At the G20, Lula echoes environmentalist and global reform discourse

Brazil assumes, for the first time, the rotating presidency of the G20 for next year. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva will be at the head of the bloc and should repeat speeches on some of his recurring agendas – the environment, combating inequality and reforming global leadership. Such efforts, however, may not have concrete effects, according to analysts interviewed by the report.

For the political scientist and director of Projects at the Center for Strategy, Intelligence and International Relations, Marcelo Suano, Lula has presented contradictions when trying to promote his image to the rest of the world. While making appeals for the Amazon region and seeking to position himself as an environmentalist leader, the PT does not oppose oil exploration at the mouth of the Amazon River, for example. The theme was one that generated discomfort among the Amazonian countries during the summit in Pará. At the event, the Amazon Summit, the nations that share the biome did not even reach a consensus on “zero deforestation”.

“While Marina Silva [ministra do Meio Ambiente] and environmental leaders are against this exploitation in the Amazon, Lula and some allies are in favor of saying that it needs to be explored. [Segundo ele]if we don’t explore it, another country will”, says the specialist.

Suano also recalls that the PT member proposed financing for Argentina with the aim of finishing the Néstor Kircher gas pipeline in the Vaca Muerta region. The work uses the extraction of natural gas through the frackingconsidered one of the most polluting in the world.

“He [Lula] He lives this contradiction because he knows this logic and this need, but he created the image that he is the great protector of the environment and has sold himself that way to the world”, he points out.

Nicholas Borges, political analysis consultant at BMJ Consultores Associados, explains that this contradiction also comes from Brazil’s high dependence on oil. In this context, Lula ends up buying ambitious discussions, but which will not reach a consensus, since “a large part of the representation of the Brazilian economy or Petrobras’ participation, also at the international level, concerns oil exploration.”

The PT member traveled to India this Thursday (7), where he will participate in the 18th G20 Summit, in New Delhi. At the meeting, Brazil receives from the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, who was in the rotating presidency, the title of president of the bloc.

Formed by the 20 largest economies in the world, the G20 is a body with less effective potential than the G7, the group formed by Germany, Canada, the United States, France, Italy, Japan and the United Kingdom. Borges explains that the G20 is a space in which countries discuss political and economic measures, but that these debates are often just suggestive in nature.

“G20 debates do not necessarily translate into public policies at a global level. In fact, this is the time for them [países que integram o bloco] debate central concerns for the development of the economy and international politics itself”, explains the political analysis consultant.

Lula targets environmental discourse, but there is no consensus

If such issues are not a consensus even within the Lula government, they encounter even more setbacks in the G20. Composed of 19 countries (Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Republic of Korea, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey, United Kingdom and United States) and the European Union, the countries that make up the bloc face a series of political and ideological divergences.

Within the G20, Borges points out that the PT will focus on environmental discussions with the intention of “marking a position” as a leader on the subject. “The environmental agenda is something important because the G20 also brings together some countries from the European Union, so it would be a propitious space for President Lula to reaffirm Brazil’s commitment to the issue”, he analyzes.

In the expert’s view, this strategy may have the purpose of unlocking negotiations between Mercosur and the European Union. The two blocs have been negotiating a free trade agreement for over 20 years. In 2019, under the management of former President Jair Bolsonaro (PL), the agreement showed great progress, but has been stagnant since then.

This year, the European bloc made a series of new demands, largely involving environmental concerns with South American climate policies, so that the agreement was finally ratified. For Lula, the charges are “unacceptable”.

In recent months, one of Lula’s strategies was to reactivate the ACTO (Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization) and host the Amazon Summit with all the countries that form the biome.

At this meeting, which took place in Pará in July, leaders of the eight countries that make up the Amazon and other guests had discussions on the coordination of the region. The event, however, revealed cracks between these countries and contradictory preferences of the Brazilian leader.

“We saw that everything was beautiful in the speech, ‘let’s use the environmental development agenda of climate change’, but it was possible to see that there is no consensus on this”, says the expert.

US and G7 cautiously observe Brazil’s rapprochement with Russia and China

While the European Union calls on Brazil and other South American countries for environmental preservation, the United States and the G7 countries are cautiously observing the latest moves that Brazil has made towards Russia and China. Western nations also demand a more incisive stance from Lula on the war in Ukraine.

Since it invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Russia has been isolated by Western countries. Suffering a series of sanctions from the rest of the world, Vladimir Putin has allied himself with the Chinese autocrat, Xi Jiping. China’s president was one of the few in the world who declared support for the Russian in the context of the war.

A clear opponent of the United States and traditional global governance, China has sought to “finance” emerging and developing countries in order to attract more and more allies in the “cold war 2.0” it faces against the United States. This strategy has, in recent years, further trapped the Brics (bloc formed by Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) in its investment web.

Currently, China is the main economic partner of these countries and has increasingly approached other nations that do not buy the G7 discourse. Since new countries were announced as new members of the BRICS, the G20 began to be composed, in theory, of two antagonistic blocs.

In this context, Lula reaches the presidency of the G20 finding a divided bloc marked by differences, which could hamper his desire for major reforms involving global leaders.

Geopolitical context may hinder Lula’s speech for a reform of global leadership

Even though the BRICS make statements that they do not want to oppose the West, the recent change announced by the bloc does not correspond to this discourse. Without clarifying the criteria for choosing the countries that will become part of it next year, it was clear that the vast majority share a discourse that is opposed to that of the United States.

For Marcelo Suano, the current geopolitical context leaves the G20 member countries in an uncomfortable situation. “How will Brazil define an agenda for reform in the global financial system in a context of international crisis and war?”, he analyzes.

The expert also points out that the war in Ukraine should be another delicate point at this weekend’s meeting. While Lula has avoided criticizing Russia for the conflict and has already stated that Ukraine would also be responsible for the conflict, the G7 and European Union countries criticize the PT member for such a stance.

“Brazil does not want to deal with the war at the moment and that is why it has only talked about the environment and development issues. It does not want to deal with the war in Ukraine, because it is defined, within the reality that we have in the G20, as pro -Russia”, analyzes Suano.

After the trip to participate in the G20, Lula goes to Cuba, where he participates in the G77 Summit and then goes to the United States for the UN General Assembly. In the latter, the PT member has a meeting with President Joe Biden.