RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The result of the U.S. elections, in which Democrat Joe Biden thwarted the re-election of Republican Donald Trump, is resonating in several parts of the world, and one of them is likely to fully impact Brazil – specifically, the Amazon – as of the new president’s very first days in the White House.
Faced with a likely twist in American ecological policy, the government of Jair Bolsonaro finds itself at a crossroads that leads to the world’s largest rainforest: preserving the rhetoric of environmental denialism or yielding to global pressure for greater care over the environment?
Regardless of the choice, Biden’s victory places the future of the Amazon as a central point in the relationship between the two countries. “With Biden, the Amazon is at the heart of the international policy debate,” projects the president of the Brazilian Panel on Climate Change, Carlos Nobre.
During the campaign, Biden made a point of addressing the issue on more than one occasion, referring to the Amazon as “an ecosystem that needs to be protected, indispensable to the planet.” In one of his debates with Trump, the President-elect of the United States pledged to establish a fund jointly with other countries of US$20 billion (an amount above R$100 billion) for the protection of the Amazon, by warning the Brazilian Government: “Stop destroying the forest. If you don’t stop, you will suffer significant economic consequences.” At the time, Bolsonaro reacted to the statement by qualifying it as “disastrous and gratuitous”.
Marcio Astrini, executive secretary of the Climate Observatory, believes that the fund, if put into practice, is an example of the conflicting mindset that separates the Bolsonaro government from the new direction Biden is proposing around environmental foreign policy. “They would be administrations with very different world views, particularly with respect to environmental preservation,” says the environmentalist.
“If the fund Biden is proposing really is aimed at protecting forests, it is not in the interest of the Bolsonaro government. I think it is very unlikely that the Planalto will use these amounts or any other money for that specific purpose.”
Astrini recalls the Amazon Fund imbroglio, which now amounts to almost R$3 billion in funds paralyzed after Minister of the Environment Ricardo Salles disbanded the initiative’s managing board. Established in 2008, the fund raises international resources to preserve the forest, mainly from European countries. Since the beginning of the current government, Germany and Norway have blocked about R$300 million due to the undermining of control mechanisms and attempts by the Ministry of the Environment (MMA) to change the allocation of the money.
“The resources of the Amazon Fund should be used to fight deforestation and monitor civil society. But the Brazilian government is not inclined to accept these terms,” says Astrini.
Forced Review
From a global perspective, Carlos Nobre, also a researcher at the University of São Paulo’s (USP) Institute of Advanced Studies, assumes that Brazil will be forced to review its environmental policies, and will necessarily accept an eventual Amazon preservation fund led by the United States. “In the very short term, it may be that the Bolsonaro Government will fight back, but in the medium term it will have no choice,” he explains.
“The fund suggested by Biden would be a means of enabling American business to enter the Amazon, it is different from the model financed by Germany and Norway. Surely, with the Democrat president, the United States will join the international pressure for a productive chain free of deforestation. And reducing it dramatically in the Amazon will be its only alternative if Brazil does not want to suffer major economic losses.”
With 17,326 fire outbreaks in October alone, more than double the same period last year, the Amazon has already broken the annual fire record of the past decade. According to PRODES, a program of the National Institute of Space Research (INPE) that monitors deforestation in the Legal Amazon, the deforested area figures have maintained an upward trend since the inception of the Bolsonaro Government. There were 10,129 km2 deforested between August 2018 and July 2019, the highest rate of the decade.
With this year’s forest fires, the estimated figures for August 2019 and July 2020 range from 13,000 to 15,000 km2. In late October, Vice-President Hamilton Mourão, manager of the Amazon Fund, submitted a proposal to European countries to reduce the number to 6,500 km2, but only in 2023, after Brazil failed to reach the goal of 3,925 km2 this year. “The United States are among the countries that emit the most CO2 in the world,” said Mourão, on the eve of the American election, when asked about the prospect of Biden’s victory. “First, they have to solve their own problems, and then address ours.”
Noble assesses that, if Brazil does not want to clash with the Biden administration on the environmental issue, it must commit to immediately reduce deforestation in the Amazon “by at least 50 percent”, driving the number to around 7,000 km2, closer to the rate seen six years ago. However, the researcher recalls that, as of 2014, due to the economic crisis, Brazil has been pulling funds from the fire prevention and deforestation budget, which makes the task of adjusting to the imposition of a new goal by the United States even more strenuous: “Zeroing deforestation in the Amazon is difficult, but it is possible to reduce it, without a doubt. This demands leadership and control in the region, something that will not be possible unless the Government adopts a firm stance in this direction.”
Experts like Nobre expect a certain degree of moderation from Bolsonaro in the coming months in statements focused on the Amazon, despite the clash with Biden during the American campaign. Even if Brazil’s President decides to dispense with the billions of aid pledged by the US president-elect and withstands the international flogging on deforestation, he needs to estimate the political cost of continuing to turn a blind eye to the destruction of the forest.
Economic incentive
Led by Biden, the United States should also encourage its multinational companies to assume commitments in defense of the environment – which has never been part of the Trump administration approach. Recently, a study by the Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (APIB) in partnership with the American NGO Amazon Watch showed that financial institutions like Citigroup, BlackRock, and J.P. Morgan Chase have invested over US$18 billion (R$102 billion), between 2017 and 2020, in companies denounced for involvement in invasions, deforestation, and violations of indigenous rights in the Amazon.
“In Congress, Democrats are pushing for financiers to no longer be accomplices of forest destroyers. As they regain power, they are expected to put this speech into practice,” says Christian Poirier, Amazon Watch’s program director.
The first demonstration in this respect may occur even before Biden’s inauguration as President. On Wednesday, one day after the election, the United States officially withdrew from the Paris Agreement, a campaign promise Trump has kept. To mark the difference in the environmental agenda in relation to his Republican predecessor, the new president signaled his intention to reinstate the United States in the target plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible. The realignment of the world’s greatest power to the Agreement would be another setback for Bolsonaro, who has already considered taking Trump’s path – and reversed it – and is reacting to proposals for international aid for the preservation of the Amazon.
“Without Trump to endorse the Bolsonaro government’s disastrous environmental policy, Brazil will have no way to refuse it [Biden’s fund],” says Poirier.
The price of the alliance
Hostage to the ideological marriage of Bolsonaro and Trump, export agribusiness is the sector that most fears the consequences of an imminent shift in geopolitics. Although the Republican president did not openly advocate deforestation or mining activities in the Amazon, the closeness of his so-called “tropical version” helped to cement a predatory environmental agenda on Brazilian soil, claims Carlos Nobre: “Trump never publicly said the Amazon was meant to be deforested. But by sharing a negative view on climate change, he helped Bolsonaro feel empowered by his support to reproduce a similar rhetoric in Brazil.”
In May, Minister of the Environment Ricardo Salles sparked an outrage among environmentalists after it became public that he had suggested taking advantage of the pandemic to change environmental laws at a cabinet meeting. It was just one more in a string of controversial events in Salles’ time at the head of the portfolio, which also includes an indictment by the Federal Prosecutor’s Office for administrative misconduct. Carlos Nobre points out that the Minister tends to lose steam in the face of the post-Trump world scenario, for symbolizing the alliance of the Bolsonaro Government with the legislative agribusiness caucus, comprising lobbyists for the deforestation of the Amazon and land grabbers.
“The Green New Deal movement is now a reality. The world economy may begin to veto imports of Brazilian products because of deforestation. Large agribusiness companies have perceived this trend and are terrified. And, unless there is a significant change of direction in the Government, the market’s pressure on them will be unsustainable from now on,” says Nobre.
Challenged performance
In addition to Salles, another ardent Bolsonarist whose performance is likely to be challenged by the change in command in the White House is Foreign Relations Minister Ernesto Araújo, who has assumed a denialist stance on climate change, and has already used a cold wave in Italy to question global warming. The chancellor is regarded with mistrust by leaders of the Parliamentary Front of Agriculture and Livestock in the Brazilian Congress due to aggressive demonstrations against China, Brazil’s largest importer of meat and soybeans, and on environmental protection policies. “Biden has the opportunity to organize a great international front against populism, denialism and anti-scientism. In this scenario, Brazil would be very isolated, which would add to agribusiness dissatisfaction with the government it helped elect,” assesses Nobre.
During his administration, Bolsonaro was forced to review positions due to the reaction of agribusiness leaders to aspects such as the possibility raised in the presidential transition of ending the Ministry of the Environment or the very threat of abandoning the Paris Agreement. “Relations between countries are not restricted to the environmental area, but it is increasingly determining for trade treaties,” notes Marcio Astrini. “The Amazon never existed in the relationship between the Trump and Bolsonaro governments, but it can be placed on the table by Biden in future bilateral negotiations, following the example of what is happening with Europe.”
The environmentalist refers to the free trade agreement recently signed between Mercosur and the European Union, which can be blocked by the Europeans unless Brazil commits to reducing deforestation in the Amazon and the emission of pollutant gases. Now, the U.S. has a chance to join Europe in the global task force to squeeze the Bolsonaro government within more sustainable environmental guidelines. “Diplomatic pressure would force Brazil to reform environmental policies in order to maintain trade relations not only with the United States but also with Europe,” says Christian Poirier.
According to a Datafolha survey commissioned by Greenpeace Brazil, 87 percent of Brazilians consider it very important to preserve the Amazon, and 46 percent consider the efforts undertaken by Bolsonaro to protect the ecosystem to be bad or terrible. Unless he intends to face the same bitter end as his former ally in America, “Trump’s poor man’s version” will have to start his race for reelection based on new environmental terms, and choose between pragmatism or denialism.
Source: El País