Opinion – Candido Bracher: Lula’s COP speech was important and right, but not enough

“It is a voice of warning—warning you is the only service a German like myself can render you today…that is to say: confirming your own bad feelings; assuring you that these feelings are true, justified—and that certainty has to be given to you; for only by awakening in you the feeling that you are going down a terribly wrong path will we maintain the hope that perhaps you can still abandon it.”

Thus, from exile in the USA, Thomas Mann addressed the Germans in his own voice, in the German language, over the BBC radio waves in March 1941, when England was alone in the war and Germany still seemed unbeatable.

Between October 1940 and May 1945, in 58 transmissions, the author displays extraordinary clairvoyance in predicting and describing in a harsh and merciless way the terrible fate to which Hitler would lead the German people.
The speeches, which are collected in the book “German Listeners”, are possibly not the best example of Thomas Mann’s literary talent, but they are undoubtedly the most emphatic expression of his character.

His warning, however, was not heeded. In his speech after the end of the war, he laments that Germany had not been able to “liberate itself, sooner, while there was still time, or even later, still at the last minute… instead of the end of Hitlerism meaning at the at the same time (its) complete ruin”.

The country, however, rebuilt itself and was able to fulfill Thomas Mann’s final expectation: “It was German in another time, and it can be again, the power to obtain respect and admiration through human collaboration, the free spirit”.

Such precise warnings are rare. Oracles have always been masters at giving a dubious meaning to their clairvoyances, so that they could encompass different outcomes. That’s not to mention predictions that are just plain wrong. In his fascinating podcast “Agora, agora e mais agora”, the writer Rui Tavares, with his pleasant Portuguese accent, defines the Middle Ages as “about a thousand years in which people believed that the end of the world would be soon”. For a thousand years, therefore, the apocalyptic predictions proved to be flawed and over time they fell into disuse, convincing a smaller and smaller number of believers.

In recent times, however, we are again faced with warnings that, if not apocalyptic, are serious enough to cause great concern. And this is due not only to the severity of the projected scenario but to the fact that it is not based on subjective analysis, or alleged supernatural powers, but is based on mathematical and scientific models, supported by concrete data. I refer to global warming.

Naturally, this does not guarantee the accuracy of the projections, which still show reasonable dispersion in terms of intensity, timeframe and geographic distribution of the forecast phenomena. But it is undeniable that the idea is becoming more universally accepted, especially —but not only— by the scientific community, among other reasons because it is being corroborated by an increasing number of severe weather events.

Unfortunately, credibility is a necessary but not sufficient condition for a warning, however serious it may be, to lead to action. Another important condition is the cost of acting, which we can decompose into several factors, including: the imminence, or not, of the predicted event, the degree of sacrifice necessary to avoid it, the eventual risks involved in the action (which in the case of Hitler’s Germany, for example, were obvious) and, not least, the possibility of accommodating oneself, leaving the responsibility for solving the problem to others. It is a frequent behavior in men to act only when the cost of inaction exceeds the cost of action.

In the case of global warming, we have:

1. the most serious events predicted are some decades ahead;
2. the costs associated with replacing fossil fuels and other changes in habits required to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are perceived as very high;
3. the risks to the popularity of politicians from developed countries (the biggest emitters), for implementing restrictive measures that imply an additional cost to the consumption of fossil fuels, are real and significant. A “yellow vest” demonstrator in Paris made the position of a good part of the electorate clear: “You are worried about the end of the world, while we are worried about the end of the month”; and finally:
4. it is always possible to believe that through technology all problems will be solved, or that some other solution will emerge before the situation gets too serious.

The composition of these factors inhibits measures for the global reduction of GHG emissions and justifies the dramatic sentence of the UN Secretary General, António Guterres, at the opening of COP27: “We are on a road to climate hell with our foot still on the accelerator” .

This background underscores even more the importance and accuracy of our president-elect’s speech at the same meeting in Egypt. Lula was emphatic in committing himself to the two main lines of action expected from Brazil: protecting the Amazon and demanding the commitments of rich countries in articulating a global order to reduce emissions.

The two initiatives are mutually reinforcing. The broad and effective fight against illegal deforestation in the Amazon is a condition for Brazil to have the necessary influence in the construction of the global order, which, in turn, will establish a world price for carbon that will remunerate the conservation and recovery of green areas, contributing to enable the long-term preservation of the forest.

The new government will need extraordinary implementation capacity so that these commitments do not join the many unrealized promises of other international climate meetings. But the emphatic announcement of these intentions already allows us to dream that we can —at least with regard to the climate— paraphrase the poet Manoel de Barros: yesterday the future was watered.