In Glasgow, with the mission to present the “real Brazil” at COP26, which according to him clashes with the image publicized in foreign countries, the Environment Minister, Joaquim Leite, avoided commenting on projects in Congress that are at the root of this negative image, for being harmful to the environmental issue, according to MEPs and large investment funds.
Among them are the Executive’s own initiatives, such as PL 191, which releases mining and the construction of hydroelectric power plants on indigenous lands without a completed demarcation, and texts proposed by parliamentarians with the support of the government, which change the demarcation of indigenous lands, regularize lands invaded and change environmental licensing rules.
Questioned four times during a press conference at the end of Tuesday (9) about whether the government maintains its support for these bills, the minister preferred to go off on a tangent: “What we have to do in the government and even in Congress is to encourage this new green economy”.
Leite also responded that he supports “any law that is creating a market that pays those who take care of the forest” and stated that “regular mining can protect the forest; regular, sustainable mining, with new technologies that do not even use water, is a way to to develop the green economy”.
Leite also defended the Program for the Sustainable Use of National Mineral Coal, instituted by an ordinance by the Ministry of Mines and Energy this year, while the world discusses how to accelerate the end of the use of this fuel, one of the most polluting ones.
According to the minister, the program is necessary because some Brazilian regions “will still depend on coal for some time, and for that it is necessary to make it as sustainable as possible.”
Leite said that the government will mitigate deforestation in two ways: combating the illegal and encouraging the legal forest, with a payment for environmental service program.
“We want to link agricultural production with forest conservation, for the incentive, for the benefit,” he said. According to the minister, the objective is to ensure that the transition to a greener economy is linked to the generation of jobs and income.
He also said that, for this transition to happen, there needs to be funding. He repeated on Tuesday that he will try to obtain from rich countries an increase of the US$ 100 billion promised to finance the transition in those still in development.
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