“Brazil is not, and will never be, an environmental villain,” says Brazil VP Mourão

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – A day after stating that Brazil does not need to present to other countries how it will achieve the goals announced in the environmental area because it is an “internal issue,” Vice-President Hamilton Mourão said that “Brazil is not, and will never be, an environmental villain.”

“Whoever flies in this country knows it, knows how much vegetation is preserved. Our legislation is burdensome, it is unique in the world,” he said.

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During his participation in the third edition of the Mercosur International Trade and Services Conference this Friday (5), Mourão spoke again about the environmental issue.

“Our work at COP26 makes it very clear that the Brazilian government and our society share European concerns regarding environmental issues. The main multilateral agreements on climate and biodiversity carry the fingerprint of Brazilian negotiators,” said the vice-president.

“Our country is ahead on this clean energy issue because more than 80% of our energy comes from renewable sources, and we have a wide-open path to increase this in terms of wind and solar energy.”

Under heavy security, Mourão did not answer questions from the press. However, he defended the sustainable development of the Amazon.

“Over the last 20 months, the government has made numerous efforts to reverse an upward trend in deforestation that already came from a previous period. These results will only be lasting if they were accompanied by employment and income alternatives for the Amazon population, about 20 million Brazilians live there in a region with riches. If we preserve 80% of the Brazilian Amazon, we have to be paid for it. Our commitment is evident: sustainability”, he concluded.

IMPORTANCE OF MERCOSUR

Representatives from the Chambers of Commerce of Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Chile, Bolivia, and Eurochambres attended the event, in which Mourão also spoke about Mercosur.

The meeting’s central theme was the bloc’s free trade agreement with the European Union. It foresees that 92% of the European bloc’s imports coming from Mercosur will be free of tariffs within ten years. Tariffs on 72% of Mercosur products to the EU should be eliminated within 10 to 15 years.

The ratification and subsequent implementation of the agreement are being held up amid criticism from European countries in relation to deforestation in the Amazon.

Mourão spoke about the importance of the South American bloc at a time when its member countries were recovering from the most severe health emergency of the century.

“We need to reflect again on the future and the role that Mercosur may play in an increasingly competitive and volatile global environment. We cannot forget that the bloc is a project of deep integration, involving countries that are different from each other but that have long understood that regional integration can favor a better integration of each one in the world,” he said.

The Minister of Economics, Paulo Guedes, who participated in the event by videoconference, said that it was unfortunately impossible to transform Mercosur into a platform for global integration. According to the minister, from the economic point of view, the bloc was not successful.

“Brazil continues to be one of the most closed economies in the world, which is tragic, a lost opportunity. Today, our trade, measured by exports and imports as a percentage of GDP with our Mercosur partners, is 1/3 of what it was 30 years ago. We lost space, we regressed, because we lost opportunity in the midst of changes in global trade,” evaluated Guedes.

With information from CNN Brasil