Brazil's dubious promises at the Glasgow Climate Summit

• USA Joe Manchin, the Democratic coal senator who has sunk Biden's climate change plan

• Plan for forests 16,000 million euros to protect the 'lungs' of the planet

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro is not at COP-26. Instead of going to the decisive event on climate change in Glasgow, he decided to extend his stay in Italy, where he arrived for the G-20 summit, to go sightseeing and visit the small town from which his ancestors came. "He is not going to go to a place where stones are going to be thrown at him," justified the Vice President of the Government, Antônio Hamilton Mourão. Neither is the Minister of Foreign Affairs. The Brazilian delegation is headed by the Minister of the Environment, who came to office after his predecessor was investigated for aiding the illegal smuggling of wood from the Amazon.

Brazil became the 'favorite villain' in environmental quotes, but the government put aside the most radical denialism and since Joe Biden came to power in the US, it adopted a more restrained tone.

It has been welcomed with satisfaction that Brazil is part of the two agreements reached this Tuesday: the initiative to protect the forests and jungles of the planet, which will have a total of 16,000 million euros from both public and private financing, and the plan Sponsored by the US and the EU by which a hundred countries agree to cut their methane emissions by 30% in 2030 compared to those in 2020.

Brazil is expected to stick to the commitments announced by Bolsonaro in recent months: eradicate illegal deforestation by 2030 and reach emissions neutrality by 2060, a milestone that could advance ten years if it receives financial aid. But scientists and environmentalists consider these promises a joke in bad taste given the reality of the facts.

"They are not realistic forecasts,

because during the pandemic the whole world reduced emissions both from burning fossil fuels and related to land use, and Brazil was one of the few that increased them (...) If Brazil ended with illegal deforestation would reduce its emissions by practically half, but

explains climatologist Carlos Nobre, one of the most prestigious scientists in the country

to El Mundo.

In 2020, greenhouse gas emissions in Brazil grew 9.5 percent, while in the rest of the world they fell almost seven percent due to the

of the economy, according to a report by the Climate Observatory.

2.16 billion tons of carbon gas were released into the atmosphere, up from 1.97 billion in 2019.

Nobre was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 along with his colleagues from the UN IPCC and in one of his most prominent studies he concluded that considerable parts of the Amazon are already being turned into a savanna.

Now he warns that the Amazon rainforest "is close to reaching the point of no return."

The main challenge for Brazil is to keep the forest standing, not so much to do without fossil fuels.

Brazil's energy matrix is ​​already cleaner than that of most developed countries, especially thanks to the importance of hydroelectric energy.

The problem is in the use of the land.

Most emissions are linked to the destruction of vegetation (especially in the Amazon, but not only) to open space for agriculture and livestock.

"In the last three years, since this president took office, deforestation increased and there were record fires in 12 years," laments Nobre.

In 2020, 10,851 km2 of jungle were destroyed, according to official data from the Government itself.

It is a larger area than Asturias and seven percent more than the previous year.

THE DEBATE ON THE CARBON MARKET

Against this backdrop, Brazil arrives in Glasgow isolated and with little credibility.

Still, it is expected to put on the table the demand of 10 billion dollars a year to achieve its objectives.

Analysts agree that the industrialized countries, mainly responsible for the current situation, should help the developing countries, but there are doubts about how these funds would be used.

For the executive secretary of the Climate Observatory, Marcio Astrini, before, Brazil has to show results. In addition, remember that

(the Amazon Fund, financed mainly by Germany and Norway), which has been frozen since 2019. The Government wanted to change the rules to use the money to finance rural owners that they did not deforest illegally, that is, they were limited to complying with the law. European countries disagreed, fearing for the fate of those resources. There are more than 500 million dollars unemployed.

The great battle will be fought in the regulation of Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, which deals with the carbon credit market.

Brazil believes that it has to be one of the great beneficiaries: by hosting most of the main tropical forest on the planet, it is doing a service for Humanity and must be compensated for it.

At COP-25 in Madrid, Brazil was one of the main culprits for the failure of the negotiations on that specific point.

Now the Government proclaims that it will not be an obstacle and that it will have a "proactive and cooperative" attitude.

Astrini distrusts: "I have no expectations, and if he announces something I do not expect him to fulfill it. It is a government that for the environmental area is over. The best thing that can happen is that it does not put more sticks to the wheels and that it does not promote more setbacks. "

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