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COP27Lula proposes future climate conference “in the Amazon.”
During COP27, the president of Brazil announced that he wanted to organize a conference on rainforests. This message is at odds with key differences between countries that need to be resolved.
As part of COP27, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva pledged to fight for “zero deforestation”.
AFP
“We are talking to the UN Secretary General and asking him to hold COP30 in the Amazon,” Lula, the president-elect of the Latin American giant, said on Wednesday. “Brazil is back!”, he began when proposing to organize a world climate conference in 2025 on the green lungs necessary for climate and global biodiversity balance. “Brazil must not be isolated” on the international stage, Lula, who takes office on January 1, will make her first foreign trip to COP27 since her election in late October.
The announcement to revive COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh has been mired in controversy, just as it reaffirmed the ambitious climate goals of the G20 summit in Bali.
“Zero Deforestation” objective
Under Jair Bolsonaro’s mandate, Brazil has been effectively marginalized, particularly as the far-right president’s policies favor agribusiness and the mining sector, along with a massive increase in deforestation.
Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva instead promised to fight for “zero deforestation”. He is scheduled to deliver a long-awaited speech in Sharm el-Sheikh on Wednesday afternoon. Lula met with US special envoy for climate, John Kerry, on Tuesday evening, who pledged that “we will work diligently to join this goal (of protecting the Amazon) together.”
Before the rainforest turned into savannah
The 2015 Paris Agreement aims to limit warming to below 2°C, if possible to 1.5°C compared to pre-industrial levels. While one in ten degrees will lead to an increase in climate disasters, the agreement’s signatories committed themselves to “keeping alive” the more ambitious objective at COP26 last year. But according to observers, G20 members Saudi Arabia and China had already expressed their reluctance at COP27 to revisit the note in the final speech, saying the world is moving towards catastrophic warming of 2.8°. C.
The Amazon rainforest, which covers 60% of Brazil’s total surface, is the world’s largest carbon sink and essential to combating climate change. However, under the effects of global warming and deforestation, it is now very fragile and is approaching a “tipping point” faster than expected, which could turn it into savannah, according to a study published in March.
Protecting the Amazon will be a “strategic priority” after Lula takes office on January 1, 2023, said Marina Silva, a former environment minister from the president’s team, Sharm el-Sheikh. He assured that he was elected and approached to take charge of this ministry.
(AFP)