Lula enlists neighbors in Brazil’s battle to save the Amazon

Hard-to-reach consensus

By Andrew Rosati & Simone Iglesias

THE leaders of South America’s Amazon nations gathered in Brazil on Tuesday as President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva pushes for a united strategy to save the world’s largest rainforest— and pressures the planet’s richest countries to help.

The Amazon Summit, a series of conferences and closed-door meetings, is taking place in Belem, the rainforest city that is slated to host the United Nations’ COP30 climate meetings in 2025.

Presidents from Bolivia, Colombia and Peru, the prime minister of Guyana, and top officials from Ecuador, Suriname and Venezuela joined Lula for the first meeting of the eight-member Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization since 2009.

Leaders from other tropical forest countries, including Indonesia, Congo and the Republic of Congo, also planned to take part in the two-day event.

For Lula, the summit is part of a push to reclaim a leadership role for Brazil in global climate negotiations, a seat it largely abandoned under former President Jair Bolsonaro, who rolled back environmental protections and drew international scorn as rates of deforestation rose.

Lula said.

On the eve of the summit, a coalition of major financial institutions, including Brazil’s national development bank and the Inter-American Development Bank, pledged funding to support sustainable development in the Amazon. The exact amount hasn’t been defined, but initial estimates suggest it could be as high as $25 billion, local newspapers reported.

Lula earlier this year secured promises from the US, U k and other nations for hundreds of millions of dollars in commitments to the Amazon Fund, a Brazil-led initiative that finances forest protection.

Since taking office in January, the leftist leader has sought to reduce deforestation rates that under Bolsonaro led financial institutions to threaten to divest holdings in Brazil. European supermarkets also restricted purchases of Brazilian beef, one of the country’s most important exports.

CONSENSUS may be difficult to achieve in a commodity-dependent region where about a third of the population lives in poverty and economic development remains the primary concern.

Colombia President Gustavo Petro highlighted “disagreements” between countries’ policies in his opening remarks, while reiterating his call for bans on new oil exploration. Lula’s government has taken a more measured approach, seeking to balance future development with its environmental aims—and is currently mired in a dispute over state-controlled oil company Petrobras’s drilling plans near the mouth of the Amazon River.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, meanwhile, oversees an oildependent economy and has shown little interest in curbing deforestation in the Amazon. He has also faced condemnation from the UN over human rights abuses related to the participation of state forces in gold mining.

Outside the event, dozens of Indigenous activists protested against resource extraction in the region.

Peruvian Environment Minister Albina Ruiz indicated was a donedeal last month, now appears to be a longshot.

Brazil is nevertheless confident the event will serve as a launchpad for future agreements, with a joint declaration expected to be inked by the end of Tuesday.

“I believe we start the conversation about defining goals at the summit,” Andre Lima, the secretary of deforestation control at Brazil’s environmental ministry, said in an interview. “A perspective can emerge for the adoption of common goals.” edge and rattled investors. Foreign investors have dumped a net $3.8 billion worth of Thai stocks this year, driving the nation’s benchmark equity gauge 9 percent lower, the worst performing major market in Asia.

One area of potential progress is on a strategy to combat increasing violence and criminal activity in the Amazon. A UN report released in June indicated that significant parts of the forest are “wracked by a complex ecosystem of drug crime,” with proceeds from sophisticated trafficking operations funneling into illegal logging, ranching and gold mining.

“To solve this crisis, we need to end political polarization. We need cooperation from all sides, all groups, everyone, to form a government,” Cholnan said, adding that unity and reconciliation were its “top national agenda.”

While Pheu Thai executives have said they are confident of forming a government with majority support in the lower house, it’s still not clear how it will ensure a win for its prime minister candidate Srettha Thavisin.

The former property tycoon will need the backing of the majority of the 750 lawmakers in a joint sitting of the lower house and the militaryappointed Senate.

Deputy leader Phumtham Wechayachai said Pheu Thai will meet with Move Forward on Wednesday afternoon, potentially to seek the backing of its 151 lawmakers for Srettha’s nomination. Pheu Thai has also been asking senators for support, he said. Bloomberg

Brazil has “managed to turn the sad page of its history,” Lula declared Tuesday morning, while also stressing that the need for regional and global cooperation on climate change has “never been so urgent.”

His goal is to draft a joint agreement between the nations ahead of November’s COP28 meetings in Dubai, where he plans to push wealthy countries to follow through on a stalled pledge to increase climate aid for the developing world.

He has specifically demanded the $100 billion per year promised more than a decade ago that could be used to maintain forests and preserve biodiversity.

“Rich countries that have already destroyed their forests need to take responsibility for financing our efforts to protect our peoples,”

Orbos

continued from A12 storage facilities. There will always be takers from the private sector, who will take interest and operate these facilities that can be the source

Preliminary government data released last week showed that deforestation in the Amazon fell 66% in July from a year ago. But Lula is still trying to win over skeptics, including French lawmakers that want to add tougher environmental restrictions to a pending trade deal between the European Union and Mercosur, a bloc of South American nations that includes Brazil.

The importance he is now placing on regional cooperation reflects Brazil’s belief that a united front can help attract additional funding and avoid future sanctions, said Matias Spektor, an international relations professor at the Getulio Vargas Foundation in Sao Paulo.

“Coalition politics are back,” he said. “The rationale in Brasilia is that Brazil should not act alone.” of potable water and hydropower generation, under a public-private partnership initiative. This is no rocket science and it is a no brainer. I remember in our younger years as a married couple, my wife would use rainwater and water draining from our air-conditioning

Inside, Peru President Dina Boluarte urged her counterparts to remember the “human face” of the Amazon, and called on the international community to make the well-being of the forest’s estimated 30 million inhabitants—and especially its Indigenous populations— its top priority.

Domestic concerns pose another challenge. Ecuador is focused on looming special elections to replace President Guillermo Lasso, who is not attending. Boluarte is in Belem, but is facing record-low approval ratings at home. And the recent arrest of Petro’s son has exacerbated the political woes of Lula’s closest environmental ally in the region.

The combination has made it unlikely that this week’s summit will result in major binding commitments. An attempt to coalesce the region behind Brazil’s pledge to end illegal deforestation by 2030, which units, collected in several containers, for watering the plants in our garden and cleaning our vehicles.

We are facing a national water crisis that will only worsen. The rains that flood us and cause much damage can be the valuable resource that will make a difference for fu-

Lula has unveiled a series of new environmental safeguards and deployed the military to target networks of wildcat miners on Indigenous lands. Populations that face similar challenges throughout the region could benefit from a coordinated approach, said Beto Verissimo, the co-founder of Imazon, an environmental think tank in Belem.

Even if concrete commitments don’t materialize, Lula is likely to continue his efforts to convince Brazil’s neighbors that they are stronger as a bloc, especially amid debates over how much donor countries and major development banks should help fund green transitions in low- and middle-income nations.

The urgency of climate change means that “all the rules are being contested,” said Ilona Szabo, president of the Igarape Institute, a think tank in Rio de Janeiro. “Brazil is keen to negotiate the importance of the region.” With assistance from Guilherme Bento / Bloomberg ture generations. Our scarce water resource needs to be managed well and protected. The 500 Reservoirs Program of Marcos should be supported and embraced 100 percent!

The author may be reached at thomas_orbos@ sloan.mit.edu

‘JUNK FOOD TAX SHOULD PROMPT INNOVATION’

THE industrial sector should learn how to innovate when it comes to food manufacturing once the twin taxes on junk food and sweetened beverages are implemented, according to an official of the National Nutrition Council (NNC).

Jovita Raval, chief of nutrition information and education of the NNC, said the government’s plan to tax junk food and sweetened beverages could be in place within this year or early next year.

A ccording to Philippine Exporters Confederation, Inc. (Philexport)’s statement issued on Friday, Raval shared this information last month during an online forum on creating a healthier food landscape in Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean).

Finance Secretary Benjamin Diokno announced in June 2023 a proposal for a junk food and sweetened beverage tax to be jointly pursued by the Department of Finance (DOF) and Department of Health (DOH) as a “proactive” measure to tackle diabetes, obesity, and non-communicable diseases related to poor diet.

T he proposal, however, attracted different views from some business groups last June. F or one, Management Association of the Philippines (MAP) President Benedicta DuBaladad said the business group “supports the measure but the money collected from the new tax should be earmarked to support and incentivize research and development, and production and supply of cheaper food and food supplements with high nutritional value.”

For its part, the Joint Foreign Chambers (JFC) said in June that the government should reconsider the proposals to impose new taxes on junk food and increase the existing tax on sugar sweetened beverages, saying this will be “inflationary” for Filipino consumers and “discriminatory” to certain businesses.

T he JFC said it believes it is “not the right time” to introduce additional taxes on products primarily consumed by middle- and lower-middle-class households because the country is still recovering from the pandemic and a prolonged period of high inflation.

Meanwhile, Raval in her presentation said that aside from improving Filipinos’ diet, the tax initiative will also drive the industry to innovate.

We look at the industry to come up with new products with less processing and more on whole foods,” the nutrition official said.

S he added that in times of bountiful harvests, produce [could be preserved rather than just let it go to waste]. “So there’s a market for food preservation of whole foods.”