Lula headed to COP27 with vow to save Amazon
Brazilian president-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is expected this week at the UN climate summit in Egypt to pledge to reverse the environmental policies of his right-wing predecessor and protect the Amazon rainforest.
Lula’s trip on Monday to the COP27 talks in Sharm el-sheikh
will be his first international visit since beating Brazil’s far-right incumbent Jair Bolsonaro in the October 30 runoff election.
The 77-year-old, who promised on the campaign trail to work towards zero deforestation, will address the conference on Wednesday, his press team said.
In a nod to Lula’s victory speech, in which he pledged to end Brazil’s ‘pariah’ status, his
team said he had wanted to hold ‘more talks with world leaders in a single day than Bolsonaro had in four years’.
But according to Brazilian newspaper O Globo, the incoming president has not been able to line up most of the dozen or so high-level meetings he had requested. Lula might, however, meet with US climate czar John Kerry and announce that Brazil is willing to host the COP30 summit in 2025, the newspaper said.
Latin America’s most populous country grew more isolated under Bolsonaro, analysts say, in part due to his permissive policies towards deforestation and exploitation of the Amazon, the preservation of which is seen as
critical to fighting global warming. If Lula - who served as president from 2003 to 2010 -
manages to curb deforestation
and illegal mining, he would make a major contribution to the global fight against climate change, said Francisco Eliseu Aquino, a climate expert at Rio Grande do Sul University.
‘Lula knows the COP talks well. He was always proactive in international discussions and kept a high international profile’ during his first two terms, said Aquino.
Deeper cooperation
To meet the environmental challenge, the former steelworker who begins his third term on January 1, hopes to get help from the international community.
Lula’s former and likely future environment minister, Marina Silva, has already been holding meetings at the UN summit, and
has said that Brazil will lead ‘by example’ on combatting climate change. She said Lula plans to
fight the destruction of the Amazon and pursue a reforestation target of 12mn hectares, with or without international aid.
But she welcomed announcements from Norway and Germany that they would resume fi
nancial support to the Amazon Fund. Both countries withdrew aid in 2019 shortly after Bolsonaro came to power.
“With Lula’s weight and influence, and due to worries all over the world for the Amazon, it is possible that some bilateral agreements might be reached,” said Daniela Costa, a spokesperson for Greenpeace Brazil.
Silva said the US government was ‘prepared to deepen cooperation’ with Brazil after she met with Kerry last week.
She also said in an interview with Brazilian broadcaster Globonews that she had invited the United States to contribute to the Amazon Fund.