Kerry says stopping Amazon deforestation is crucial and US works closely with Brazil

After demanding concrete actions from the Bolsonaro government during the most recent Climate Conference in November, the US government’s special envoy for the climate, John Kerry, said that the United States is working “very closely” with Brazil to improve protection. from the Amazon.

He spoke briefly to Folha after a panel at the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos about a climate initiative that brings together companies committed to zeroing their greenhouse gas emissions.

“Brazil is a critical country [na questão climática]. We have to be able to improve actions in the Amazon to stop deforestation, this is crucial,” he said.

Kerry said that in a recent conversation, Minister Joaquim Leite (Environment) said that the country planned to improve monitoring and promote new measures. “We’re going to work very closely with Brazil to try to help.”

The transition to a clean economy – less polluting – and the climate crisis have been the second topic of attention at Davos in a conference almost entirely dominated by debates on the Ukrainian War and its economic, geopolitical and social consequences.

Brazil, however, participates in only two panels on the subject, both represented by the president of BNDES, Gustavo Montezano. Minister Paulo Guedes (Economy), who is also at the Forum’s annual meeting, has been talking about the topic with businessmen and authorities, but does not participate in the specific panels.

In the conversations, he states that the Brazilian position in relation to environmental preservation has changed, and that the country would be more active now than in the first years of the Bolsonaro government, as he had to understand that the new economic landscape demands it.

The Brazilian government, according to executives, has been charged with respect to the Amazon after registering some of the worst deforestation rates in its history, being called upon to respond to long-term actions.

Guedes, for his part, insists that the key to advancing conservation is for richer countries to pay for the preservation of tropical forests in places like Brazil and Indonesia, and says he has discussed the possibility with OECD secretary-general Mathias Cormann.

The environmental commitment is one of the obstacles to Brazil’s ascension to the entity, which brings together part of the richest countries.

In this Wednesday’s panel (25), Kerry, seated next to Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, presented the expansion of an initiative of companies to adopt zero carbon, something that he and the other participants of the panel – such as Gates and Ruth Porat , Google’s chief financial officer — consider it inevitable.