• About
    • Which Energy Mix is this?
  • Climate News Network Archive
  • Contact
The climate news that makes a difference.
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
  FEATURED
BREAKING: Federal Budget Pours Tens of Billions Into Clean Economy March 28, 2023
Somali Canadians Aid Drought-Stricken Homeland as 43,000 Reported Dead March 26, 2023
B.C.’s New Energy Framework a ‘Smokescreen,’ Critic Warns March 26, 2023
SPECIAL REPORT: ‘Defuse the Climate Time Bomb’ with Net-Zero by 2040, Guterres Urges G20 March 20, 2023
Devastating Impacts, Affordable Climate Solutions Drive IPCC’s Urgent Call for Action March 20, 2023
Next
Prev

Amazon in peril as Brazil cools on climate

December 17, 2018
Reading time: 3 minutes
Primary Author: Jan Rocha

 

The man who will become Brazil’s president next month is cold-shouldering moves to tame the pace of climate change, leaving the Amazon in peril.

SÃO PAULO, 12 December, 2018 − The election of an extreme rightwing climate sceptic as president will leave the Amazon in peril as it radically alters Brazil’s position on climate change.

  • The climate news you need. Subscribe now to our engaging new weekly digest.
  • You’ll receive exclusive, never-before-seen-content, distilled and delivered to your inbox every weekend.
  • The Weekender: Succinct, solutions-focused, and designed with the discerning reader in mind.
Subscribe

That process has already begun, with the cancellation of the outgoing president’s invitation to the United Nations to hold its 2019 climate talks, COP-25, in Brasilia.

President-elect Jair Bolsonaro is also threatening to withdraw from the Paris Agreement on tackling climate change, https://unfccc.int/process-and-meetings/the-paris-agreement/what-is-the-paris-agreement claiming that a plot exists to reduce Brazil’s sovereignty over the Amazon.

While he does not officially take office until 1 January, Bolsonaro has already significantly altered Brazil’s position by cancelling the present government’s offer to host COP-25 only days after it was officially made by the departing president, Michel Temer.

It was due to be confirmed at this year’s UN talks (COP-24) in the Polish city of Katowice. The COPs (meetings of the parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change) are rotated between the world’s five regions, and 2019 was to be the turn of Latin America and the Caribbean.

For André Nahur, a biologist and the coordinator of WWF Brazil’s https://www.wwf.org.br/informacoes/english/ programme for climate change and energy, it is a sign that under Bolsonaro Brazil will abdicate its role as a leader in environmental questions.

He said: “Brazil has been a protagonist in international climate talks, exercising an important role in diplomatic efforts to reduce greenhouse gases … in order to achieve world targets. Brazil’s participation is vital, because at the moment it is the seventh largest producer of greenhouse gases.”

He added that the withdrawal of Brazil’s offer for COP-25 will affect the country’s economic development: “All scenarios show that in countries concerned with climate change, GDP has grown and generated jobs.”

The Climate Observatory, a Brazilian NGO (Observatório do Clima) http://www.observatoriodoclima.eco.br/nota-oc-sobre-desistencia-brasil-de-sediar-cop25-da-conferencia-clima-da-onu/ says Bolsonaro’s decision means that Brazil is abdicating its role in one of the few areas where the country is not just relevant but necessary.

“Ignoring the climate agenda, the government is also failing to protect the population affected by a growing number of extreme weather events. Unfortunately they do not stop happening just because some people doubt their causes,” he said.

Besides refusing to host COP-25, Bolsonaro has also indicated that he wants to withdraw Brazil from the Paris Agreement, invoking, to justify the move, the existence of a forgotten project once proposed by Gaia Colombia, known as the Triple A.

He said: “What is the ‘Triple A? It’s a big strip between the Andes, the Amazon and the Atlantic … The idea is to turn it into an ecological corridor.” This, says Bolsonaro, could result in Brazil losing its sovereignty over the area.

The ambitious plan for the corridor, covering over 500,000 square miles of rainforest, surfaced several years ago, and is credited to Martín von Hildebrand, founder of the Gaia Amazonas NGO, https://www.gaiaamazonas.org/en/ but it has never been taken seriously, and it is certainly no part of the Paris Agreement.

While the president-elect evoked a non-existent problem to justify his dislike of the Paris deal, French president Emmanuel Macron hinted at the real consequences for leaving the treaty, declaring: “I say clearly that I am not in favour of signing a trade deal with powers that do not respect the Paris agreement.”

Brazil’s new position also leaves it out of step with the BRICS, the group of five big emerging countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa).

They produced a statement at the recent G20 meeting in Buenos Aires affirming their commitment to the “full implementation of the Paris Agreement, and the importance and urgency of guaranteeing funds for the Green Climate Fund”, to increase the developing countries’ capacity for mitigation and adaptation.

Bolsonaro has chosen as his foreign minister a diplomat, Ernesto Araujo, who scoffs at what he calls “climatism” and believes that US president Donald Trump is the saviour of the Christian values of the Western world, while globalisation is a communist plot.

If Brazil were just a small banana republic, this would not matter. But the South American giant, the fifth largest country in the world, in both size and population, and ninth largest economy, is too big to ignore, especially as it contains 60% of the Amazon rainforest, the world’s largest tropical forest.

But even before Bolsonaro officially takes office deforestation has soared, https://climatenewsnetwork.net/brazils-jair-bolsonaro-puts-amazon-at-risk/ hitting its highest level for a decade as loggers and landgrabbers anticipate a loosening of monitoring and enforcement.

Environmentalists fear that Brazil’s change of government could have disastrous consequences for the world’s climate. − Climate News Network



in Climate News Network

The latest climate news and analysis, direct to your inbox

Subscribe

Related Posts

moerschy / Pixabay
Biodiversity & Habitat

Planetary Weight Study Shows Humans Taking Most of Earth’s Resources

March 19, 2023
35
U.S. Geological Survey/wikimedia commons
Biodiversity & Habitat

Climate Change Amplifies Risk of ‘Insect Apocalypse’

December 1, 2022
50
Alaa Abd El-Fatah/wikimedia commons
COP Conferences

Rights Abuses, Intrusive Conference App Put Egypt Under Spotlight as COP 27 Host

November 14, 2022
27

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Trending Stories

kelly8843496 / Pixabay

BREAKING: Federal Budget Pours Tens of Billions Into Clean Economy

March 29, 2023
744
Bruce Reeve/Flickr

Opinion: Ontario’s New ‘Carbon Tax’ Looks Like the One Doug Ford Fought

June 7, 2022
1.8k
Faye Cornish/Unsplash

Abundance, Not Austerity: Reframe the Climate Narrative, Solnit Urges

March 26, 2023
179
icondigital/pixabay

New Federal Procurement Rule Requires Biggest Bidders to Report Net-Zero Plans

March 28, 2023
200
U.S. Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement/flickr

Willow Oil Project in Alaska Faces Legal Challenges, Economic Doubts

March 19, 2023
780
TruckPR/flickr

Opinion: Hydrogen Hype Sabotages Potential to Decarbonize

March 28, 2023
394

Recent Posts

UNICEF Ethiopia/flickr

Somali Canadians Aid Drought-Stricken Homeland as 43,000 Reported Dead

March 29, 2023
45
Σ64/Wikimedia Commons

B.C.’s New Energy Framework a ‘Smokescreen,’ Critic Warns

March 28, 2023
69
Prime Minister's Office/flickr

Biden’s Ottawa Visit Highlights EVs, Clean Grid, Critical Minerals

March 28, 2023
92
EUMETSAT/wikimedia commons

Cyclone Freddy Leaves Over 500 Dead on Africa’s Southeast Coast

March 23, 2023
65
Kern River Valley Fire Info/Facebook

SPECIAL REPORT: ‘Defuse the Climate Time Bomb’ with Net-Zero by 2040, Guterres Urges G20

March 20, 2023
345
IFRC Intl. Federation:Twitter

Devastating Impacts, Affordable Climate Solutions Drive IPCC’s Urgent Call for Action

March 21, 2023
1k
Next Post

London’s melting ice shows world’s plight

The Energy Mix - The climate news you need

Copyright 2023 © Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy and Copyright
  • Cookie Policy

Proudly partnering with…

scf_withtagline
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}