The president-elect, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, will propose that the 30th edition of the United Nations Conference of the Parties on Climate Change (COP30), in 2025, be in the Amazon. “Let’s talk to the UN Secretary General [Organização das Nações Unidas, António Guterres] and we are going to ask that the 2025 COP be held in Brazil, in the Amazon”, he said, today (16), during his participation in COP27, in Egypt.
“I think it is very important that people who defend the Amazon, who defend the climate, get to know firsthand what that region is, so that people can discuss the Amazon from a concrete reality and not just from a culture through reading,” he said. For Lula, both the states of Pará and Amazonas are ready to host the international conference.
This Wednesday (16), at COP27, Lula received a letter of common commitments from the consortium of governors of the nine states of the Legal Amazon. During the delivery of the document, it was the governor of Pará, Helder Barbalho, who asked the president-elect to make a proposal to hold the COP30 in Brazil to the summit of the United Nations (UN).
“I make this request on behalf of the Consortium of Governors and the peoples of the forest. I ask you to offer the Amazon to host the COP30, so that we can lead the planet to debate the Amazon by knowing the Amazon. So that, more than getting to know it through social networks, through the distance of books or access to information through networks, they get to know the Amazon and its people, with their feet on the ground, looking at us, face to face, and building with us a Live in the Amazon with sustainability and social justice for the people of the Amazon”, said Barbalho.
The governor highlighted that the president-elect’s commitment to the environmental issue was evident with the fact that his first international public agenda directly involved the issue. “Your presence here is a gesture that takes Brazil back to the level of protagonism in the environmental agenda and the climate agenda. Above all, it elevates Brazil once again to the ability to engage in dialogue and speak to the world. This is an asset that will help Brazil find solutions and find a better and fairer society,” he added.
democratic coexistence
Lula said that he will talk to governors and mayors so that they can govern in common accord. According to him, Brazil will once again coexist democratically with its representatives, regardless of political parties and religious views.
“To put an end to hunger, misery, the process of degradation that the forests are going through, the suffering of our indigenous people, we are going to have to talk a lot and work together so that Brazil is a source of pride to the world and not reason for despair as it is today”, warned the president-elect.
The fight against illegal deforestation and care for indigenous peoples will be very strong during his government, announced the president-elect. For Lula, the riches of the Amazon must be explored, but keeping the forest standing.
“If the Amazon is as important as all of you and the scientists say it is, we don’t have to measure any effort so that we can convince people that a standing tree, a living tree, is of more use than a tree felled without no criteria, no need,” he said.
For Lula, it is necessary to guarantee resources, in order to help city halls to better develop a grassroots work. “We will not avoid burnings if we do not have the commitment of the mayors. It is the mayor who is in the city; that he knows whose land it is; and who knows where it started [o fogo]?? There’s no point in arguing about Brasilia. It is important to agree and know that the mayors will have resources so that we can demand something from them”, he added.
The president-elect traveled to COP27 at the invitation of the president of Egypt, Abdel Fattah al-Sissi. He was also invited to join the delegation of the consortium of governors of the Legal Amazon. “It couldn’t have been a more representative invitation than an invitation made by the governors of the Amazon”, said Lula.
Tomorrow (17), Lula will meet with representatives of civil society, indigenous groups and with the secretary general of the United Nations, António Guterres. On Friday (18), she travels to Portugal, already on her return to Brazil.
The full text of the Letter from the Governors of the Legal Amazon??
listen on National Radio Agency??
