Brazil joins India, China and South Africa to argue that rich countries should finance global warming actions

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – In preparation for the Climate Summit, Brazil met on April 8 with China, India and South Africa to argue that rich countries should finance actions against global warming. At the meeting, a Basic forum environment ministers’ conference comprising the four countries, the Brazilian government helped  on climate change.

Brazil’s joint action with recently industrialized governments was considered critical for the government of President Jair Bolsonaro, seen in the United States and in Europe as the current environmental villain.

The Ministry of Foreign Relations had been preparing for a difficult summit and feared that the country – formerly an international standard in preservation initiatives – would be isolated.

The fears were justified. The U.S government established that Bolsonaro, representative of the most important and largest Latin American country, where most of the world’s Amazon rainforest is located, would be the 19th leader to speak – among the 27 scheduled on Thursday -, and to top it all, Joe Biden was not even present in the room where the videoconference was shown when it was finally the Brazilian’s turn to speak.

The main axis of the Basic’s document is the argument that climate debates should be guided by the principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities.” The concept foresees that the demand for efforts to reduce emissions must respect the socioeconomic conditions of each country.

“By recognizing the different capabilities and historical responsibilities between developed and developing countries, the ministers emphasize that the Basic and other developing countries require time and space for public policy formulation to achieve a just transition of their economies,” write the governments of Brazil, India, China and South Africa.

The text also defends the environmental policies of the forum members, highlighting that they have established climate policies and contributions that reflect “the highest possible ambitions.”

In the text, the four governments criticize the proposal to establish a kind of environmental tax by which imports would be surcharged according to the “carbon footprint” of production.

According to Ministry of Foreign Affairs sources, the measure, currently adopted by the European Union, could become a discriminatory trade practice.

In the document, the signatories also argue that “the ambition of support from developed countries should match the ambition of action from developing countries” and that the COP26 (United Nations Climate Change Conference, scheduled for November in Scotland) should aim to reach an agreement on financing for developing countries, especially at a time when these nations are facing the impacts of Covid.

“Ministers expressed their deep concern about the insufficiency and inadequacy of support provided by developed countries to date. The scale and speed of climate finance provided by developed countries needs to increase considerably,” the countries write.

The provision of funds by developed countries is a point dear to the Bolsonaro administration, which has stated to interlocutors abroad that money from richer countries is needed in order to halt the growing deforestation in recent years in the Amazon, the main source of greenhouse gas emissions – together with cattle raising – in Brazil.

In a meeting this month with the USA, Minister of the Environment Ricardo Salles showed an illustration in which Brazil is represented as a dog looking at roasted chickens running on a machine. Above the chickens, a sentence reads: “payment expectation.”

Source: Folha de S. Paulo