Climate Summit: Brazil faces demoralization and lags behind in climate goals

Jair Bolsonaro’s participation in Joe Biden’s Climate Summit, where leaders of over 40 countries united to plan strategies to curb the advance of climate change, reinforced the international discredit of Brazil in the environmental agenda, experts say. Bolsonaro lied about the preservation of the Amazon and about the efforts of his government to implement a green economy, omitted deforestation data, and announced that he awaits for international resources as a condition for his government to achieve its objectives for the environment.

“Brazil leaves the leaders’ summit as it entered: discredited. Bolsonaro spent half of his speech asking the world for money showcasing previous environmental achievements, which his government has been trying to destroy since the day he took office”, analyzed Marcio Astrini, executive secretary of the Climate Observatory.

Less than a day after the meeting, in which Bolsonaro said he double the budget for environmental control, the presidency approved a 24% cut in the Ministry of the Environment for 2021, with a drastic reduction in resources for federal environmental protection agencies. Facing the negative repercussion, Minister Ricardo Salles sent a request to the Ministry of Economy asking for the nullification of the reduction and also for additional R$ 142 million reais, according to an article in O Estado de São Paulo.