Absent from the negotiations, Minister Joaquim Leite practices diving during COP27

While officially assuming the position of head of the Brazilian delegation at COP27, the UN climate conference, the Minister of the Environment, Joaquim Leite, went to a diving practice space to visit the corals on the Red Sea coast, in Sharm El- Sheikh, in Egypt, this Friday (18).

The resort town is hosting the meeting, which was due to end this Friday, but should last until Sunday (20) precisely because of the countries’ difficulty in concluding negotiations.

The main agenda items are led by environment ministers from South Africa, Denmark, Germany, Spain, Maldives, India, Australia, Singapore, Norway and Chile.

According to Brazilian negotiators, Joaquim Leite does not participate in the guidelines on the country’s positions.

The command of the Brazilian delegation was, according to people connected to the Itamaraty, in charge of the diplomat Leonardo Athayde during the first week of the COP. Already in the second week, Ambassador Paulino Franco de Carvalho Neto arrived to reinforce leadership — in practice, command was shared with Athayde, not with the minister.

Unlike the Brazilian minister, the commanders of the Environment portfolio of the nations negotiating at COP27 are at the forefront of discussions on behalf of their countries and assume the coordination of thematic working groups to mediate understanding between nations.

They landed in Egypt at the beginning of the week to take charge of the negotiations, seeking to resolve the political knots in the agreement, mainly linked to the financing of climate actions in developing countries — which includes Brazil.

“With no agenda and without having been invited to mediate the negotiation (as usually happens at this stage of the COP), there was nothing left for the former Minister of the Environment in office but to submerge —literally— to see corals this Friday”, says one message from the Climate Observatory, a network that brings together dozens of socio-environmental organizations, on Twitter.

The text accompanies a photo of Joaquim Leite arriving at the diving area, with a red backpack on his back.

THE Sheet, Leite confirmed that he went to practice diving in the morning, noting that he then went to the conference. “I’ve come here every day since I arrived,” he said, at the convention center where COP27 is taking place.

In his response, the minister repeatedly stated that he is the head of the Brazilian delegation. The minister was unable to answer, however, which negotiators from his team are responsible for each COP issue.

Questioned about his agenda at the conference, the minister informed that he held bilateral meetings with countries like the United States and Saudi Arabia, aimed at negotiating the sale of carbon credits from Brazil coming from offshore wind energy projects and forests.

The minister was also unable to respond to the annual data on deforestation. “I have no idea”, replied Leite on the publication of Prodes data, the Inpe (National Institute for Space Research) system that consolidates last year’s deforestation area.

THE Sheet revealed that the result had already been sent by Inpe to the federal government, which plans to release it after COP27. The transition team of the president-elect, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT), said in a press conference on Tuesday (18) that it will ask the current government for information about the data. Leite, however, preferred not to respond about the disclosure.

Last year, during the Climate COP26, the minister also withheld the publication of the annual damage – which was already known by the government and would reveal yet another deforestation record. Throughout that edition of the conference, the minister said in his speeches that deforestation in the country would be on a downward trend.

_{Collaborated with Phillippe Watanabe, from Sharm el-Sheikh (Egypt)}