PEC that includes a guarantee for climate security in the Constitution advances in the Chamber

The Constitution and Justice Committee of the Chamber approved this Tuesday (18) the proposal that includes the guarantee of climate security in the Constitution and that determines that the public power must adopt actions to mitigate climate change.

The PEC (Proposed Amendment to the Constitution) was approved in the CCJ by 26 votes to 10. The government tried to obstruct it with requests to withdraw the agenda and postponement, but was unable to prevent the vote.

Now, the PEC depends on an act by the president of the Chamber, Arthur Lira (PP-AL), to create a special commission to analyze the merits of the text. Only after this stage would the text go to the plenary.

The text, reported by deputy Joenia Wapichana (Rede-RR), includes in article 5 of the Constitution the guarantee that everyone has the right to an ecologically balanced environment and climate security.

In addition, he adds, among the principles that must be observed in the economic order, the maintenance of climate security, with the guarantee of mitigation and adaptation actions to climate change.

Finally, it includes in another provision the obligation of the public power to adopt actions to mitigate climate change and adapt to its adverse effects.

In the justification, the authors argue that the “recognition of the fundamental right to the protection and promotion of intact and safe climatic conditions in the condition of a dimension directly related to the essential core of the already enshrined human and fundamental right (in addition to the duty) to the protection and promotion of an ecologically balanced and healthy environment”.

They claim that, by including the issue in the Constitution, Brazil would place itself as a global leader and reference in the issue “and go beyond other countries in which the Courts already recognize the right as fundamental in an implicit way, such as the Netherlands.”

At the committee meeting, deputy Rodrigo Agostinho (PSB-SP), one of the authors of the text, highlighted that there is scientific uncertainty about climate change.

“Is Brazil the great breadbasket of the world? We will not have agriculture in Brazil if our climate issue is not taken seriously. We will not have water in Brazilian cities if the climate issue is not taken seriously”, he said.

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