Brazil will suffer pressure from the OECD due to environmental issues, says number 2 in the Economy

The records of deforestation in the Amazon, the expansion of mining in indigenous lands and the murder of British journalist Dom Phillips and indigenist Bruno Pereira are a sample of how challenging it will be for Brazil to meet environmental commitments assumed in international negotiations.

The advance of crime in the Amazon rainforest and in other biomes contrasts with the 21 green goals signed by the country to apply for admission to the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development), one of the main goals of Minister Paulo Guedes (Economy). The plan includes banning deforestation by 2030 and zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

The roadmap for joining the “rich’s club”, with a to-do list in this and other areas, was accepted by the institution during meetings in Paris this month. From now on, Brazil enters a period of improvement of public policies while its performance is evaluated by the institution until admission is accepted – which can still take at least two years.

The executive secretary of the Ministry of Economy, Marcelo Guaranys, who works on the front line of the negotiation process, cites the tax and environmental areas as the most challenging issues for Brazil during the process.

“Will have [pressão na área ambiental]because it will be a very important agenda for the world and for European countries in general”, says Guaranys to Sheet. “It will be very important for us to demonstrate how we make our legislation and how it is implemented”, she says.

For him, the task also involves a need to improve communication about what is already done and deepen the discussions on what needs to be improved. “Our environmental legislation is strong and very protective and creates a disincentive to deforestation. The discussion is ‘are we implementing it?'”, he says. “We have difficulty implementing it because we have a very large territory,” he says.

An example of this is that Brazilian legislation grants indigenous people the exclusive right to use the demarcated land — but, in practice, economic exploitation of these areas by invaders interested in activities such as mining or fishing is frequent.

For Guaranys, a limiting factor for progress on the subject is the scarcity of public resources for inspection, which would require a re-discussion about the country’s priorities in the distribution of budget resources — which should also involve the Chamber and Senate.

“I wanted to have infinite spending capacity according to my demands, but no country can have that”, he says. “That’s what the minister demands so much from discussions with Congress, prioritize what should be done. If it’s so important for us to have a sustainability policy, then let’s prioritize that,” he says.

The Government and Congress allocated R$3.2 billion to the Ministry of the Environment’s budget in 2022 (which includes operating costs and investments), while they reserved R$16.5 billion for the so-called rapporteur’s amendments – used by parliamentarians to irrigate their electoral strongholds through projects of lesser efficiency and with low transparency in the rendering of accounts.

Guaranys affirms, however, that the discussion is not just a budgetary one. According to him, it is possible to articulate ways to make inspections more effective using less public resources, especially with the use of technology.

“At the IRS, for example, there is a program to reduce inspection costs. If the taxpayer is always in compliance, I reduce how much I need to inspect. If it’s giving me trouble, I go after him”, he exemplifies.

President Jair Bolsonaro (PL) himself boycotts environmental enforcement efforts provided for by law. Since 2019, it has disallowed operations that burn equipment such as tractors – a measure planned to prevent the machines from being used again (since their seizure in the middle of the forest is difficult to execute).

Guedes, in turn, has already stated that Brazil is a “small transgressor” in the area and defends that other countries pay for environmental preservation in the national territory. “Brazil is not the guy who pollutes the world. It is a small transgressor, a small polluter,” said the minister in March, on the eve of a meeting with the OECD. “Once in a while there’s a forest that burns here and there,” Guedes said.

In addition to the challenges in the environmental area, Brazil’s entry into the OECD coincides with the electoral period. Voting intention polls show Bolsonaro in second place, behind former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) in the presidential race.

Former Chancellor Celso Amorim, the pre-candidate’s main adviser for international affairs, told Sheet in January that “there are no great benefits in being a member of the OECD”, in a first indication that the accession process could fall in the list of priorities in the event of a PT victory at the polls. “This quality ‘pseudo-seal’ thing is over,” stated Amorim.

The Ministry of Economy, on the other hand, sees its proximity to the OECD as a precious opportunity to exchange information and align policies among member countries with the aim of leveraging growth, contributing to development and seeking public policy solutions.

For Guaranys, a career civil servant who has held high-ranking positions in different governments — he was the CEO of Anac (National Civil Aviation Agency) under Dilma Rousseff (PT) and served in the Civil House of Michel Temer (MDB) —, entry into the OECD should be treated as a State policy.

“The accession process will be faster the greater the political will to make it move. [Mas] We understand that this is something that everyone wants, in any situation. Any government wants to keep improving the country,” he says.