Brazil mulls stance ahead of Copenhagen climate conference

Amazon Basin (Image: NASA)

The Folha de São Paulo newspaper reports today that Brazil’s environment ministry would like to cut the country’s output of global warming gases 40 percent by 2020, an ambitious and generous target, since negotiating guidelines for next month’s climate summit in Copenhagen call for developing countries like Brazil to shoot for a 50 percent reduction– but by 2050. Here’s Connie Hedegaard, chair of the U.N.-sponsored climate conference, quoted in the New York Times today:

The 2 degrees limit [on temperature increases] is almost common understanding now. It’s a common bar we have more or less agreed upon. The 50 percent cut [on warming gases] in 2050 is not totally agreed upon yet, but many of the major players would accept this, provided that developed countries took a cut in the order of 80 percent to 95 percent.

Brazil, as one of the BRIC (Brazil, India, China) economies and home of the world’s largest rain forest, will wield a great deal of clout in the upcoming climate talks in Copenhagen. So it’s interesting to watch as Brazil’s government hammers out its position for the talks. According to Folha, the Brazilian environment ministry’s aggressive position (part of which will be met by preserving tracts of rain forest) was resisted by other top Brazilian officials, who are wary of setting a specific mid-term target, worrying it concedes too much.

Many rich countries, including the United States, have not yet agreed to specific goals for reducing emissions (nor has climate legislation prospered in the U.S. Congress). And major developing economies, most notably China and India, have also resisted pledging to make quantifiable cuts by 2020 or 2050, the two time-frames that have been under discussion. Most Copenhagen observers focus on India and China as gauges of whether the developing economies will finally latch on to a climate deal. But Brazil is arguably just as important, because its wealth in forests gives it more flexibility in meeting CO2-reduction goals, and since it appears more needful of a pro-environment image as steward of Amazonia. Brazil’s government calculates it can meet a 20 percent reduction in C02 by 2020 simply by reducing deforestation in the Amazon Basin by 80 percent, according to the Folha article. The question is how the other 20 percent in CO2 reductions would be achieved if the country’s economy keeps growing at a robust clip, and whether Brazil even wants to tackle such a goal.

Dilma Rousseff, chief of staff to Brazilian president Luiz Inacio “Lula” da Silva, was quoted by Folha as saying Brazil needn’t settle on a specific number.

Another, separate issue, is the size of a proposed global fund, created by wealthy countries, that would compensate poor nations for their adjustment to the global warming crisis.

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• Forty days to get a climate deal (guardian.co.uk)