novembro, 25 2024

By Fábio de Castro, special for WWF-Brazil

For 10 hours, Brazil was at the centre of discussions at the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP29) in Baku, Azerbaijan. Last Wednesday, the 20th, experts of different nationalities took part in seven events promoted by WWF-Brazil, in a full day of debates on the country's challenges and opportunities in tackling climate change.

Paving the way for COP30, which will be held for the first time in the Amazon, in Belém do Pará, in 2025, the events discussed, for example, how to finance solutions to the climate crisis and its consequences, the implementation of the nationally determined contributions (NDC) presented by Brazil, how to meet global adaptation goals in a more inclusive way, how to increase society's participation in the socio-environmental agenda - taking climate justice into account -, and how to prevent misinformation from undermining the progress already made in the fight against the climate crisis.

Sara Pereira, representative of the People's Summit at COP 30, highlighted the engagement of civil society in climate conferences, stressing the importance of the leading role of riverine peoples, indigenous populations and traditional communities in this debate. According to her, the People's Summit is an articulation of global civil society that mobilises around the climate issue and organises itself in a way that preserves the autonomy of social criticism.

“In Belém, the People's Summit will contribute to the strength of the mobilisation of civil society from Brazil, Latin America and the entire world, bringing together these diverse voices from the countless territories that are already feeling the damage of the climate crisis. The discussion at the COPs needs to have this view of the plural, diverse and complex reality”, she stated.

According to the activist, in the Amazon, indigenous peoples and traditional populations, who depend so much on water, are experiencing a severe drought that worsens every year. They are the first to be affected by the climate crisis, but they are also those who need to be heard because they know the solutions to this crisis.

“The Amazonian people have managed the forest and its waters in a balanced way for centuries. We have a lot to show the world. In Belém, we want these amplified, powerful voices to not only demand concrete responsibilities from governments and negotiators to confront the climate crisis, but also to show the world that will be in Belém that these territories keep real solutions to this crisis. It is impossible to think of a COP 30 that does not have the climate agenda based on climate justice,” said Sara.

“People’s COP”

Alberto Kleiman, director of Institutional Relations at the Extraordinary Secretariat for COP 30, of the federal government, assured that the event will have the relationship between humans, nature and climate at its center and that the entire organisation will be built around this idea. “One of our challenges is to engage non-state actors. President Lula set the tone for COP 30 when he said that it will be the COP of the people. Our priority is to not create any bureaucratic or geographic limitations on the engagement of society”, he stated.

According to Kleiman, one of the initiatives will consist of optimising the spaces already created in previous COPs, such as a more creative and inclusive Green Zone, in order to provide better quality participation by the general public and, in particular, by the communities of Belém and other places in the Amazon.

“Together with the local people, we also want to attract small businesses, which should take part as solution providers, and startups that work on environmental issues in developing countries. BRL 6 billion (about US$ 1 billion) has been invested so far in Belém, which will leave a material legacy for the region, but it is also necessary to invest in this immaterial legacy of participation,” said Kleiman.

Adaptation and inclusion

The inclusion of Afro-descendant populations and local communities was also a central theme in debates on the development of the Global Adaptation Goal (UNFCCC) and the Brazilian government's Climate Adaptation Plan. The Climate Adaptation Plan is currently being developed and is expected to be delivered, somewhat late, in 2025. The policy development process involved online participation by society through the Participative Brazil platform. Although it makes up 56% of the Brazilian population, the black community has difficulty actively participating in the development of public policies, especially when the consultation involves exclusionary methodologies such as access to the internet and the official government's portal "My Gov", according to Mariana Belmont, from the Geledés Institute of Black Women.

“What happens historically is that, despite the progress we have made in different environmental policies - and Brazil is truly a reference in this agenda - many of these policies ended up being policies that helped exterminate and remove people from black territories. Today, we look at the summary of the Climate Adaptation Plan, which is in public consultation, and we see the terms ‘anti-racist’, ‘environmental racism’ and ‘combating racism’ there. But we don’t know how this will actually be implemented,” said Mariana.

She expresses doubts about whether the resources for adaptation to the climate crisis will reach the cities’ outskirts for implementation and, mainly, whether the proposed public policies will be inclusive. “What we have seen in recent years is that adaptation and conservation policies remove people. And, for us, there is nothing more racist and classist than removing people from their territory, their community, their history, their family life and their traditions, saying that this is an area of ​​risk,” she said.

Denialism

Another concern for experts, considering society's engagement in the climate agenda, is disinformation, which not only denies the scientific consensus on the issue of climate change, but also seeks to discredit policies based on evidence and science, according to Liliam Beatris Chagas de Moura, director of the Climate Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MRE).

“Reading this scenario led Brazil to build in recent months, in partnership with the UN and UNESCO, the Global Initiative for Integrity of Information on Climate Change, which was launched on November 18 during the G20 meeting in Rio de Janeiro. The goal is to promote the defence of the integrity of information on climate change, funding for research and strategic actions through advocacy and diplomacy”, said Liliam. According to her, the initiative will be financed by a global fund that aims to raise US$ 50 million.

Martina Donlon, UN Climate Communications Chief, highlighted that, in addition to leading the initiative, Brazil managed, for the first time, to include the issue of climate disinformation in the final G20 declaration. She added that the UN is also committed to the initiative because disinformation generates a lack of trust in science and institutions.

“It undermines everything we work for, whether it’s climate action, human rights, vaccines or healthcare. We see the same disinformation groups, moving from one issue to another, using the same types of tactics and strategies to undermine trust in science and institutions,” warned Martina.

Agri-food systems

In addition to the topic of climate misinformation, Brazil also managed to include the issue of transitioning to more sustainable food systems in the G20 declaration, which was considered a good sign by Isabel Garcia-Drigo, director of Climate Strategy, Land Use and Public Policies at Imaflora (Institute for Forest and Agricultural Management and Certification).

“Another good sign in this regard is Brazil’s new NDC, presented at this COP. The plans included in this NDC contain actions and measures that have the potential to transform agriculture and livestock farming. On the other hand, to a large extent, these are plans with few implementation details,” Isabel said.

“The NDC mentions, for instance, the practices and technologies recommended by our Low Carbon Agriculture Plan. This includes intensive livestock farming, no-till systems, Integrated Crop-Livestock-Forestry (ICLFS), among other types of technologies and practices. This is good and highly recommended, but it requires large-scale implementation and financing,” she said.

Transforming food systems will also be essential to halting deforestation, according to Moisés Savian, Secretary of Land Governance, Territorial Development and Socio-Environmental Affairs at the Ministry of Agrarian Development and Family Farming. According to him, the ministry prioritises the transformation of agri-food systems, with a special focus on the agenda of productive forests and bioeconomy.

“We have achieved great results in combating deforestation, but our assessment is that these results will eventually reach a limit. If we do not have alternatives for production that use the forest, we will not be able to eliminate deforestation. There is an entire economy behind illegal mining and deforestation. We need to generate a new economy - which is not exactly new, because the communities that live there have been doing this for many years,” said Savian.

The secretary highlighted initiatives such as the Productive Forest Program, directly focused on the goal of forest restoration, which is included in the National Plan for the Recovery of Native Vegetation and aims to restore degraded or altered areas with agroforestry systems. “There is also an important action by BNDES - the National Development Bank -, the Restaura Amazônia initiative, which will invest BRL 450 million (about US$ 77,4 million) in restoration projects. The first call for proposals will be launched in the next few days,” he said.

Forests in the spotlight

Financing for forest conservation was also hotly debated during the events. Andrew Deutz, WWF’s Executive Director of Global Policy and Partnerships, said that the issue is increasingly present at COPs and highlighted several initiatives undertaken in recent years.

“We have seen several recent advances, which makes us think that the world has begun to recognise that there is no long-term solution to the climate crisis without solving the biodiversity crisis – which is deeply connected to forests. And, conversely, we cannot solve the problems of forests and biodiversity without solving the climate issue. And forests are at the centre of all of this,” said Deutz.

Among the initiatives mentioned are the Glasgow Leaders' Declaration on Forests, an ambitious commitment by more than 100 countries to halt and reverse deforestation and landscape degradation by 2030, agreed during COP 26 and confirmed as a global commitment at COP 28 in 2023, the Forest and Climate Leaders' Partnership (FCLP), formalised at COP 27 in 2022, and the  Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF), presented by the Brazilian government during COP 28.

Aurélie Koumba, coordinator of the Congo Basin Forest Partnership in Gabon, said that the region has 300 million hectares of forests, half of them intact, which absorb about 30 billion tons of carbon. However, although the Congo Basin countries are responsible for only 4% of annual greenhouse gas emissions, they are “the poor cousin” when it comes to raising funds to preserve forests.

“Climate injustice is coupled with financial injustice, but we are trying to fill this funding gap. The TFFF, proposed by Brazil, is really an opportunity for the Congo Basin countries to try to draw attention not just to one, but to the three most important tropical forests in the world. We understand that unity makes strength, and that is why we must prepare now to have a single voice in Belém,” she said.

NDCs: ambition and implementation

Aloisio Melo, Director of Climate Policy at the Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change (MMA), discussed the challenges of increasing public and private investment in order to meet the targets of the NDC presented by Brazil, which include a 67% reduction in emissions by 2035, compared to 2005 levels, and are in line with the commitment to achieve greenhouse gas neutrality by 2050.

“Some of these NDC challenges are related to the mobilisation of public resources, to a large extent, but also to the creation of conditions to mobilise more private resources for areas such as reducing deforestation - which is a key area for us - and to do this we have to mobilise command and control actions, but also align with sectors of the economy such as the agricultural and forest restoration sectors”, explained Melo.

He stated that instruments such as green sovereign debt bonds are being developed, which are used directly for climate finance. Another strategy is Eco-Invest, an initiative launched earlier this year by the Brazilian government. “This basically serves to increase financing. From January to October, BNDES approved around US$ 1.5 billion for climate funds in these areas. This is more than we have approved in the last 11 years in climate financing.”

No climate for fossil fuels

Shirley Matheson, WWF’s Global NDC Enhancement Coordinator, highlighted the organisation’s efforts to assist countries in building NDCs that take into account the transition from fossil fuels to more sustainable energy matrices.

“WWF has been working to improve more ambitious NDCs over the past 6 years, encouraging a holistic approach that integrates several work streams involving energy, nature and food systems into countries’ proposals. One of our main actions was to create a checklist of NDCs, which shows the features we would like to see in countries’ NDCs,” explained Shirley, referring to the "NDCs We Want" action.

Ricardo Fujii, WWF-Brazil’s Energy Transition leader, stated that climate change has completely transformed the way we think about the issue of energy, from planning the energy matrix to the processes of deploying and implementing projects in this area.

“Previously, to carry out energy planning, it was enough to foresee demand and consider viable alternatives from a technical point of view, with assessments of scenarios, costs and risks. With the climate crisis, we had to change this, not only considering net zero in the energy matrix, but also starting to think more seriously about socio-environmental, local, global, economic and political aspects in the planning process,” he said.

"This entire series of events, complemented by others we took part in in Baku, such as supporting the launch of the Indigenous Troika , aimed to present to the public the most relevant themes for the COP in Belém: nature and biodiversity, reducing inequality and prioritising the most vulnerable populations, and financing for the implementation of the commitments that will be presented during 2025," said Alexandre Prado, climate change leader at WWF-Brazil. "WWF-Brazil thus begins its journey to COP30, supporting and articulating partnerships with the vision that together we can keep the 1.5°C mission alive."