Lula’s first year sees a drop in deforestation and an increase in oil – 12/31/2023 – Environment

At the end of the first year of his third term, President Lula (PT) is delivering several positive results in the environmental area, such as a large reduction in deforestation in the Amazon and the advancement of climate policies.

At the same time, however, the federal government talks about expanding oil production, deforestation is reaching record levels in the Cerrado and Congress approves different agendas for the sector.

After successive setbacks on environmental issues during the Jair Bolsonaro (PL) administration, the PT member, then candidate for President, placed the issue as one of the focuses of his electoral campaign.

In the first week of government, Lula signed decrees reestablishing two central points: the PPCDAm (Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of Deforestation in the Legal Amazon) and the participatory councils. Both had been suspended by Bolsonaro.

Created in 2004, during Marina Silva’s first term as head of the MMA (Ministry of Environment and Climate Change), PPCDAm is the foundation of measures to combat deforestation in the Amazon forest. Its new version was published in June and established different axes of action and the goal of achieving zero deforestation in the biome by 2030.

Analyzing data from the Deter system, from Inpe (National Institute for Space Research), considerable progress can be seen. From January to November, deforestation in the Amazon fell by half — from 10,048 km² in 2022 to 4,976 km² this year. The index is still high, but it is the best for the period since 2018.

Suely Araújo, public policy coordinator at the Climate Observatory, explains that these results are the result of reinforced inspection actions.

“More field operations were carried out, the volume of fines applied increased significantly and there was also an increase in the amount of goods seized from instruments and proceeds of crime, including the seizure of livestock, which has a major impact”, he says, adding that it is necessary that these measures continue to be reinforced.

“But it is also very important to start applying instruments aimed at promoting sustainable productive activities in the Amazon region in a more systemic way”, he states.

In the Cerrado, however, deforestation grew 41% in the last 11 months, going from 5,242.4 km² last year to 7,373.6 km² in 2023. The biome has had successive records for devastated area, but it was only released at the end of November PPCerrado, which will guide the fight against deforestation in the region.

The reactivation of participatory councils has unlocked two bodies that govern the Amazon Fund. With this, the mechanism was able to receive donations again and expand the portfolio of supported projects.

Conama (National Environmental Council) was also restructured, formed by members of public authorities and civil society and the main advisory body on public policies to be implemented by the MMA.

The body had been dehydrated under the previous government, which cut the number of participants with voting rights from 96 to 23 and reduced the participation of civil society. Today, Conama operates with 114 members from different sectors and a technical chamber dedicated to climate change.

More investments in oil and gas

Despite the emphasis given by the government to the environment and the climate crisis, a contradiction has emerged since the first months of the new administration: the expansion of investments in fossil fuels, the main sources of greenhouse gases in the world.

The International Energy Agency points out that to achieve the global goal of zero net emissions by 2050 — essential to comply with the Paris Agreement and curb the worst effects of global warming — no new fossil fuel extraction projects should be authorized.

The Lula government’s plans, however, go in the opposite direction. Brazil is currently eighth in the world in oil production, and the Minister of Mines and Energy, Alexandre Silveira, wants to scale production to take the country to fourth place. Silveira has also been announcing incentives to expand the gas market.

The president of Petrobras, Jean Paul Prates, even said that the state-owned company “will gain market share” and that “we could be the last to produce oil in the world”.

Furthermore, on the first day of COP28, the UN (United Nations) climate conference, it was announced that Brazil will become part of OPEC+, a group of observers of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. The measure outraged environmentalists.

For Natalie Unterstell, president of the think tank Instituto Talanoa, there was progress on the environmental agenda this year, especially in the fight against deforestation, but not at the necessary speed or in all sectors.

“There is still a lot of difficulty in discussing the abandonment of fossil fuels”, he assesses. “[Não há] no timeline on the table.”

Indigenous agenda and setbacks in Congress

Another front addressed at the beginning of the new government was the disintrusion of the Yanomami Indigenous Land, in Roraima and Amazonas, after a very serious health, environmental and social crisis.

Throughout the year, deintrusion operations were also carried out on the Alto Rio Guamá, Trincheira Bacajá and Apyterewa indigenous lands, all in Pará.

The measures aimed at indigenous peoples also included the ratification of eight indigenous lands, in six states: Arara do Rio Amônia and Rio Gregório, in Acre; Kariri-Xocó, in Alagoas; Uneiuxi and Acapuri de Cima, in Amazonas; Tremembé from Barra do Mundaú, in Ceará; Avá-Canoeiro, in Goiás; and Rio dos Índios, in Rio Grande do Sul.

In 2023, however, Congress overturned President Lula’s vetoes and approved the law that establishes the thesis of the time frame for the demarcation of indigenous lands. The parliamentarians’ position contrasts with that of the Federal Supreme Court, which considered it unconstitutional. The case will be taken to court.

“It was already expected that pressure for setbacks would increase in Congress. The appreciation of environmental issues seems to have increased their price as a bargaining chip in negotiations”, says Unterstell. “That’s why, instead of being left behind, they are being placed by skilled political agents in the exchange circles. Without coordination to defend them, in the give-and-take, a lot has been lost.”

The decision on the time frame is the most prominent of a series of other measures considered environmental setbacks adopted by Congress. The project dubbed by environmentalists as “PL do Veneno”, which makes the use of pesticides in the country more flexible, also passed, in another victory for the ruralist group.

The text validated by deputies and senators centralized the registration of new products in the Ministry of Agriculture, emptying the responsibilities of Anvisa (National Health Surveillance Agency) and Ibama (Brazilian Institute of the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources), an excerpt that was vetoed by Lula.

The president, however, sanctioned articles that impose shorter deadlines for analyzing pesticide records. Upon returning from recess, Congress will assess whether to maintain or overturn the vetoes.

The Chamber also approved the bill that regulates the carbon market, which will stipulate limits on greenhouse gas emissions for companies and define fines for those that do not respect them. The text will go to the Senate.

This was one of the federal government’s priorities in the environmental area. But, in yet another victory for ruralists, agribusiness, a major driver of greenhouse gas emissions, was left out of the regulated carbon market.

According to Seeg (Greenhouse Gas Emission Estimation System), adding emissions from deforestation to those from the agricultural sector, it is concluded that agricultural activity accounts for 75% of all Brazilian climate pollution.

Suely Araújo says that there is a lack of firmer action from the Executive to protect socio-environmental rights in Congress. “These projects cannot simply be released for voting when it is known that, in plenary, defeat is certain. The government has tried to mitigate the negative effects of these approvals with vetoes, but this is insufficient.”

Climate target and economic transition

Among the measures that depend exclusively on the federal government, a significant change was made.

This year, the “pedaling” of the Brazilian climate target established by the Bolsonaro government was corrected, which changed the calculation basis and allowed an increase in the country’s emissions. Now, Brazil has returned to the parameters of its first goal with the UN, from 2015.

According to Seeg calculations, if the country manages to maintain the accelerated rate of decline in deforestation in the Amazon and other emissions do not increase, it will be possible to achieve the objective of limiting Brazilian net emissions to 1.3 billion gross tons of greenhouse gases ( GtCO2e) in 2025 — currently, they are at 2.3 GtCO2e.

In 2023, the Minister of Finance, Fernando Haddad, launched, in partnership with the MMA, the Ecological Transformation Plan, which will seek to promote sustainable development and reduce inequalities.

The idea is to launch task forces to mobilize governments, philanthropy, the private sector and multilateral actors in implementing the plan — which is still a draft of ideas.

“There is a lack of a systematized plan”, analyzes Liuca Yonaha, vice-president of the Talanoa Institute. “There are measures within this context that are advancing, but we have not yet seen the structured plan with all the actions, goals and its relationship with climate policy and, for example, the NDC [sigla em inglês para contribuição nacionalmente determinada, a meta climática de cada país]”, he explains.

For her, the plan has been seen by the government as the point that connects different sectors, “but we are not seeing this seam”.

“What is the impact of the Ecological Transformation Plan on climate mitigation and adaptation measures? Where do we want to go with this measure?”, he asks.