On Monday (10/12), the Brazilian Forum on Climate Change (FBMC) launched the report 'Zero Carbon Brazil by 2060' at the Brazil Space of COP24, in Poland. This is a preliminary report of the Brazilian recommendations for developing a low-carbon economy in the long term (Long-term Strategy – LTS), which must be submitted to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) by 2020. The study was requested by President Michel Temer to the FBMC in August of this year.
According to the report, combating illegal deforestation, reforesting areas degraded by pasture, low-carbon agriculture and drastically reducing the burning of fossil fuels, especially in the transport sector, should be priority measures for Brazil to help the planet contain global warming to 1.5ºC in relation to pre-industrial levels, as recommended by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to avoid environmental tragedies and food shortages in the coming decades.
Ana Carolina Szklo, Director of Institutional Development at the Brazilian Business Council for Sustainable Development (CEBDS), noted that eliminating net deforestation in Brazilian biomes and increasing reforestation rates in the medium term is one of the 10 priority proposals that the Brazilian business sector presented to presidential candidates during the election period, through the document CEBDS Agenda for a Sustainable Country. “Climate change policy is a state agenda, not a government agenda,” emphasized Szklo, who stated that the Brazilian business sector is willing to take on more ambitious goals in the climate agenda because it understands that the transition to a low-carbon economy generates business opportunities that contribute to business resilience. “It is in the economic interest that there is no more illegal deforestation in Brazil. Because if it continues, the bill will be expensive for all sectors,” she concluded.
Commenting on the new government’s skeptical stance on climate change, the executive secretary of the Brazilian Climate Change Forum, Alfredo Sirkis, said that he believes in dialogue and that it is necessary to find points of convergence on the agenda among the various groups in the new government. “We will need skills that go far beyond protesting. My watchword now is calm,” he said. Regarding the possibility of dissolving the Brazilian Climate Change Forum (FBMC), Sirkis said that the institution is even considering becoming a civil society organization with participation from the subnational government. “Our studies will continue even if it rains knives.”
