RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – President Jair Bolsonaro strongly criticized the outcome of the climate summit (COP25) in Madrid yesterday, denouncing from Brasília the “trade game” that involved wealthy countries, particularly European nations.
“I do not know how people do not understand that this is just a trade game,” said the head of state at a meeting with the press outside his official residence in the Alvorada Palace.
He added: “I would like to know if there is a resolution for Europe to be reforested or if they will continue to bother only Brazil?”.
Brazil should have hosted the COP25, but quit soon after Jair Bolsonaro’s election, who, when questioned about this decision, answered: “It was I who decided this. They would have staged their ‘carnival’ in Brazil”.
Brazil’s Minister of the Environment, Ricardo Salles, also said yesterday that the climate conference – COP25 – “came to nothing,” particularly with regard to the global regulation of carbon credits”.
“The rich countries do not want to open their carbon credit markets. They demand action and point the finger at the rest of the world, unceremoniously, but when it comes to putting their hands in their pockets, they don’t do it. Protectionism and hypocrisy have gone hand in hand all the time,” Ricardo Sales wrote on his Twitter account in Madrid.
In a video published on this social media at the end of the event, Ricardo Sales assured that, despite all of Brazil’s efforts, “the protectionist stance” of the wealthy countries prevailed and insisted that the South American giant will “stand firm in its work to attract resources” for the Brazilians.
The absence of an agreement on the proposed regulation was one of the main bottlenecks at the summit, an issue on which no consensus was reached and which was deferred to 2020.
Brazil’s role at the COP25 was focused on seeking resources from rich nations for the preservation of the South American power, but in the last days of the event, the country disapproved of articles related to the role of the oceans and land use in climate change, which was close to blocking the main agreement at the conference.
The climate summit ended yesterday with the production of a document to increase climate ambition in 2020 and comply with the Paris Agreement that requires countries to prevent the average temperature on the planet from rising by more than 1.5 degrees this century.
The document, entitled “Chile-Madrid, Time to Act,” was reached almost two days after the conference was scheduled to close.