Environmental and indigenous policies are central, says Marina – 05/30/2023 – Environment

“President Lula gave a message that we are going to work until the last moment to preserve the attributions of the MMA (Ministry of the Environment) and the MPI (Ministry of Indigenous Peoples). These policies are at the heart of the government”, stated Minister Marina Silva (Environment) this Tuesday morning (30).

In participation by video in a seminar on economic recovery, promoted at the auditorium of Insper, in São Paulo, the minister sought to show synergy with other ministries in the implementation of the federal government’s environmental policy.

“We have 19 ministries working on climate, bioeconomy and other agendas that dialogue with these”, stated Marina. Among the proposals presented by the organizers of the seminar to the federal government, is the allocation of the climate agenda in key ministries, such as the Civil House and the Treasury.

“Together with the ministries of Agriculture, Finance and Agrarian Development, we are working to present the Crop Plan in mid-June, all of it with low-carbon agriculture”, he said, predicting that rural producers should have a reduction in interest rates proportional to the level in low carbon practices.

The minister also announced that the government must propose an agenda for regulating the carbon market by law, together with Congress, through a working group of the ministries of the Environment, Finance, Science and Technology, Industry and Commerce and the government.

João Paulo Capobianco, executive secretary of the MMA, who was also a guest at the event, said that there will be negotiations with Congress “in order not to go over everyone and avoid creating that political noise”. He expects to deliver the carbon market proposal to Lula by the end of the week.

Another joint effort by ministries seeks to create a national bioeconomy policy, which will be open to public consultation, according to Capobianco.

“We also have an ecological transition plan, led by the Treasury. This has never happened. It is time to move forward”, said the executive secretary. “We have a government in tune and committed to the agenda, and a Congress with great difficulty”, he evaluated.

Marina also took advantage of the event to mention the need for a strategic debate in Congress, which proposed the emptying of the MMA and the MPI in the last week through MP (provisional measure) 1,154, responsible for structuring the federal government bodies.

“For a long time, we had the so-called ‘heads’ of the National Congress. When we had a problem, the heads of the center, the right, the left were activated”, quoted the minister.

“It is fundamental that we choose now in what we want to converge and diverge. I am sure that the presidents of the Chamber and of the Senate are clear about this”, he affirmed, without mentioning the bills in process.

In addition to MP 1,154, Congress may vote this Tuesday on PL 490, which institutes the thesis of the temporal framework on indigenous lands.

Capobianco sought to alleviate the seriousness of the open crisis in the federal government with the proposal to empty the environmental and indigenous portfolios. “It’s bad, but it’s not the end of the world.”

The number two in the portfolio stated, however, that Congress should not decide on the structure of the government. “It’s as if they didn’t let the CEO decide on the direction of the company he manages”, he compared.

“The reaction of civil society was important. But the proposal does not reach the theoretical objective of weakening the Environment. It does not remove powers from the Executive”, he points out.

Reinforcing the tone used by President Lula last Friday, Capobianco downplayed the ongoing crisis. “Today it seems the world is going to end: ‘Oh my God, they took away the CAR [Cadastro Ambiental Rural, que deve sair da pasta ambiental segundo proposta do Congresso], Marina will leave, the government will end’. This is paralyzing anxiety, which prevents us from doing politics,” she said.

“It was simply a license that was not given [em referência à negativa do Ibama para a Petrobras perfurar bloco na bacia da Foz do Amazonas] for not offering the necessary information to provide security to Ibama”, he added. “They transformed this as if it were an ideological policy against oil”.

When answering questions from the public at the seminar, the executive secretary of the MMA also gave his opinion on PL 490, which establishes the timeframe for indigenous lands.

“It would be a complete disaster,” he says. “It will create more conflicts, instead of moving forward to build a restorative, fair solution that redeems us from a terrible past history,” said Capobianco.

“I hope that the STF resolves this on the side of the weakest, in this case, the indigenous peoples”, he concluded.

Marina, in another optimistic part of her speech, cited as an example the export potential of Brazilian green hydrogen, produced from renewable energies. “Today, China is already the largest provider of technologies for wind, solar, and biomass energy, among others. And Brazil may be the largest provider of final products,” she said.

“Will China really want to be a major importer of carbon-intensive products? Definitely not”, he pointed out, in reference to the expectation of part of the Brazilian agribusiness that the Chinese would absorb the Brazilian supply of commodities without imposing environmental conditions, such as Europeans do today.

Still in her speech, Marina announced that the government should create a climate security council, Consec, similarly to Consea, focused on food security. She also predicted the announcement of the new PPCDAm (Plan to Prevent and Combat Deforestation in the Amazon) on the next 5th, when World Environment Day is celebrated.

_{The Planeta em Transe project is supported by the Open Society Foundations.}