COP27: Brazil’s Lula says Amazon rainforest vital to global climate security

SHARM EL SHEIKH, EGYPT: Brazil’s Luis Inacio Lula da Silva welcomed the superstars at the COP27 summit in Egypt on Wednesday (November 16) to bring climate to the rainforest country. He pledged to recommit to addressing the crisis and offered to host future UN climate negotiations.

“I am here today to say that Brazil is ready to come back,” Lula said at an international climate summit held in the seaside resort of Sharm El Sheikh.

Lula won last month’s presidential election, defeating right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro, who presided over the destruction of the Amazon rainforest and refused to host Brazil’s originally planned 2019 climate summit.

Former president Lula, who will be entering his third term in January, has aimed to make Brazil the host country for COP30 in 2025, preferring to host the event in the Amazon rainforest rather than in populated coastal areas. He told the delegation that he was looking to

The world’s largest rainforest, the Amazon, with over 6 million square kilometers, absorbs large amounts of greenhouse gases.

“Without a protected Amazon, the world is not climate safe,” he said, explaining that he wants people to see the region. “We will spare no effort to reach zero deforestation and biome degradation by 2030.”

The standing room-only crowd included two former Brazilian environment ministers, members of parliament, state governors, activists, and indigenous people in traditional headdresses. Egypt’s COP27 President Sameh Shukri escorted Lula onto the stage.

Lula stressed that climate change can only be addressed hand in hand with social justice, praising his statement that crowds will end inequality and improve conditions for indigenous peoples.

He also accused world leaders of failing to prioritize climate change, saying they ignored warnings about the plight of the planet and spent trillions on war.

“Earth is constantly warning us that we need each other to survive.

“But we ignore these warnings. We spend trillions of dollars in wars that cause destruction and death, yet 900 million people in the world have nothing to eat.”

Lula said he is calling on rich countries to deliver on past promises to provide poor countries with $100 billion a year to help them adapt to climate change and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Added.

It was his second speech at Wednesday’s conference, and both were thronged with fans chanting “Lula! Lula!” Cheers shake the walls of the venue.

Lula moved throughout the meeting, light security details reaching out for handshakes.

The Brazilian Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, aimed at preventing extreme climate change, signed all major international environmental agreements through the signing of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which formed the basis of the COP conference. set the stage for

Lula’s choice to make the COP27 summit the focal point of her first overseas visit since being elected helped revitalize the meeting this year.

Carlos Nobre, a climate scientist at the University of Sao Paulo, said: “The current president has never been to the COP, so it is very positive that he will be here as the next president.”

He said Lula would change Brazil’s environmental policy “180 degrees” from Bolsonaro’s.

Bolsonaro appointed a climate skeptic to his cabinet and saw deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest soar to a 15-year high.

Lula reduced deforestation to record lows during his first presidency from 2003 to 2010.

For his new administration, he promised a sweeping plan to restore environmental law enforcement that had eroded under Bolsonaro and create green jobs.

On Tuesday, Lula met with US Special Envoy for Climate Affairs John Kerry and China’s Chief Climate Negotiator Xie Zhenhua. He was expected to meet with the EU’s climate policy chief Frans Timmermans on Wednesday.

On Thursday, Lula will meet with civil society, indigenous groups and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. He will leave for Portugal on Friday, where he will meet government officials.