Brazil: Rich countries fail to comply with environmental deals

In a note released Monday evening (Aug 26), the Brazilian Foreign ministry says that rich countries have failed to comply with agreements establishing the funding mechanisms for activities carried out by developing countries in order to reduce deforestation and reforest degraded areas.

The statement comes in response to the recent announcement that the countries making up G7 (Germany, Canada, US, France, Italy, Japan, and the UK) were offering the Brazilian government $20 million to boost efforts to reforest the Amazon.

The offer without prior debate with the eight Amazon countries (Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guiana, Peru, Suriname, and Venezuela—which share forest cover with the French Guiana, an overseas department of France) was discussed by G7 leaders at the 45th summit conference, which ended in France yesterday.

“The Brazilian government would like to remind those considering launching such initiatives that there are a number of instruments at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to finance activities to reduce deforestation and to stimulate reforestation,” the note reads, in reference to the commitments made by the countries at the UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992.

One of the tools named is the 2015 Paris Agreement, a spin-off of Rio 92, whereby signatory countries agree to adopt measures to keep the Earth’s average temperature below 2ºC. Furthermore, developed countries should invest $100 billion dollars a year in measures to fight climate change in developed countries.

The accord signed in 2015, the Foreign Ministry says, is “not even remotely” observed. Even though Brazil has recently been recognized as having slashed some 6 billion tons of greenhouse emissions and curbed deforestation and forest degradation, it still waits for an estimated $30 billion pledged by developed countries.

The note also mentions France, a country from which the ministry expects engagement and clarity regarding established goals. “It is expected from France and other countries that may support its ideas that they engage with serenity in these discussions at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, rather than launching redundant initiatives with amounts considerably below its international commitments and ambiguous insinuations about the principle of national sovereignty.”

The ministry ends its note saying that Brazil is ready to advance “in a sovereign fashion, in line with the international instruments to which we have subscribed and our own environmental policy, in the implementation of concrete actions to battle deforestation and forest degradation, especially in the Amazon.”