Left wing re-elected president marks U-turn after Bolsonaro and says will count as debt the “100 million dollars promised by developed countries to the developing ones” during COP15 in 2009
London, 16 Nov 2022 – The past days’ usual red carpet of western leaders didn’t add anything significant to this Cop27 but their strong focus on the international political crisis.
The actual step froward of this COP27 came instead from Brazilian president Lula, bringing forward a new promising and open approach to the climate emergency and Amazon’s rain forest salvage: “We are open to international collaboration to preserve our biodiversity without giving up or sovereignty” he said at COP27 today while announcing a new Ministry for the protection of indigenous populations.
Captivating the attention beyond the global conference delegates, Brazilian president was long awaited because of the looming radical change of approach to Amazon’s exploitation announced since his presidential campaign. The speech affirmed Brazil’s commitment to preserving the environment and to “get back to relations once again” with the international community “What I have heard most from world leaders – said Lula- is this: the world misses Brazil. Now I say, Brazil is back. We return to a new peaceful world order”.
“There is no climate security for the world without a protected Amazon”, he said promising to escalate efforts to fight deforestation in the Amazon rainforest while calling rich countries to keep up to previously signed environmental commitments.
“We will do whatever it takes to have zero deforestation and the degradation of our biomes”, said referring to the tropical rainforest, one of the five biomes that constitute our planet’s ecosystem.
Tropical rainforests are also one of the oldest biomes on the planet. Having existed for a long period of time, species have had more time to diversify. In the Amazon live 2.5 million species of insects, tens of thousands of plants and about 2,000 birds and mammals.
Photo: illegal arsons in the Amazon Forest monitored by Global Forest Watch
The Amazon Rainforest is 1.4 billion acres of some of the most important, biodiverse land on the planet, spanning the countries of Brazil, Peru, Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Venezuela. The areas marked in red on this map show every fire that has started burning since August 13, 2019
Last 20- September 2022 CNN reported that, according to specialists and people on the ground loggers, ranchers, miners and others seeking profit accelerated their illegal deforestation in the Amazon “tearing apart the protected region faster than ever, motivated by fears that Bolsonaro’s re-election bid could fail – and that the next president could crack down harder on such activity”.
Illegal miners openly backed Bolsonaro who cut funds and staff to environmental protection agencies.
From 2019 to 2021 Brazil lost over 33,800 square kilometers of rainforest in the Amazon according to National Institute for Space Research (INPE) which issues annual estimates of greenhouse gas emissions in the amazon region and monitors fires: this year so far over 96,000 fires were registered where arsons leave ground to areas for lucrative cattle.
See the 24 photos of Business insider India showing the Amazon rainforest before and after the devastating wildfires in 2019
Given the dramatic countdown on climate change and shrinking hopes to reduce global warming, Lula’s words seem the last chance to reverse the cliff edge trend. During his neck and neck run for presidential election with Bolsonaro, the former left-wing ex miner and trade unionist made of climate change and Amazon rainforest commitments one of the main points of his electoral campaign and he’s keen keeping up the promise
Talkeurope.org 