BNDES prepares Amazon reforestation plan – 08/29/2023 – Environment

The president of the BNDES (National Bank for Economic and Social Development), Aloizio Mercadante, said this Tuesday (29) that the bank is studying a program to encourage the reforestation of up to 50 million hectares in the Amazon.

He suggested that the plan is part of an “ambitious proposal” for Brazil to be the first among major economies to reach zero greenhouse gas emissions. The deadline and conditions for reforestation, he said, are still being studied.

Mercadante participated in an event promoted by Thinking 20, the academic engagement arm of the G20, the group that brings together the 20 largest world economies, which will be chaired by Brazil in 2024.

“Both at the G20 and the COP [30, conferência da ONU que será realizada em Belém] as in the UN assembly [Organização das Nações Unidas], Brazil needs to present an ambitious proposal. We must fight to be the first zero emission country among the G20 countries,” he said.

He pointed out that half of Brazil’s emissions come from deforestation and about a quarter of the remainder from land use. The proposal would be to regenerate forests with the mixed planting of productive and native trees.

“We have to launch an impact project because it is urgent to move forward in this perspective”, he said, also suggesting that the project be made possible with international resources in the payment of forestry services.

With reforestation, he said, the country would be able to remove 600 million tons of carbon from the planet. “We are going to achieve, not only our goal, but also make a decisive contribution to the planet like no other project with this scope.”

Mercadante left the event without giving interviews. Sought, the BNDES said it still cannot provide details.

The BNDES president defended that the climate emergency should be the focus of the Brazilian mandate in the G20. “If we are going to deal with all the themes, we will continue in the same place.”

The lack of progress in relation to sustainable development goals was also criticized by American economist Jeffrey Sachs, who defended greater participation of development banks around the world to finance projects aimed at achieving these goals.

In the United States, he said, the lack of interest in the subject is such that not even presidents mention the goals of sustainable development. This lack of interest, he concluded, affects the decisions of organizations linked to the G7, such as the IMF (International Monetary Fund).

“We need a massive expansion of official means of financing. CAF [Corporação Andina de Fomento]BID [Banco Interamericano de Desenvolvimento]African and Asian development banks and the New Development Bank [o banco dos Brics]”, he stated.

“If that doesn’t happen, I can guarantee that we’ll be here in 2032, at Rio+40 and we’ll see that it didn’t help,” he said, referring to the Rio+20 meeting, which defined the objectives of social development.