United Nations, September 19 (RHC)-- The United Nations Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for the 2019 Climate Summit, Luis Alfonso de Alba, said Brazil is not on the list of countries that will address the climate summit, which is scheduled to be held in New York on September 23rd.
"Brazil has not put forward any plans to increase its commitment to climate change," De Alba said. Previously, the United Nations requested the governments of its member countries to present a plan indicating what their actions would be to either mitigate or halt global climate change.
On the basis of the documents received, the U.N. authorities selected which countries would have important and pertinent speeches; Brazil was not among them, for its President Jair Bolsonaro is a climate denialist.
Brazil intended to speak during the summit, according to a Brazilian officer who said the U.N. criterion was "subjective." Bolsonaro's diplomats, however, proposed to the U.N. that they hold an event to promote Brazilian biofuels at the summit's opening. Although this proposal was denied, an event to discuss biofuels is scheduled for Sunday, the 22nd.
Although President Bolsonaro has been practically banned, his government officials will attend the environmental summit and try to deliver a speech. "If they let me talk, I will talk," said Brazil's Environment Minister Ricardo Salles, who is expected to attend the U.N. climate summit.
Environmental activists, who are looking for governments to have genuine commitments, welcomed the exclusion of Brazil from the opening speeches. “The U.N. decision is welcomed. Global actors must demonstrate climate commitments to deserve a space,” Jennifer Morgan, director Greenpeace, said.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres convened the 2019 climate summit with the purpose that heads of state could assume greater environmental commitments. Such a goal was not particularly accepted by the Brazilian Foreign Ministry, which considers it an obstacle to the negotiations process established at the Paris Agreement.
According to the U.N. Secretary-General, however, a discussion on environmental commitments should not be postponed, for urgent actions are needed to contain the effects of adverse events, such as the Amazon's fires.
The commitments announced by the countries in the signing of the Paris Agreement in 2015 are not enough to contain the rise in the planet's average temperature below 2ºC.
