ENVIRONMENT-BRAZIL: Challenges Pending Since 1992 Earth Summit

By Mario Osava Reprint | | Print |

Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jun 6 2002 (IPS) - Brazil can celebrate some progress in the 10 years since the World Summit on Environment and Development was held in Rio de Janeiro, but the country has yet to meet the principal mandates of that landmark conference.

The numerous forest fires in the Amazon that 12 years ago won this country a place on the list of environmental destroyers, have been reduced and are better controlled today, but they continue to be a serious problem, say environmentalists.

The country made advances in enacting legislation and in raising society’s environmental awareness, but the government has not been able to enforce its own laws, Roberto Smeraldi, coordinator of the non-governmental organisation Friends of the Earth-Brazil, told IPS.

In the international arena, Brazil went from playing the role of “villain” to taking proactive measures that entailed a profound “cultural” transformation in its diplomacy, which today runs up against the hardline positions of the United States, said Smeraldi.

Brazil seeks to reinforce its world leadership in key areas like climate change and biodiversity with sights on “Rio+10”, the World Summit on Sustainable Development, to take place in the South African city of Johannesburg Aug 26-Sep 4.

At the summit, Brazil will demand that industrialised countries comply with the commitments they made a decade ago in Rio de Janeiro, particularly the increase in official aid for developing countries to 0.7 percent of each donor-country’s gross domestic product (GDP), announced Environment Minister José Carlos Carvalho.

Brazil also plans to propose a new formula aimed at breathing new life into the foundering Kyoto Protocol, the international treaty that sets targets for reducing emissions of greenhouse gases, which cause global warming.

The idea is that 10 percent of the world’s energy production should come from renewable sources, like wind, solar or geothermal. Each country would have the possibility of meeting their target by financing renewable energy projects in others, as is allowed under the Kyoto Protocol in other areas, such as “carbon trading”.

Latin American and Caribbean environment ministers adopted the Brazilian proposal and included it in the Regional Initiative for Sustainable Development, an official document that will be presented at the Johannesburg summit.

To give legitimacy to the demands and proposals with which it hopes to prevent the widely predicted failure of Rio+10, Brazil is trying to implement measures at home that are expected of a country rich in natural resources, in spite of its economic difficulties.

The government is pressing the Brazilian parliament to ratify the Kyoto Protocol so that the country may join those that have formalised their support of greenhouse gas- reducing measures prior to the meeting in South Africa.

Fabio Feldmann, executive secretary of the governmental Brazilian Forum on Climate Change, expressed confidence that the Protocol will enter into force by the close of the Johannesburg Summit.

Japan and the 15 countries of the European Union have ratified the treaty – isolating the United States, which opposes the differentiated targets set for industrialised countries -, which makes Canadian and Russian support of the Protocol more likely and, as a result, more probable that it will shortly enter into force.

At least 55 countries must ratify the Kyoto Protocol and must represent a minimum of 55 percent of total global greenhouse gas emissions for the treaty to take effect. This is a difficult objective to meet without the United States, which is responsible for a quarter of all emissions.

Brazil is also focussing on advances in the Convention on Biological Diversity signed 10 years ago at the Rio conference, also known as the Earth Summit. For this South American giant, this interest is to be expected, considering that it holds the greatest biodiversity of any country in the world, and is attempting to use it to economic advantage.

But the Brazilian government has not yet defined a national policy on this matter, though expects to have one drawn up by the end of the year, when President Fernando Henrique Cardoso’s term in office ends.

A hearing Wednesday in the Chamber of Deputies and another slated for Jul 4 mark the end of the period of public consultations in drafting the decree that is to guide strategies for the sustainable use and conservation of Brazil’s biodiversity.

Brazil continues to face national and international pressure to resolve its serious environmental problems, such as the ongoing deforestation of the “Mata Atlántica”, a unique forest ecosystem of great biodiversity, located along the Atlantic coast and now reduced to just 7.8 percent of its original area.

Non-governmental organisations this week presented the Brazilian parliament with a petition signed by 300,000 people urging the passage of a law that regulates exploitation of and protects the Mata Atlántica. Lawmakers are expected to vote on the bill within the next few weeks.

Also under consideration by legislators is a law on solid waste, a bill that emerged as a result of a series of environmental accidents involving industrial waste.

The organisation Businesses Committed to Recycling expects that re-use of such waste will increase 50 percent, moving approximately 1.2 billion dollars.

However, 78 percent of the 2.9 million tons of industrial waste continue to find their way to inadequate dumpsites.