The president-elect of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, promised to “fight without truce” environmental crimes in the country, when speaking at the Conference of the Parties (COP27). To achieve this objective, he again cited the creation of the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples, in addition to strengthening inspection organizations and environmental monitoring systems.
“These crimes affect indigenous peoples most of all. That’s why we’re going to create the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples, so that they themselves can present government proposals that guarantee peace and survival for them. They will be the first partners, agents and beneficiaries of a local development model”, he said when commenting on the possibility of these communities using natural wealth to produce medicines and other products that are not harmful to the environment.
Lula also mentioned investments in the country’s energy transition towards wind, solar, biofuels and also for the production of green hydrogen, a 100% renewable fuel that has increasingly attracted the interest of other countries.
International cooperation
The president-elect set the tone for how his government will be, starting next year: “I want to say that Brazil is back to restore ties with the world; to help fight hunger in the world again; and to cooperate with the poorest countries, especially in Africa and Latin America,” said Lula.
“The phrase that I have heard most from the world leaders I have met is: ‘the world misses Brazil’”, said the president-elect. “We return to a new peaceful order of dialogue, multilateralism and plurality. For fair trade and for peace between peoples,” he added.
Lula then returned to defending the urgent need for financial mechanisms to remedy losses and damages caused by climate change. “We cannot postpone this debate. We cannot continue this race towards the abyss”.
He reiterated the proposal made earlierthat Brazil, through an Amazonian state, will host the COP30, in 2025, and invited the South American countries to meet to discuss “in a sovereign way the integrated development of the region with social and climate responsibility”.
The president-elect also defended a reform of the United Nations (UN), in order to adapt to a world already distant from the context of its creation. “It is not possible for the UN to be run under the same logic as the geopolitics of the Second World War,” he said.
“The world and countries have changed and want to participate more, and we need global governance, especially in the climate issue. If there is something that needs global governance, it is the environmental issue. We need a world forum for this. It is with this objective in mind that I returned to run for office, and that is why I say that I came back not to do the same, but to do more”.
climate emergency
Speaking in the Blue Zone, an area of the United Nations (UN) at CO27, the president-elect commented on the consequences of climate change, which affect all countries. Among the effects, he cited the increasingly frequent tornadoes and tropical storms in the United States; fires and meteorological phenomena in Europe; and the droughts and floods that have affected Brazil.
He also cited the damage caused to poor countries. “Despite being the continent with the lowest emissions rate, Africa has been suffering from extreme climate effects. Rising sea levels could be catastrophic for Egyptians in the Nile Delta.” “Island countries are threatened with disappearing. The climate emergency affects everyone, although its effects are most felt among the poorest”.
To corroborate the argument, Lula said that 1% of the countries – in this case, the richest – emit 30 times more carbon dioxide than the least developed ones, and that this will contribute significantly to making the increase in temperature even more intense. more, making it impossible to comply with what was agreed in previous editions of the COP.
“For this reason, the fight against global warming is inseparable from the fight against poverty, and for a less unequal and fairer world”, he added, remembering that climate security is directly related to the protection of the South American Amazon – which is why he assumed the commitment to “measure no effort” to bring deforestation to zero in this and other Brazilian biomes.
Lula reiterated the importance that all participants in the conference of the parties comply with agreements made in previous editions of the meeting: “we cannot keep promising and not fulfilling because we will be victims of ourselves”, he added when recalling the commitments made at COP15, in Copenhagen in 2009, in which the richest countries pledged to allocate, starting in 2020, US$ 100 billion per year to help the least developed countries to face climate change. “My return is also to collect what was promised”, she added.
Agribusiness
Regarding agriculture, Lula said that his government’s goal will be balanced production, sequestering carbon and protecting biodiversity, with increased income for farmers and ranchers.
“I am sure that agribusiness will be a strategic ally in the search for regenerative and sustainable agriculture, with an emphasis on technology in the field. There are several successful examples of agroforestry in Brazil. We have the technological knowledge for this, so that we do not deforest a single meter. This is the challenge facing Brazilians and other food-producing countries,” he said, reiterating his aim to reduce hunger in Brazil and around the world.
According to him, the results of the elections showed that Brazilians made a choice for peace, for well-being, for the survival of the Amazon “and, therefore, for the survival of our planet”.
“At all times the planet warns us that we need each other to survive and that, alone, we are vulnerable to climate tragedy. We ignore these warnings, spending trillions on wars that only bring death, while 900 million people have nothing to eat.” “Between 2030 and 2050, global warming could result in 250,000 more deaths per year from heat-related illnesses, and the economic impact of this process is estimated to be between US$ 2 and 4 billion annually. No one is safe,” he argued.
