Izabella Teixeira, former minister, will be advisor to the presidency of COP27

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Former Brazilian Environment Minister Izabella Teixeira was invited by the presidency of COP27 (the UN conference on climate change) to participate in the event, which will take place in November in the city of Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt.

She will be one of the “friends of COP27”, a group formed by important names in the environmental area who advise the president of the event and which remains active even after the end of the meeting.

Teixeira currently co-chairs the International Resource Panel, the political-scientific platform of UNEP (United Nations Environment Programme) and is one of the main names in the climate context.

She was Minister of the Environment from 2010 to 2016, passing through the governments of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) and Dilma Rousseff (PT). In Lula’s current presidential campaign, Teixeira is one of the main formulators of the environmental agenda of the government’s plan.

In addition to Teixeira, Germany’s special climate envoy, Jennifer Morgan, should also be part of the group that will advise the president of COP27, Sameh Shoukry, Egyptian chancellor.

The first meeting of the group will be later this week.

At the last edition of the COP, in Glasgow (Scotland), Christiana Figueres, former secretary general of the UN climate change agency and architect of the Paris Agreement, and Eric Garcetti, mayor of Los Angeles and then president of the C40, a group of cities participating in the fight against climate change.

Another on the list was Manuel Pulgar-Vidal, president of COP20 and former Minister of the Environment of Peru.

“It’s Brazil back on the climate scene,” says Teixeira.

In recent years, especially during the government of Jair Bolsonaro (PL), Brazil has lost ground in international climate discussion tables. This is due, among other factors, to the explosion of deforestation —Brazil’s main source of greenhouse gas emissions—that occurred under the current administration.

Brazil comes from consecutive years with growing deforestation. In the last year, the rate exceeded 13 thousand km², the highest value since 2006.

The growth of deforestation together with the expressive increase in fires drew the world’s attention. Added to this is the contestation of the destruction data by Bolsonaro and the Brazilian president’s encouragement of commercial exploitation of protected areas in the Amazon.

The Bolsonaro government, in addition, gave up billions of reais from Europe, through the Amazon Fund. Through former Environment Minister Ricardo Salles, the government paralyzed the fund alleging problems with the contracts. Salles intended the federal sphere to have full control over the committees that are part of the fund.

“It will be a very complicated COP, full of bare wires, at a very sensitive moment in the world”, says Teixeira. “But with an important voice from developing countries.”

COP27 will take place at the end of a year marked by the Ukrainian War. In addition to the humanitarian issue, the world’s energy apprehension has grown regarding the supply of Russian gas and oil. Russia is responsible for around 40% of the gas imported by the European Union, essential for, for example, the heating of the population during the winter.

One of the tension points is the Nord Stream gas pipeline, which has already been completely blocked. The Kremlin blamed Western sanctions for the blockade, which would have jeopardized the maintenance of the system.

Recently, there was a major rupture in the Nord Stream pipeline under the Baltic Sea, followed by a new exchange of accusations between the Russians and the West. According to UNEP, the rift led to the likely largest single recorded release of methane, a potent and, consequently, climate-damaging greenhouse gas.

The Planeta em Transe project is supported by the Open Society Foundations.

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