08/09/2023 – 6:09 am
Concluded on the first day of the event, the Declaration of Belém recognizes the urgency of saving the forest and respecting its peoples, but does not deliver a concrete plan. After 14 years of silence, governments of Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname and Venezuela recognize the urgency of working together to protect the Amazon, but do not set joint goals or deadlines to end deforestation.
The so-called Declaration of Belém was released at the end of the first day of the Amazon Summit, this Tuesday (08/08), in the capital of Pará, host of the Climate Conference (COP) in 2025. The content disappointed diplomats and civil society organizations civil.
“It is very difficult to outline a common policy for the region because the countries still do not have a clear internal policy for the Amazon. Brazil itself, which spoke a lot again, did not decide on a very clear strategy. The past government left everything loose and now the current one is trying to correct it, but it still hasn’t been defined”, evaluates Rubens Ricupero, a Brazilian diplomat and former negotiator who helped found the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (ACTO) in 1978.
Ricupero already expected that it would be difficult to close a weighty agreement after such a long period of abandonment – it had been 15 years since the signatories of the treaty had not met.
Although recognized as a first step, the initial agreement is criticized for lacking concrete decisions. “It’s a list of promises that doesn’t address any real response to the world we’re living in. The planet is melting”, comments Márcio Astrini, executive secretary of the Climate Observatory, which brings together 90 Brazilian civil society organizations, mentioning the heat records registered recently.
“It is a long document centered on ACTO that does not address the urgency of the necessary actions to stop degradation and deforestation and all its vectors”, evaluates to DW Alicia Guzman, Ecuadorian who coordinates the Amazon program of the NGO Stand.earth.
Disagreements between neighbors
While the host Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva demanded at the summit that rich countries take responsibility for financing the sustainable development of the region, the president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, criticized the expansion of oil activities, identified by scientists as one of the main causes of the climate crisis. .
In his speech at the opening of the event, Petro says he sees an “enormous ethical conflict”, especially by “progressive forces”, who should listen to science. The Colombian’s message seemed to be a hint to Lula’s government, which is considering moving forward with plans to extract oil from Foz do Amazonas.
Although the license was denied to Petrobras by the Brazilian Institute of the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (Ibama), there is a strong political movement to find a “legal” way to allow the exploration of fossil fuel in the region.
The measure would go against the grain of the scientific consensus that points to ways to curb the global climate emergency. The latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) states that the world needs to cut 45% of greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and reach zero emissions by 2050. Only this route prevents the increase in global average temperature from exceeding the dangerous inflection point of 1.5°C.
In Belém, the Minister of Mines and Energy, Alexandre Silveira, preferred not to comment on Petro’s hint. Asked about the country’s intention to explore oil in Foz do Amazonas, Silveira replied that the government wants, at this moment, to authorize studies to know the potential of the so-called Equatorial Margin, technical classification of the region that he prefers to adopt.
When commenting on the contradiction, Silveira insinuated that the work done so far by the IPCC is not conclusive on the deadline for fossil fuels to be banned in time to avoid a climate catastrophe.
The position of the current government does not surprise Ricupero. “Despite being very eloquent, Lula has many contradictions. The very question of oil in Foz do Amazonas, the construction of the Ferrogrão railroad, the paving of the roads that cut through the forest… There is still a great distance between speech and reality”, he evaluates.
The promises of the Bethlehem Declaration
The published text mentions the urgency for the region to establish common goals for 2030 that combat deforestation, illegal extraction of natural resources, end poverty, among others, “with the ideal of achieving zero deforestation”.
Active participation and respect for indigenous peoples and traditional communities is one of the highlights of the document, as well as the intention to prevent the Amazon from reaching the point of no return and no longer being able to recover as a forest.
ACTO leaders also call on developed countries to fulfill “their commitments to provide and mobilize resources, including the goal of mobilizing US$ 100 billion per year in climate finance to support the needs of developing countries”.
Police, judicial and intelligence cooperation in combating organized crime and environmental crimes also appears in the declaration. There is no mention of the word petroleum or fossil fuel.
“Some countries have an internal commitment to zero deforestation. This is the case of Brazil and Colombia, they are more advanced than the declaration itself. But it is sad to see that some countries fail to say the basics, which is: deforestation has to end”, points out Astrini.
chance of resumption
Created during the Brazilian Military Dictatorship, ACTO operates in one of the most strategic areas on the planet. “After its creation, very little was done. There were very long periods in which the Amazon was given over to cattle ranching, to destruction”, comments Ricupero.
For Thelma Krug, a researcher who was vice president of the IPCC for two terms, the lack of information and data at that time made it difficult to advance knowledge about the drivers of deforestation. “There was no way to continuously monitor deforestation alerts. This resumption can now strengthen ties with neighboring countries. Initiatives such as the Regional Observatory of the Amazon will be an important source of data”, emphasizes Krug about one of the points of the declaration.
Camila Jardim, specialist in climate policy at Greenpeace, considers that the economic and social development of the peoples of the Amazon, one of the aspirations of the declaration, cannot be based on the model that has been adopted until the present time. “We no longer have time to open a new oil frontier. It’s past time, the climate crisis is here. In 2025, when the COP will be held in Belém, the Paris Agreement will be ten years old. What development model will we have clear by then? ,” she questions her.
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