by Enéas Xavier de Oliveira Jr, Brazilian environmental lawyer and doctoral candidate at the University of Montréal
LULA is elected in what is considered to be the most important election since the end of dictatorship in 1985. The dispute was decided on Sunday in a tight vote: 50.83% for Lula, against 49.17% for Bolsonaro. It is the third term to be exercised by Lula (2003-2006, 2007-2010), while Bolsonaro is the first president not to win re-election in the recent history of Brazilian democracy.
But what does it mean for the environment?
It is difficult to predict exactly what will happen in the next four years of the presidency - especially with a center-right Federal Congress elected in future opposition to Lula. However, we have some expectations.
Bolsonaro led a government of total environmental disaster.
In 2018, shortly after being elected, Jair Bolsonaro stated his total disinterest in hosting the Conference of the Parties, COP-25, under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which would be held at the end of 2019[1] – the Conference was then held in Madrid, Spain. As soon as he took office, Bolsonaro appointed Mr. Ernesto Araújo, a well-known climate change skeptic, as Minister of Foreign Affairs. On his first official trip to Washington DC as chancellor, Araújo stated that climate change is a "pretext for dictatorship", and that anthropic influence is not a certainty[2].
Ricardo Salles was chosen as minister of the environment, a staunch critic of public environmental policies. Ricardo Salles is responsible for the famous expression "pass the herd". Amid political scandals, video footage of a meeting between Jair Bolsonaro and his ministers was brought to the public, and showed the then minister of the environment stating that it was necessary to take advantage of the moment of distraction of the press with the pandemic to weaken and revoke all legal protection that depended only on decision of the Federal Government. Ricardo Salles left the command of the ministry in mid-2021, under suspicion of hindering investigations into the seizure of illegal timber[3]. Nevertheless, Salles managed to be elected deputy for the State of São Paulo in the last elections, and appears as a strong representative of the so-called rural banch. As one of his legacies, the Bolsonaro Government is the first in decades not to create any federal protected environmental area.
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| Foto: marcio isensee / Shutterstock.com |
On the other hand, Lula’s campaign gained the reinforcement of an internationally known and respected name in the environmental area: Marina Silva. Despite the political mistrust faced in the last decade in the domestic political scene, Marina was Lula’s minister of the environment in the 2000s and is recognized by the implementation well succeeded programs in reducing deforestation and enabling international resources to finance environmental policies.
Upon taking office in 2002, Lula inherited a record 21,600 km² of deforestation per year. After two terms, 2010 data showed deforestation in the order of 7,000 km². This represents a decrease of 67%. In contrast, Bolsonaro took over in 2019 with deforestation records up to 7,536 km². The data for 2022 have not yet been published, but, considering the previous year of 2021, the numbers reached 13,000 km² - that is, an increase of 73%. Other recent numbers scare: the State of Roraima, whose territory is entirely within the Amazon region, has among its main activities the export of gold - with the exception that there is no properly licensed gold mining activity in that State[4].
Successful public policies for the transfer of financial resources and environmental preservation were suspended during the Bolsonaro government. This is the case of the Amazon Fund. Created in 2008, the program has as its main scope the prevention, monitoring and combating deforestation in the Amazon rainforest. To this end, flows of external resources would finance sustainable development initiatives in the region, as well as public infrastructure itself, such as equipment, among others. As soon as took office in 2019, Jair Bolsonaro modified the financial resources management committees unilaterally, which entailed immediate suspension by donors. There were concerns that the resources would be diverted for purposes unrelated to those initially defined, since the Brazilian Government affirmed its intentions to reimburse landowners in the region.
Not only did the Brazilian State lose with the suspension - more than 50% of the funds financed the public machine to combat deforestation with the structuring of the competent bodies - but small communities that depended directly on these resources for the continuity of sustainable activities that enabled at the same time revenue and forest preservation. In the last decade, the Government of Norway (the main donor) was responsible for the flow of approximately U$ 1.2 billion. Currently, the fund has U$ 500 million contingent. The Norwegian Government intends to resume the financing. A report published by the Brazilian government in June 2022 asserts the potential for funding up to US$ 20 billion of this program[5].
In his first speech after the election result was confirmed, Lula asserted his commitment to zero deforestation in the Amazon. Lula said "Brazil and the planet need a living Amazon. A standing tree is worth more than tons of wood illegally extracted by those who think only of easy profit, at the expense of deteriorating life on Earth". On social media, world leaders welcomed Lula’s victory and expressed their expectations of partnership in areas such as climate change (like the German Chancellor Olaf Sholz, and the American President Joe Biden).
When we look in the rearview mirror, we are faced with two distinct situations: Lula left the government in 2010 with a much more robust environmental policy and with concrete results; Bolsonaro, in contrast, leaves the government in 2022 with records of increasing deforestation and isolation of the country on the international stage. Brazil is important is unique in the global environmental agenda: it has always been a leader in climate discussions, and has hosted important meetings such as Rio 92. The president elected depends directly on his ability to mobilize political forces in a divided country to reverse much of the environmental damage already consolidated and recover the global protagonism that has everything to deliver good results to everybody: preserved forest for the world and financial resources for the people Brazilian people. At least, the we all breath a little relieved with a chance for the future - which was not possible with Bolsonaro.
[1] https://www.dw.com/pt-br/brasil-desiste-de-sediar-confer%C3%AAncia-do-clima-em-2019/a-46491581
[2] https://veja.abril.com.br/mundo/ernesto-araujo-justica-social-e-clima-sao-pretextos-para-a-ditadura/
[3] https://g1.globo.com/natureza/blog/andre-trigueiro/post/2019/06/03/15-pontos-para-entender-os-rumos-da-desastrosa-politica-ambiental-no-governo-bolsonaro.ghtml
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