"Brazil Exits The Summit As It Entered It - Discredited"; Emissions Cheat Will Boost CO2 By 3.4 GT
Despite ongoing closed door negotiations between the U.S. administration of President Joseph Biden and the government of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, no headway has yet been announced on any agreement to end Brazil’s assault on the Amazon rainforest. Even though the final outcome is still unclear, the talks seem headed for stalemate, despite the fanfare and pledges sounded at today’s online Climate Leaders Summit.
In his speech to the summit today, Bolsonaro changed his tone and refrained from attacking foreign governments, as he has frequently done in the past. Instead, he announced his administration’s new commitments on deforestation and zero carbon emissions, detailed below. He also used half of his speech to ask for money for the environmental achievements Brazil made over the last 15 years — accomplishments he has been actively reversing for two years.
In the past, Brazil has often played a key role in such summits, but Bolsonaro’s remarks today gained little notice by international media, though they did rouse critics. Marcio Astrini, executive secretary of the Observatório do Clima, a coalition of civil society bodies concerned with the environment, commented: “Brazil leaves the summit as it entered it: discredited. The current government has turned Brazil into a pariah, excluding itself from an agenda in which we were once protagonists and that we should be leading.” Meanwhile, Amazon deforestation — mostly conducted by land grabbers, agribusiness and cattle ranchers — surges and remains dire. On 19 April IMAZON, a non-profit organization, published its Brazilian Amazon deforestation data for March of this year: 810 square kilometers (313 square miles) of forest was cut in that month alone, more than twice the area lost in March last year and the worst result in ten years.
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Anders Haug Larsen, head of policy at Rainforest Foundation Norway, is equally outraged. He told Mongabay: “By recalculating its baseline emissions, Brazil has managed to give itself a free pass to dramatically increase emissions. The new NDC… allows Brazil to emit 3.4 gigatons more CO2 over the next decade than its previous climate commitment did. As most emissions stem from deforestation, this will enhance the already critical situation for the rainforest.” These extra emissions entering the atmosphere between now and 2030 — equivalent to more than half of U.S. emissions of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2019 — will make the carbon reduction challenge facing the world even more difficult.
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https://news.mongabay.com/2021/04/as-climate-summit-unfolds-no-biden-bolsonaro-amazon-deal-forthcoming/
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