Lula is doing what Bush told him to: avoid the global warming stuff while you can, brother
Brazilian president Luis Inacio Lula da Silva does not intend to present to the world next
December, during United Nations sponsored talks in Jacarta on the global warming issue,
clear measures to reduce national greenhouse gases emissions, caused mainly by destruction
of Amazonian forest.
Lula’s reluctance to adopt these goals looks like his colleague’s in United States against
imposing ecological overcosts to American big business (George W. Bush did not sign the
Kyoto protocol and is now paying a high electoral price for that wrong decision, as
Republicans from California told him recently).
As it became clear with the annoucing yesterday that the Exectuvie branch of federal
governament in Brasilia has decided not to face the problem of CO2 emissions immediatly, as
oposition and environmentalists are asking for, and instead is creating another two-dozens
members interministerial committee… to present a proposal in six months.
This is the way not to do what should be done to solve national - or, in this case,
internacional - problems in Brasilia: when the best thing (for your political group) is
doing nothing, you create a committee or something to play down media excitments and let
time take care of the rest.
That’s pretty different from what Congress has done in Brazil about the same issue, showing
that national society is deeply divided by green issues - which is natural as the economy
is still heavly dependent on cattle-raising, soy and now sugarcane plantations for ethanol
production.
For the time being Brasilia is very badly positioned in the green issue since the country
is ranked as world number fourth in the carbon emissions.
Exactly one day before UN panel scientists annouced in Europe that it is our responsability
the climate warming stuff, Brazilian House of Representative received a comprehensive
package of legislative proposals aimed to reduce CO2 emissions by 5% in a five years.
The so-called green package did not receive support from Lula’s PT or other political
supporters and last week people at the House just sent us an email showing the main
proposition has already gone a few steps although is not ready yet to be voted.
Was Lula’s administration serious about the global warming challenge he would not create
any committee or the like but, instead, would have given support for green initiatives
already on the legislative track in Brasilia.
Critics of the president say Lula is only trying to divert attention from the growing
pressure from civil society and European governaments to set up goals to reduce environment
devastation in central and speciallynorthern Brazil, where Amazonian ecossystem is.
When United Nations scientists confirmed last February that mankind was responsabile for
the global warming Brazilian government did not act right away as Europe did, setting
clear objetives to be accomplished in the next decades.
Instead of adopting measures to curbe forest burning, to stop ilegal occupation and enforce
the environment law (which, by the way, his government inherited from former president
Fernando Henrique Cardoso’minister of Enviroment Protection, Jose Sarney Filho, now leader
of the fast-growing leftist Green Party, the only political force in Congress that went up
from 1 or 2 representatives by the end of last century to 5 elected in 2002 and 14 elected
last year.
Should Lula listen to his friends at Green Party (he still has got a few), no committee
would ever be created - it is just a matter of good sense.
Or of no sense at all, as we have seen up to now in Brasilia.
