COP27 applauds Lula da Silva’s election, but wants Brazil to review its commitments

The UN summit (United Nations) expects that the arrival of president-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (Workers’ Party – PT, left) on the international scene will send “strong signals” against deforestation in the world.

According to UOL, Brazil must redo its emission reduction commitments, considered insufficient and a real “environmental foot-dragging”, to resume its position as an international protagonist.

Da Silva decided to go to the UN Climate Conference next week in Egypt, also as a clear sign that his administration will put the climate issue at the center of its agenda and in the quest to recover the country’s international credibility.

In his statements, he has already made it clear that he is aware of the international pressure and is willing to cooperate again.

His departure comes after the government of Egypt, organizing the event, sent a letter to the president-elect to officially invite him.

Among foreign diplomats, Lula da Silva’s presence will overshadow the official Brazilian delegation, also led by representatives of Jair Bolsonaro (Liberal Party – PL, right).

But UOL has found that, at the UN, the expectation is that da Silva will not only change his speech but that there will be a real review of the reality of the environment in the country.

Responding to UOL, the deputy executive secretary of the UN Convention on Climate Change, the Indian Ovais Sarmad, made it clear that the entity celebrates the election of Lula da Silva. But it points to the ways ahead.

“We welcome the election results in Brazil and want to welcome da Silva in Sharm El Sheik,” said Sarmad, who holds the post of assistant secretary-general of the UN, one of the highest posts in world diplomacy.

“This is an important change that we have seen at the political level that should send a strong signal about the deforestation that we see in various parts of the world, particularly in the Amazon,” he said.

According to him, forests are essential for emissions, so the Brazilian election was seen as positive. “This result (of the election) is significant and welcome,” Sarmad said.

“We will work with all the actors, and Brazil is one of the critical pieces, especially on the forest issue,” he added.

NEW COMMITMENTS

People from the highest echelon of the UN and with broad access to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres admitted to UOL that there is a hope that the Lula da Silva government will redo and resubmit to the international community new national commitments regarding emission reductions.

The proposal presented by Bolsonaro was harshly criticized and seen as an attempt by the government to cheat the international community.

According to these negotiators, there is a genuine willingness from the world to help Brazil to deal with deforestation, including the return of foreign funding.

But there will be no “blank check,” and before a new agreement, the world wants to see whether the new Brazilian government has new goals and plans. In Egypt, this will be the center of attention.

Last week, in a veritable obituary of Brazil’s environmental policy, the UN Environment Program published its annual emissions report revealing that Jair Bolsonaro’s government is going in the opposite direction among the world’s major powers when it comes to fighting climate change.

The document points out that the goals set by the major responsible for greenhouse gas emissions are insufficient to limit global warming within limits defined by the Paris Agreement, below 2 degrees Celsius, and with efforts to limit it to 1.5 degrees Celsius by 2100.

What still left the UN worried is that, despite the goals announced by governments during the Summit in Glasgow last year, the policies, measures, and actions don’t even match what was assumed by the diplomacies worldwide.

For the entity, there is no option: either governments increase their ambition, or the climate disaster will become a reality.

But the report reveals another aspect: all the effort made by Jair Bolsonaro’s government to show the world in Glasgow that it was taking a stance in defense of the climate was nothing but a farce.

Last year, the government tried dismantling international pressure by announcing commitments to reduce deforestation and adopting a new tone in its speeches.

But the rates of forest destruction continued to rise, while the agencies to deal with the situation in the Amazon continued to lack resources.

For Carlos Rittl, an international policy expert at the Rainforest Foundation of Norway, Brazil “stands out negatively” in the new UN report.

The country appears as the country within the G20 that, instead of increasing climate ambition in its new commitments, presented targets that will lead to an increase in emissions in 2030 compared to previous proposals.

Only Mexico also has a performance that goes against the world, but at much more modest rates than Brazil.

“In other words, the world is moving fast towards climate chaos, there is little progress on the targets of the biggest emitters, but only one country that makes the challenge of fighting global warming even more difficult: Bolsonaro’s Brazil,” said Rittl.

“Moreover, the report also shows that while the land use emissions of some countries, such as China, India, the United States, and the European Union, were negative in 2020, in Brazil, emissions increased because of increased deforestation,” he pointed out.

The report also reveals that in its proposal, Brazil does not even meet all the criteria expected of the world’s largest economies, such as transparency, the publication of a plan, and annual monitoring.

With information from UOL