Tag: Lula da Silva

Amazon summit agrees roadmap – but without concrete pledges

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Speaking to reporters after Wednesday’s meeting, Brazil’s President Lula da Silva said developed nations must make good on their pledges to provide monetary support for forest protection.

Brazil’s Amazon Summit closed Wednesday with a roadmap to protect tropical rainforests that was welcomed as an important step in countering climate change, but without the concrete commitments sought by some environmentalists to end deforestation.

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Leaders and ministers from eight Amazon nations signed a declaration Tuesday in Belem, Brazil, that laid out plans to drive economic development in their countries while preventing the Amazon’s ongoing demise “from reaching a point of no return.”

Several environmental groups described the declaration as a compilation of good intentions with little in the way of measurable goals and timeframes. However, it was lauded by others, and the Amazon’s umbrella organization of Indigenous groups celebrated the inclusion of two of its main demands.

“It is significant that the leaders of the countries of the region have listened to the science and understood the call of society: the Amazon is in danger, and we do not have much time to act,” the international group WWF said in a statement. “However, WWF regrets that the eight Amazonian countries, as one front, have not reached a common point to end deforestation in the region.”

Joining the summit Wednesday were the presidents of the Republic of Congo and the Democratic Republic of Congo, an emissary from Indonesia’s president, and France’s ambassador to Brazil, representing the Amazonian territory of French Guiana. An emissary of Norway, the largest contributor to Brazil’s Amazon Fund for sustainable development, also attended.

The national representatives on Wednesday signed a similar, but much slimmer, agreement to that of their counterparts the prior day; it likewise contained no concrete goals and mostly reinforced criticism of developed nations for failure to provide promised vast climate financing.

The eight nations attending on Tuesday — Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname and Venezuela — are members of the newly revived Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization, or ACTO, who hope that a united front will give them a major voice in global environment talks ahead of the COP 28 climate conference in November.

‘Nature needs them to pay’

The summit reinforces Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s strategy to leverage global concern for the Amazon’s preservation. Emboldened by a 42% drop in deforestation during his first seven months in office, he has sought international financial support for forest protection.

Speaking to reporters after Wednesday’s meeting, Lula railed against “protectionist measures poorly disguised as environmental concern” that restrict imports from developing nations, and said developed nations must make good on their pledges to provide monetary support for forest protection.

“Nature, which industrial development polluted for 200 years, needs them to pay their part so we can revive part of what was ruined. Nature is in need of money,” Lula said.

Not fully aligned

The Amazon stretches across an area twice the size of India. Two-thirds of it lies in Brazil, with seven other countries and the territory of French Guiana sharing the remaining third. Governments have historically viewed it as an area to be colonized and exploited, with little regard for sustainability or the rights of its Indigenous peoples.

All the Amazon countries have ratified the Paris climate accord, which requires signatories to set targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. But cross-border cooperation has historically been scant, undermined by low trust, ideological differences and the lack of government presence.

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The members of ACTO — convening for only the fourth time in the organization’s 45-year existence — demonstrated Tuesday they aren’t fully aligned on key issues.

Forest protection commitments have been uneven. And their joint declaration didn’t include a shared commitment to zero deforestation by 2030, as some had hoped. Brazil and Colombia have already made that commitment.

Some scientists say that when 20% to 25% of the forest is destroyed, rainfall will dramatically decline, transforming more than half of the rainforest to tropical savannah, with immense biodiversity loss.

The Climate Observatory, a network of dozens of environmental and social groups, as well as Greenpeace and The Nature Conservancy, lamented the lack of detailed pledges in the declaration.

“The 113 operating paragraphs of the declaration have the merit of reviving the forgotten ACTO and recognize that the biome is reaching a point of no return, but doesn’t offer practical solutions or a calendar of actions to avoid it,” the Climate Observatory said in a statement.

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Rights to traditional territories

Colombian Indigenous leader Fany Kuiru, from the Coordinating Body of Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon Basin, praised the declaration for fulfilling two of their primary requests — an acknowledgement of their rights to traditional territories and the establishment of a mechanism for the formal participation of Indigenous peoples within ACTO.

Bruna Santos, director of the Brazil Institute at the Woodrow Wilson Center, said the summit demonstrated “an effort to treat the Amazon as a regional agenda,” but that it also highlighted ambiguities in the priorities of Brazil’s government, including with respect to oil exploration.

Colombia’s president spoke forcefully about the hypocrisy of pushing for Amazon preservation while pursuing oil, equating it to betting “on death and destroying life.”

Lula has refrained from taking a definitive stance on oil, citing the decision as a technical matter. Meanwhile, Brazil’s state-run Petrobras company has been seeking to explore for oil near the mouth of the Amazon River.

Despite disagreements, there were signs of increased regional cooperation and growing global recognition of the Amazon’s importance in arresting climate change. A collective voice — along with funnelling more money into ACTO — could help it serve as the region’s representative on the global stage ahead of the COP climate conference, leaders said.

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Anders Haug Larsen, the head of international advocacy at Rainforest Foundation Norway, said that the Amazonian nations are correct to demand more money from developed nations and that their political will to protect the rainforest represents a historic opportunity.

“With the plan from this summit and continuous reduced deforestation, this is where the international community should put its climate money,” he said.

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Amazon nations seek common voice on climate change

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Eight Amazon nations called on industrialized countries to do more to help preserve the world’s largest rainforest as they met at a major summit in Brazil to chart a common course on how to combat climate change.

The leaders of South American nations that are home to the Amazon, meeting at a two-day summit in the city of Belem that ends Wednesday, said the task of stopping the destruction of the rainforest can’t fall to just a few when the crisis has been caused by so many.

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The members of the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization, or ACTO, are hoping a united front will give them a major voice in global talks.

“The forest unites us. It is time to look at the heart of our continent and consolidate, once and for all, our Amazon identity,” said Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

The calls from the presidents of nations including Brazil, Colombia and Bolivia came as leaders aim to fuel much-needed economic development in their regions while preventing the Amazon’s ongoing demise “from reaching a point of no return,” according to a joint declaration issued at the end of the day. 

Some scientists say that when 20 per cent to 25 per cent of the forest is destroyed, rainfall will dramatically decline, transforming more than half of the rainforest to tropical savannah, with immense biodiversity loss.

The summit reinforces Lula’s strategy to leverage global concern for Amazon’s preservation. Emboldened by a 42 per cent drop in deforestation during his first seven months in office, he has sought international financial support for forest protection.

The Amazon stretches across an area twice the size of India. Two-thirds lie in Brazil, with seven other countries and one territory sharing the remaining third. Governments have historically viewed it as an area to be colonised and exploited, with little regard for sustainability or the rights of its Indigenous peoples.

All the countries at the summit have ratified the Paris climate accord, which requires signatories to set targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. But cross-border cooperation has historically been scant, undermined by low trust, ideological differences and the lack of government presence.

Aside from a general consensus on the need for shared global responsibility, members of ACTO – convening for only the fourth time in the organization’s existence – demonstrated Tuesday they aren’t fully aligned on critical issues. This week marks the first meeting of the 45-year-old organization in 14 years.

Forest protection commitments have been uneven previously and appeared to remain so at the summit. The “Belem Declaration,” the gathering’s official proclamation issued Tuesday, didn’t include shared commitments to zero deforestation by 2030. Brazil and Colombia have already made those commitments. Lula has said he hopes the document will be a shared call to arms at the COP 28 climate conference in November.

A key topic dividing the nations on Tuesday was oil. Notably, leftist Colombian President Gustavo Petro called for an end to oil exploration in the Amazon – an allusion to the ambivalent approach of Brazil and other oil-producing nations in the region – and said that governments must forge a path toward “decarbonised prosperity.”

“A jungle that extracts oil – can it maintain a political line at that level? Bet on death and destroying life?” Petro said. He also spoke about finding ways to reforest pastures and plantations, which cover much of Brazil’s heartland for cattle ranching and growing soy.

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Lula, who has presented himself as an environmental leader on the international stage, has refrained from taking a definitive stance on oil, citing the decision as a technical matter. Meanwhile, Brazil’s state-run Petrobras company has been seeking to explore oil near the mouth of the Amazon River.

Despite disagreements among nations, there have been encouraging signs of increased regional cooperation amid growing global recognition of the Amazon’s importance in arresting climate change. Sharing a united voice – along with funnelling more money into ACTO – could help it serve as the region’s representative on the global stage ahead of the COP climate conference, leaders said.

“The Amazon is our passport to a new relationship with the world, a more symmetric relationship, in which our resources are not exploited to benefit few, but rather valued and put in the service of everyone,” Lula said.

Bolivian President Luis Arce said the Amazon has been the victim of capitalism, reflected by the runaway expansion of agricultural borders and natural resource exploitation. And he noted that industrialized nations are responsible for most historic greenhouse gas emissions.

“The fact that the Amazon is such an important territory doesn’t imply that all of the responsibilities, consequences and effects of the climate crisis should fall to us, to our towns and to our economies,” Arce said.

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Petro argued that affluent nations should swap foreign debt owed by Amazon countries for climate action, saying that would create enough investment to power the Amazon region’s economy.

Signed by officials from eight nations, the Belem Declaration also:

– Condemns the proliferation of protectionist trade barriers, which signatories said negatively affects poor farmers in developing nations and hampers the promotion of Amazon products and sustainable development.

– Calls on industrialized nations to comply with their obligations to provide massive financial support to developing nations.

– Calls for the strengthening of law enforcement cooperation. Commits authorities to exchange best practices and intelligence about specific illicit activities, including deforestation, human rights violations, trafficking of fauna and flora and the sale and smuggling of mercury, a highly toxic metal widely used for illegal gold mining that pollutes waterways.

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Colombia’s Petro also called for the formation of a military alliance akin to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, saying such a group could be tasked not only with protecting the Amazon but tackling another major problem for the region: organized crime.

Also attending the summit Tuesday were Guyana’s prime minister, Venezuela’s vice president and the foreign ministers of Suriname and Ecuador.

On Wednesday, the summit will welcome representatives of Norway and Germany, the largest contributors to Brazil’s Amazon Fund for sustainable development, along with counterparts from other crucial rainforest regions: Indonesia, the Republic of Congo, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. France’s ambassador to Brazil will also attend, representing the Amazonian territory of French Guiana.

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EU has neglected Latin America as a trade partner. That has to change

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The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not represent in any way the editorial position of Euronews.

When Russia embarked on its full-scale invasion of Ukraine last February, the European Union realised that Moscow’s act of aggression meant Brussels had to look for economic partners elsewhere.

South America should have been the first on Brussels’ speed dial.

Yet, in reality, the two continents tend to treat each other with a combination of indifference and contempt.

Latin American diplomats would say that Europe tends to take the region for granted — especially its former colonies. At the same time, the EU appears not to have worked out clearly what it wants of its relationship with Latin America.

The detachment between the two blocs is summed up by the fact that the last EU-Latin America summit took place seven years ago, while a trade agreement between the EU and the Mercosur union — comprising Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay — has been stalled for more than two decades.

In Brussels’ absence, Beijing became Latin America’s best friend

However, if the EU wants to wean itself off Russian energy and lead the clean-energy transition, officials in Brussels will need to renew ties with their Latin American counterparts by forging new trade deals, as the region is home to several metals that are critical to building a green economy. 

The demand for rare earth metals in the EU — already at its highest — is expected to surge fivefold by 2030, yet Europe produces a negligible share of the minerals it needs in its race for renewables.

By contrast, Chile owns 42% of the world’s lithium reserves, a key component of electric car batteries, and a quarter of its copper deposits, used in everything from grids to turbines. Peru, too, holds nearly a quarter of the world’s silver, which is essential in producing solar panels and electric cars.

Putting new life into that old relationship would also help the EU diversify trade to avoid strategic dependencies with China, as concerns are mounting in Brussels about the bloc’s over-reliance on Beijing as a market for goods and raw materials for its green transition.

In turn, deepening ties would also alleviate the economic semi-stagnation of Latin America, hard-hit by globalisation, enabling European companies to shift production from China to the Americas.

Another reason the EU should increase ties with Latin America is to counter Beijing’s rising influence in the region. To avoid the same mistake as in Africa — where Chinese firms have monopolised cobalt mining, essential for electric vehicle batteries, accounting for an estimated one-eighth of the continent’s industrial output — the EU needs to step up its game.

Over the past decade, China has been systematically building its supply chain in these critical minerals. It increased its investments in Latin America 26-fold between 2000 and 2020 and is now the primary stakeholder in two of the ten biggest lithium mines in Chile, as well as Mercosur’s largest single trade partner (and the second-biggest for Latin America as a whole).

In Brazil, China Three Gorges, the world’s largest hydropower provider, controls almost half of its hydro plants. At the same time, China’s State Grid Corp is the country’s largest power generation and distribution company.

Moreover, 19 governments across Latin America and the Caribbean have joined Xi Jinping’s signature Belt and Road Initiative, a nearly €1-trillion transcontinental trade and infrastructure network.

‘Pink wave’ of left-leaning leaders a chance for relations reset

However, after years of EU disengagement, it seems that the political stars have aligned to enable a qualitative leap in relations between the bloc and Latin America. 

Putin’s war in Ukraine and China’s rising authoritarianism have woken Brussels to the enormous challenges the bloc has to face, and politicians are now scrambling to forge new deals to secure raw materials.

Last December, the EU concluded a trade deal with Chile that will give it easier access to lithium, copper and other minerals vital to its renewable energy industry. Currently, 67% of Chile’s copper exports go to China, while just 5% go to the EU.

Yet another disadvantage for Brussels can be gleaned from the fact that Chile’s raw materials are processed in China and resold at a markup, with the difference often coming out of the pockets of Europeans.

Some things have changed as of late, however.

Chile’s leftist President Gabriel Boric is seeking to boost manufacturing jobs by reducing the country’s reliance on raw exports to China and instead having more of the production process based locally.

Moreover, socialist Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s victory in Brazil’s presidential election on 30 October has revived EU trade hopes for Latin America.

It was Lula’s return that also brought back talks about the EU-Mercosur trade deal, now poised to be ratified by the end of the year — a pact blocked by European countries in 2019 after his predecessor, far-right firebrand Jair Bolsonaro, allowed Amazon’s deforestation to spike by 59.5%.

Boric and Lula both belong to the so-called “pink wave” of left-leaning Latin American heads of state at the helm of six out of seven of the region’s biggest economies.

Strike while the iron is hot

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s recent trip to the region was, in many ways, a chance for Europe to use this new era to its advantage.

In late January, he met with Boric to secure additional supplies of the lithium needed for its electric car industry, promising in return to help Chile develop its processing sectors. This week with Lula, he talked Mercosur.

Others in the EU, too, are looking to boost relations: a mix of trade-friendly countries — Sweden and Spain — are set to hold the bloc’s Council presidency this year, and the need to decouple from Russian gas and reduce Chinese dependencies are at the top of the agenda, which is bound to incentivise officials to forge new deals.

Yet, none of this will happen if Europe doesn’t strike while the iron is hot.

In the face of mounting geopolitical challenges and the urgent need to speed up the energy transition, Brussels needs a major reset of policy towards Latin America. It’s time to open political dialogue and diversify friendships.

Carla Subirana is an economist who has worked as a policy analyst for the Bank of England and Europe analyst for Economist Intelligence.

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