​Brazilian President-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva arrived in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, early Tuesday. Nov. 15, 2022. | Photo: Twitter/@ValerieVolco​

Cairo, November 16 (RHC)-- Brazilian President-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has met with envoys from the U.S. and China in the framework of the 27th United Nations Climate Change Conference.  At the event, which is being held in Sharm el-Sheikh (Egypt) from November 6th to the 18th, Lula met with John Kerry and Xie Zhenhua, the leading representatives of the U.S. and China, respectively, in global meetings on climate challenges.

Through his official Twitter account, Brazil's president-elect said, "I just met with John Kerry of the United States and Xie Zhenhua of China, who represent their countries, the two largest economies in the world, in the climate debate at COP27."

The leftist Lula arrived in Sharm el-Sheikh early Tuesday morning, bringing to COP27 a message from a Brazil committed to the defense of the Amazon and the fight against global warming.  According to Lula's public agenda, on Wednesday he will meet with six Brazilian state governors from the Amazon region attending COP27. On Thursday, he is scheduled to meet with Brazilian civil society groups, indigenous representatives, and UN Secretary-General António Guterres.

Upon defeating the far-right Jair Bolsonaro in the October 30th vote, Lula promised that his government would take the issue of climate change more seriously than the current one.  Lula will take office on January 1, 2023.

Bolsonaro oversaw indiscriminate deforestation of the Amazon rainforest; official figures said that under his administration, annual deforestation of the Amazon increased by 75 percent compared to the previous decade.