Brazil vows Biden won’t change environmental policy - after 94,000 fires
Welcome to Climate Weekly!
This week, we’d like to introduce Meghie Rodrigues, a young science journalist from Brazil and a Board member of the Brazilian Network of Science Journalists and Communicators as she shares the latest update from the Burning Kingdom of Bolsonaro
Olá a todos e todas!
This is Meghie writing from a long coronavirus confinement in São Paulo, Brazil. With more than 160,000 COVID-19 deaths, we are second only to the USA, and confinement still makes a lot of sense to me (though not to our president). Right now however, a key debate is whether Brazilians will be open to an experimental mandatory vaccine.
On the climate and environment side, our minister of Environment, Ricardo Salles, has been working hard to “change rules and simplify [environmental] norms while the media only talks about COVID” as he suggested in a cabinet meeting in April.
By the end of September, Salles had approved a decision that reversed the protection of sandbanks and mangroves, opening these areas for exploration. Mangroves have been protected areas in Brazil since 1577, and are critical in countering coastal erosion as well as capturing carbon. It was only then thanks to a proactive lawsuit from the Sustainability Network, that the supreme court blocked the decision.
Meanwhile, both the Amazon and the Pantanal, the world’s largest wetland area, are still on fire. According to Brazil’s National Institute of Space Research (INPE), the number of fires in the Amazon this October were more than twice as many as last year. The Pantanal region has seen the most fires ever, with over 3,000 in the last month alone. More than a quarter of the Pantanal has turned into ashes.
The Pantanal usually attracts thousands of tourists every year searching for giant otters, jaguars, tapirs, hyacinth macaws and other endangered species. This year, though, the fires (most of them likely to be illegally lit by ranchers) came at the end of an unusually long dry period - a clear effect of the changing climate in the region. This “turned the wetlands into a tinderbox and the fires raged out of control” as the New York Times recently reported.
For Indigenous communities in the area, this has been tragic. Estêvão Bororo described the fires to Mongabay earlier this October, stating that “it came very fast and even surrounded the homes. Even though the houses themselves didn’t catch fire, our leader had to be taken to Rondonópolis because he inhaled a lot of smoke. We have elderly people, pregnant women, new mothers and children here”.
Our presidency doesn’t seem to care. Last year, smoke from the Amazon forest fires turned the day into night here in São Paulo, leading to an immediate response. This year, a succession of political scandals as well the unrestrained coronavirus crisis meant that it took at least four months before for the government to sent any help.
Burn in forest close to Porto Velho city. Aug 2020. Pic: Bruno Kelly, Amazônia Real
Amidst it all, however, it looks like most fellow Brazilians, from all regions and classes, do care about the Amazon. A recent national Datafolha poll found that nine in ten Brazilians think it’s important to preserve the Amazon to protect biodiversity. In addition, eight in ten Brazilians think it’s important to protect the Amazon and 70% of women consider the Amazon to be critical to the economy. Men were a little lower, at 59%, but I guess they’re only men, right?
This poll gave me a small sense of respite in what’s been a disparaging few years. I am not sure Bolsonaro is likely to listen any evidence that doesn’t reinforce his worldview, and the only polls that really seem to matter to him are his hardcore Twitter and Whatsapp “fanbase” .
Vice President Hamilton Mourão, who is also President of the National Council for the Amazon, confirmed that his “environmental policy will not change under Biden.” Soon after, he compared the 94,347 forest fires in the last year to a spilled soup; "There comes a time when the broth spills”.
It might really take us a long time to recover from this collective nightmare we’ve sunk into, but it's somewhat nice to imagine that even when we are so deeply divided as a nation, it seems that common sense still exists across Brazil.
From Climate Tracker
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Bitcoin is close to hitting record highs, and is sending Kazakhstan’s emissions skyrocketing too. Danara Ismetova reports (btw you might have guessed, she’s not a big Borat fan).
For anyone reporting on horrifying results of Tropical Storm Eta, our Hurricanes reporting Toolkit should come in handy.
My Take on the Climate Election
Last week the US election took up almost all of our collective imaginations. In their acceptance speeches, both Joe Biden and Kamala Harris mentioned Climate Change as one of their key priorities. I personally can’t remember an election where any global leader has mentioned Climate Change in their acceptance speech. Can you?
Regardless, I think this has been a pretty monumental week, summed up pretty well by the response of Christiana Figueres , architect of the Paris Agreement.
It has also been just as interesting to see how world leaders have been responding over the weekend, with many of them specifically looking to “tackle the world’s greatest challenges together”.
Fiji's Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama was celebrating well before the final results were even called, with hopes that now the US can help tackle the #ClimateEmergency facing the Pacific.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson specifically mentioned “climate change” as one of their “shared priorities” his congratulatory tweet.
Canada’s Justin Trudeau said he’s looks “forward to… tackle the world's greatest challenges together.”
Germany’s Chancellor, Angela Merkel, similarly hopes the new administration will be able to “master the great challenges of our time.”
Similarly, France’s Emmanuel Macron hoped the new Presidency do the hard work to “overcome today’s challenges”
Taiwan’s recently elected leader, Tsai Ing-wen was also one of the early global leaders to congratulate President elect, Joe and Kamala, and if I had to bet on which country would be next in Asia to announce a net Zero by 2050 target, Taiwan would be it.
Australia’s leader, Scott Morrison also welcomed the new Presidency, and has ever since been hounded with questions at home over his own climate policy
In his campaign, Biden promised to call the world’s leaders to the White House to up their collective ambitions on climate change in his first 100 days.
With recent announcements from China, Japan, South Korea, I expect the likes of Australia, Brazil, India and Indonesia will be high up on his priority list.
This is a Weekly newsletter created by Climate Tracker. If you have any questions, comments or want to get involved, email Chris at chris@climatetracker.org - that’s me. I’d love to hear from you...and don’t worry, I’m locked inside too.
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