SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt —
Brazil will protect
the Amazon “with its own efforts” without waiting for international funding,
the former environment minister of incoming President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva
said Saturday at UN climate talks.
اضافة اعلان
Credited with curbing deforestation in the 2000s,
Marina Silva outlined key environmental priorities for the new president, who
will visit the climate talks next week in the Red Sea resort of Sharm
El-Sheikh.
Silva is tipped to reprise her role in Lula’s new
government.
Lula has vowed that the fight against deforestation
in the Amazon would be “a strategic priority” of his government, countering the
legacy of
Jair Bolsonaro, who presided over a surge of rainforest destruction.
Silva said Lula’s visit to Egypt even before he
takes office on January 1 shows that “Brazil is regaining environmental
leadership in the multilateral arena”.
With a plan to combat the destruction of the Amazon
and pursue a reforestation target of 12 million, Brazil will lead “by example”,
she said.
Silva added that the country would act to preserve
forests — a crucial buffer against global warming — without depending on
international aid.
But she welcomed announcements from Norway and
Germany that they would resume financial support. Both countries withdrew aid
in 2019 shortly after Bolsonaro came to power.
Norway is the largest contributor to that fund,
which currently holds $641 million, according to its environment ministry.
Since Bolsonaro — a staunch ally of agribusiness —
took office in January 2019, average annual deforestation in the Brazilian
Amazon increased by 75 percent compared to the previous decade.
Silva said there was a need to create a national
super-body to coordinate climate action among various ministries.
“It would be something innovative and powerful,” she
said.
Lula, 77, secured a narrow win over far-right
incumbent Bolsonaro in an October 30 runoff election.
The veteran leftist will be inaugurated for a third
term on January 1, facing a far tougher outlook than the commodities-fuelled
boom he presided over in the 2000s.
Silva travelled to Egypt to prepare the ground for
Lula’s expected visit.
She called for a review of the market in carbon credits
amid concerns that oil and gas majors use them as a way to avoid reducing their
own emissions.
“I do not believe that fossil energy generation
should be perpetuated by relying on these credits,” she said.
While she said Brazil would still need its oil
resources “as a transition to other sources of energy generation”, she added
that her personal opinion was that even state-owned oil company Petrobras
should go beyond oil and contribute to Brazil’s energy transition.
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