President Jair Bolsonaro’s government cut spending on climate change mitigation and adaptation studies and projects by 93% in the first three years of his tenure when compared to the previous three years.
The data were collected by BBC News Brasil through Siop (Integrated Federal Government Budget System). Between January 2016 and December 2018, investments in this area totaled BRL 31.1 million. In Bolsonaro’s administration, however, expenses were only R$ 2.1 million.
Wanted, the Ministries of Environment and Science, Technology and Innovation, and the Presidency of the Republic did not comment.
Climate change is a set of changes in the planet’s climate caused by human action. Among the main factors is the emission of gases that cause the greenhouse effect, such as carbon dioxide and methane.
Studies indicate that countries highly dependent on agricultural commodity exports such as Brazil are particularly vulnerable to the phenomenon because it can cause, for example, changes in the rainfall and wind regime and result in extreme weather events such as prolonged droughts, cold and heat waves more frequently.
​Pressed by high deforestation rates in recent years, the Bolsonaro government participates in the COP-26, UN Climate Conference, which takes place in Glasgow, UK. The president himself did not travel to Scotland.
One of the main objectives of the Brazilian delegation is to convince the international community of its commitment to the environmental agenda.
On Tuesday (2), representatives from more than one hundred countries, including China and Brazil, signed an agreement for the protection of forests that has the goal of zeroing deforestation in the world by 2030. Brazil also increased its goal of reducing gases pollutants from 43% to 50% by 2030 and pledged to advance the goal of zeroing illegal deforestation from 2030 to 2028.
Last week, BBC News Brasil anticipated that Brazil had decided to sign an important agreement on forest protection known as the “Forest Deal”.
More promises, less budget
The survey carried out by BBC News Brasil, however, shows a drastic reduction in the federal government’s investment in studies to prepare the country for the effects of the climate crisis.
The data consider two budgetary actions of the federal government aimed specifically at producing studies and projects with this theme: 20G4 – Promotion of Studies and Projects for Mitigation and Adaptation to Climate Change (under the responsibility of the Ministry of the Environment) and 20VA – Support a Studies and Research and Development Projects on Climate Change (under the responsibility of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovations).
The survey shows that the pace of investment between 2016 and 2018 was one of reduction. In 2016, for example, the government spent R$20.7 million. The following year, this amount dropped to R$8.4 million. In 2018, it reached R$ 2 million.
The fall continued under the Bolsonaro government. In 2019, the government invested R$1 million. In 2020, R$ 659 thousand were spent. This year, until October, R$ 426 thousand were spent.
The data also show that at the Ministry of the Environment, investments in studies on climate change were zeroed as of 2019.
Climate policy
The Bolsonaro government’s environmental policy is the target of domestic and international criticism. On the other hand, it is supported by various sectors of agribusiness and mining. In his 2018 campaign, he vowed to end what he called the environmental “fines industry.”
In 2019 and 2020, Brazil registered the worst annual deforestation rates since 2008. In the period, more than 20,000 km² were deforested, an area equivalent to 13 cities in São Paulo. The advance of deforestation and forest fires in these two years aroused reactions from non-governmental organizations and foreign heads of state such as the President of France, Emmanuel Macron.
Bolsonaro’s position on climate change is also the result of criticism from environmentalists and scientists. In 2019, after COP-25, for example, Bolsonaro even stated that international pressure on the subject would be part of a “commercial game” with the objective of harming developing countries like Brazil.
“I want to know… any resolution for Europe to start being reforested? Any decision? Or are they just disturbing Brazil? It’s a commercial game, I don’t know how people can’t understand that it’s a commercial game,” said the president.
Former Foreign Minister Ernesto Araújo, who held the post from January 2019 to March 2021, even questioned that climate change would be caused by human action, contrary to the consensus of the scientific community.
“Is there climate change? Yes, it certainly has always been. Is it man-made? A lot of people say yes, we don’t know for sure,” the former chancellor told a US event in September 2019.
Former Environment Minister Ricardo Salles, who was in the portfolio from January 2019 to June 2021, admitted the responsibility of human beings for climate change. Even so, it was during his term that the ministry extinguished, at the beginning of the Bolsonaro government, the secretariat responsible for drawing up public policies on the subject.
It was only in 2020, amid international criticism, that Salles determined the re-creation of a secretariat dedicated to climate change within the ministry. Salles left office in June this year amid investigations into his alleged involvement with a group of businessmen who would smuggle wood from the Amazon.
critics
Experts heard by BBC News Brasil criticized the government’s cuts in investments in studies on climate change. According to them, the Bolsonaro government has undermined the country’s climate policy.
For Natalie Unterstell, president of think tank Talanoa, the numbers show that investments fall short of Brazil’s need to deal with the climate crisis.
“Recent studies show that the world should invest heavily in studies and projects to mitigate the effects of climate change. These cuts compromise the way Brazil prepares. This shows that it is not a priority for a body that should be an important formulator of This is a reflection of the government’s paralysis of the environmental agenda that took place within the MMA and based on it,” says Natalie.
“A look at the depletion of budget action related to fostering projects for mitigation and adaptation to climate change shows this well. In 2021, a measly R$ 110 thousand reais were invested in the 20G4 budget action so far. For 2022, little is planned. more than 500,000 reais. In these numbers, the lack of attention to the subject is evident,” stated the former president of Ibama (Brazilian Institute for the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources) and senior researcher at the Climate Observatory, Suely Araújo.
BBC News Brasil sent questions to the Ministry of Environment, Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovations and to the Presidency of the Republic about the cuts. None of the three commented on the matter.
.
