Brazil’s Lula pledges to end deforestation
Brazil is back, says president-elect to standing ovation at COP27 summit
Brazil’s Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva received a superstar welcome at the COP27 summit in Egypt on Wednesday as he pledged to recommit the rainforest nation to tackling the climate crisis and offered to hold future UN climate talks.
“I’m here today to say that Brazil is back,” Lula said, drawing cheers from the crowd of delegates at the global climate summit.
Lula won the presidential election last month against right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro, who presided over mounting destruction of the Amazon rainforest and refused to hold the 2019 climate summit originally planned for Brazil.
Lula, a former president who is due to start his third term in January, told delegates he would seek to make Brazil the host of COP30 in 2025 and would aim to put the venue in the Amazon rainforest, rather than the more populous coastal region.
The Amazon, the world’s largest rainforest spanning more than 6-million square kilometres, absorbs vast amounts of greenhouse gas, which if released would blow global climate targets.
“There is no climate security for the world without a protected Amazon,” he said, explaining he wanted people to see the region. “We will spare no efforts to have zero deforestation and the degradation of our biomes by 2030.”
The crowd included two former Brazilian environment ministers, legislators, state governors, activists and indigenous in traditional headdress. COP27 president Sameh Shoukry of Egypt escorted Lula to the stage.
Lula emphasised that climate change could only be addressed hand in hand with social justice, with the crowd applauding his pronouncements on ending inequality and improving conditions for indigenous people.
Hehad reduced deforestation to near-record lows in his first presidency from 2003 to 2010.