By Mario Osava
RIO DE JANEIRO, May 21 2007 (IPS)

Brazil appears to be about to pass over a prime opportunity to affirm itself as a leading environmental power in negotiations to bring the threat of global warming under control, according to environmentalists and analysts.

Crowned with the dubious honour of being one of the five countries that produce the most greenhouse gases, Brazil is unique in that three-quarters of its emissions of these gases are due to deforestation.

A drastic reduction in deforestation could be achieved simply by enforcing what is already official policy: that is, stemming the advance of agricultural and mining activities as they illegally encroach on the Amazon rainforest.

But the administration of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is refusing to commit to specific emission reduction targets, which so far are compulsory for only 35 industrialised countries.

Brazil first wants to consolidate the principle of "common but differentiated responsibility" mentioned in the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which sets legally binding targets only on industrialised countries, which bear the greater responsibility for the greenhouse gases that have accumulated in the atmosphere.

With regard to natural forests, Brazil&#39s position has changed. At first it opposed their inclusion in the mechanisms created by the Kyoto Protocol in 1997 and implemented in 2005, which permit industrialised countries to fulfil part of their emission reduction in other countries by earning carbon credits.

Including native forests in the negotiations "is a step forward, but it does not actually help to create a strong, legal, economic mechanism," as Brazil is advocating a voluntary fund rather than a formula to extend the international protocol on climate change, tied to certificates valid on the carbon market, Mark Lutes, an expert with the Brazilian non-governmental organisation Vitae Civilis, told IPS.

What Brazil lacks today is creative negotiators, independent from the Foreign Ministry, such as it had in the 1990s, so that the country can once again assume a leadership role on environmental issues, he said.

Brazil hosted the "Earth Summit" (U.N. Conference on Environment and Development) in 1992, and played a key role in the Kyoto Protocol negotiations.

Brazil&#39s Luiz Gylvan Meira was a key agent in obtaining approval of the principle of differentiated responsibility, and another Brazilian proposal was also adopted as the Clean Development Mechanism, which establishes that projects financed by industrialised countries that reduce greenhouse gas emissions in developing countries can earn certificates that can be exchanged or sold on the carbon market.

At present, however, Brazil&#39s diplomatic strategy, which prioritises trade and the achievement of a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council, is blocking environmental initiatives, Lutes said.

He pointed out that the issue of climate change in Brazil is under the aegis of the Science and Technology Ministry and the Foreign Ministry, rather than the Environment Ministry.

Brazil&#39s strategic alliance with China, India and other countries of the South, which has been particularly strengthened by the World Trade Organisation&#39s Doha round of multilateral talks, prevents Brazil from going its own way on climate change and moving forward on proposals that could achieve more ambitious agreements in this area, the expert said.

However, the Brazilian proposal on forests "is not a rigid position," but an idea to be openly debated by all and sundry. It may turn into a final result "that differs from Brazil&#39s original proposal," said Joao Paulo Capobianco, executive secretary (deputy minister) of the Environment Ministry.

"Brazil would not be unwilling to accept targets, if the principle of common but differentiated responsibility were respected – that is, if countries historically responsible for emissions stepped up their contribution to mitigating global warming," Capobianco told IPS.

"Mitigation of Climate Change," the latest report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), released on May 4, emphasises two key areas where Brazil can make a major contribution to curbing global greenhouse gas emissions: prevention of deforestation, and boosting the use of bioenergy.

Brazil has no obligatory targets to meet, but the Climate Convention "exempts no country from taking a responsible attitude on the issue," and the country could adopt "voluntary domestic goals" said Luis Piva, coordinator of the Greenpeace climate campaign in Brazil.

This would strengthen its bargaining position for the second phase of the Kyoto Protocol, which is to set targets to be met after 2012, he added.

Brazil still lacks a national policy on climate change, for which "eliminating deforestation is essential, as well as correcting the course of the country&#39s energy base, which will tend to become dirtier in the coming years due to increasing use of fossil fuels, especially natural gas," Piva told IPS.

Furthermore, Brazil will probably become a major exporter of ethanol, and "its institutional capability may not be able to prevent the forecast rise in crop production for biofuels from simultaneously increasing deforestation," he said.

Brazil has everything it needs to become an environmental power, with its tropical rainforests, water and abundant biodiversity, but it is "incapable of taking active moral leadership in the negotiations," wrote Rubens Ricúpero, former secretary general of the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), in an article published on Sunday in the Sao Paulo newspaper Folha.

Brazil has "adopted a policy focused on economic growth, without taking into account the fact that no development will be possible on a torrid, half-dead planet," he said.

Excerpt: