Brazil raised the pressure on other countries on Friday ahead of a world climate summit, pledging deep cuts in its greenhouse gases over the next decade that would take its emissions back to 1990s levels.
Latin America’s largest economy is committing to cut its emissions by between 36.1 percent and 38.9 percent from projected 2020 levels, Dilma Rousseff, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s chief of staff, told reporters in Sao Paulo.
Brazil’s emissions would drop to near 1994 levels of 1.7 billion tonnes if the top end of the pledged range is met. That would represent about a 20 percent cut from the 2.1 million tonnes emitted in 2005.
The pledge, while voluntary and not internationally binding, aims to encourage other nations to adopt aggressive cuts and could make a global deal more likely at the summit in Copenhagen next month, which aims to forge a new climate pact.
“With this, Brazil destroys the main argument of the rich countries — that developing countries don’t want to adopt targets,” said Paulo Moutinho, a researcher with the Amazon Institute for Environmental Studies.
“I hope the developed countries are embarrassed by Brazil’s position and adopt more effective targets,” he said.
But Brazil’s proposal contained no specific emissions reduction for industry, meaning much of the weight of the cuts will fall on its vast forestry and agriculture sector.
The cuts, which assume annual economic growth of between 4 percent and 6 percent, would not hamper Brazil’s economy, Environment Minister Carlos Minc said.
“Brazil will grow and develop. We will create more green jobs, more efficient jobs, a cleaner energy matrix, more efficient agriculture,” he said.
Brazil, among the world’s biggest carbon polluters mostly from deforestation, has become a major player in climate negotiations after years of rejecting such talks and saying the onus was entirely on rich countries to cut emissions.
Developing nations such as China and India want rich countries to cut their greenhouse gas emissions by at least 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020.
Rich countries in turn have called on developing countries to do their part by cutting emissions significantly by 2020.
The EU wants developing countries to cut projected 2020 emissions by between 15 percent and 20 percent.
Brazil hopes to nudge other countries to adopt more aggressive emissions targets. But wary of undermining its negotiating strategy, the government says its new goal is a domestic target and not internationally binding.
The talks in Copenhagen aim to reach agreement to succeed an accord adopted in Kyoto to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, which are blamed for global warming.
“It’s very positive. Finally Brazil is adopting a target. Two years ago it was a crime to talk about an emissions target in Brazil,” said Joao Talocchi, climate campaign coordinator for environmental group Greenpeace.
WAKE-UP CALL: Firms in the private sector were not taking basic precautions, despite the cyberthreats from China and Russia, a US cybersecurity official said A ninth US telecom firm has been confirmed to have been hacked as part of a sprawling Chinese espionage campaign that gave officials in Beijing access to private texts and telephone conversations of an unknown number of Americans, a top White House official said on Friday. Officials from the administration of US President Joe Biden this month said that at least eight telecommunications companies, as well as dozens of nations, had been affected by the Chinese hacking blitz known as Salt Typhoon. US Deputy National Security Adviser for Cyber and Emerging Technologies Anne Neuberger on Friday told reporters that a ninth victim
Russia and Ukraine have exchanged prisoners of war in the latest such swap that saw the release of hundreds of captives and was brokered with the help of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), officials said on Monday. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said that 189 Ukrainian prisoners, including military personnel, border guards and national guards — along with two civilians — were freed. He thanked the UAE for helping negotiate the exchange. The Russian Ministry of Defense said that 150 Russian troops were freed from captivity as part of the exchange in which each side released 150 people. The reason for the discrepancy in numbers
A shark attack off Egypt’s Red Sea coast killed a tourist and injured another, authorities said on Sunday, with an Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs source identifying both as Italian nationals. “Two foreigners were attacked by a shark in the northern Marsa Alam area, which led to the injury of one and the death of the other,” the Egyptian Ministry of Environment said in a statement. A source at the Italian foreign ministry said that the man killed was a 48-year-old resident of Rome. The injured man was 69 years old. They were both taken to hospital in Port Ghalib, about 50km north
MISSING: Prosecutors urged the company to move workers out of poor living conditions to hotels, but residents said many workers had already left the town Brazil has stopped issuing temporary work visas for BYD, the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Friday, in the wake of accusations that some workers at a site owned by the Chinese electric vehicle producer had been victims of human trafficking. The announcement came days after labor authorities said they found 163 Chinese workers who had been brought to Brazil irregularly in “slavery-like” conditions at the BYD factory construction site in the northeastern state of Bahia. The workers were employed by contractor Jinjiang Group, which has denied any wrongdoing. Later, the authorities also said the workers were victims of human trafficking,
RSS