Letter from Brazilian ministers to the EU undermines Brazil’s climate leadership
In response, Brazilian NGOs urge the EU not to delay the anti-deforestation law
The Brazilian Climate Observatory (OC) sent on Monday (16) to the President of the European Commission, Ursula Van der Leyen, a note in response to the letter from Brazilian ministers Carlos Fávaro (Agriculture) and Mauro Vieira (Foreign Affairs) asking for the postponement of EUDR entry into force. In the note, the Brazilian network says that the ministers’ letter “sabotages Brazil’s climate leadership.”
“ While the whole country is in flames and with COP30 on the horizon, it is simply unacceptable that Brazilian government officials behave as spokespeople for part of an economic sector so heavily implicated in causing biodiversity loss and climate change to advocate for a delay of the EUDR enforcement, which will ultimately harm Brazilian agribusiness itself.,” says the OC note.
The EUDR requires European producers and importers of a range of commodities, such as meat, soy, leather and timber, to audit their suppliers so that no product produced in a deforested area– legally or illegally – after December 2020 enters the European market.
The regulation, scheduled to come into effect at the end of this year, has infuriated part of the Brazilian agribusiness, which has been pressuring the government to react against it. Last week, Ministers Fávaro and Vieira sent a letter to four European officials denouncing the regulation as “unilateral and punitive,” saying it increases the costs of agricultural production and violates multilateral trade rules.
In addition, the ministers take the side of agribusiness against President Lula himself by defending, in the letter, “the elimination of illegal deforestation”. Lula has promised that the country will achieve zero deforestation – legal and illegal – by 2030, but the agricultural sector resists this determination.
In response, the OC states that, contrary to what the ministers’ communication suggests, “Brazil is fully capable of benefiting from this legislation, which merely implements something that Brazil has already committed to – in a sovereign way, by recognizing that deforestation is bad for the country, and that we have enough already degraded land to multiply agricultural production with more technology, productivity and added value, without the need for any deforestation or conversion.”
“Brazil and the EU want the same thing: ending deforestation. The EUDR helps catalyze this process. At a time when the whole of Brazil is burning in flames due to the climate crisis, throwing away this instrument because of the pressure from the retrograde wing of agribusiness would be dancing a waltz with the apocalypse,” says Claudio Angelo, coordinator of International Policy at OC.
About the Climate Observatory – Founded in 2002, it is the main Brazilian civil society network dedicated to the climate agenda, with 119 members, including environmental NGOs, research institutes and social movements. Its objective is to help build a decarbonized, egalitarian, prosperous and sustainable Brazil, in the fight against the climate crisis (oc.eco.br). Since 2013, the OC has published SEEG, the annual estimate of Brazil’s greenhouse gas emissions (seeg.eco.br).
