of foreign countries sent a message to the Planalto Palace that dismissing the duo would be something perceived as a positive sign. Bolsonaro still gave no clear answer in this respect – something that could change in the coming days if the line adopted on Sunday’s speech is upheld.

Source: El País