SHARM EL SHEIKH (November 16, 2022) - President-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva addressed delegates at the UN Climate Conference and announced that Brazil is back as a global climate leader. Lula underscored the urgency of the climate crisis and positioned the fight against global warming as inseparable from the fight against poverty and hunger. For the transition to a green economy to be fair, Lula stressed that it must benefit those most affected. 

Following is a quote from Carolina Genin, Climate director at WRI Brasil: 

“The air is electric with hope and expectation that President-elect Lula da Silva will live up to the bold climate leadership that he promised at the UN Climate Talks. Lula fully recognizes the urgency of the climate crisis, as well as the huge economic opportunity of doubling agricultural output in Brazil without felling a single tree in the Amazon rainforest.  Deforestation in Brazil set new records in the last four years, a troubling milestone with devastating consequences for all life on Earth. It is time to reverse course and reinstate environmental policies and law enforcement to protect the Amazon rainforest. There is no 1.5-degree world if the Amazon continues to vanish. 

“Incentivizing the bioeconomy and adopting a zero-deforestation goal, two of the commitments announced by Lula at COP27, are crucial and urgent for preventing the Amazon from reaching a point of degradation with no return.  

A bioeconomy model should be considered as a path towards valuing and fostering biodiversity assets in the Amazon, whilst bringing income and prosperity to its people. Brazil must invest in policies and market incentives that recognize the full value that natural, biological assets and ecosystem services can provide, combined with Indigenous and local populations cultural knowledge.”