When COP 30* lands in Brazil

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The imposing forest, seen from the sky, still prevails. However, progressive attention is drawn to the importance of looking at the Amazon with our feet on the ground to dialogue with the populations of this territory, which has the lowest socioeconomic development rates in the country. In a certain way, this was the invitation of the Brazilian government to the world when it proposed to host the COP 30 in Belém, Pará: ‘I attended the COP in Egypt, Paris, Copenhagen, and people only talk about the Amazon. So, I questioned, “If everyone is talking about Amazon, then why not hold the COP in an Amazon state so that they can get to know the real Amazon”?’, said President Lula.

With an agenda firmly based on social policies, the government’s most significant challenge is in the Amazon. The richness of biodiversity as opposed to a country model still linked to activities that promote deforestation and are potentially harmful to the environment, such as agribusiness. Thus, what sustainable development paths will Brazil have to show when COP 30 comes to Brazil?

“Concerning the debate on poverty, income generation, and employment, we either face it – in the sense of generating consistent alternatives to deal with it – or it will have an overwhelming force. As much as we are right, maybe we are wrong not to present consistent alternatives to the local population, which ends up considering the sectors that want to destroy the environment as the only ones to pay attention to their claims”, warned Mr. Sergio Leitão, Executive Director, Instituto Escolhas, at the 4^th Cinturão Cultural do Tapajós, in Santarém, on June 29.

The study How can the bioeconomy fight poverty in the Amazon? reviewed the States of Pará and Maranhão to show the likelihood of horticulture and forest recovery becoming activities that generate employment and income.

‘The reality of the Amazon demands a strategy to combat poverty that, in addition to increasing and distributing income, encourages the provision of jobs not linked to activities that degrade the environment. This means promoting a transition there that replaces economic activities associated with deforestation, environmental degradation, and concentration of income by others that promote environmental conservation and regeneration, the generation and distribution of local income and inclusion of the most vulnerable people,’ according to the paper published in March.

The research estimates that the recovery of 5.9 million hectares of forests in Pará could generate 1 million direct jobs and reduce the poverty rate in that State by 50%. In Maranhão, the recovery of 1.9 million hectares of forests could create 350,000 direct jobs and reduce the poverty rate in the State by 21.5%.

Additionally, if Pará increased its production of vegetables to 170 thousand tons, said State would generate BRL 682 million in income and 86 thousand direct jobs. In Maranhão, these figures would reach BRL 600 million in income and 134,000 direct jobs.

Reducing poverty and increasing the supply of formal jobs are also crucial for Brazil to reach zero deforestation, as shown by the study ‘Could the fight against poverty contribute to stop deforestation in Brazil?’. For the first time in the Brazilian context, deforestation was studied jointly with forms of economic deprivation on a broad geographic scale, covering the entire Brazilian territory with annual data (2012-2019).

After reviewing the impact of variations in the number of people living in poverty and extreme poverty conditions and variations in the number of members of the formal labor market on deforestation, the research showed that:

– the 1% reduction in people living in extreme poverty, corresponding to 35,000 people overcoming extreme poverty, can reduce deforestation in the Legal Amazon by 3.3%, equivalent to 27,000 hectares, an area more extensive than the municipality of Recife.

– the reduction of 1% of people living in poverty in all municipalities in the region, which corresponds to 74,000 people overcoming poverty, has the potential to reduce deforestation in the region by 2.3%, approximately 18.7 thousand hectares.

– the 1% increase in the formal employment rate in all municipalities in the region, equivalent to 42,000 additional people with formal employment, can reduce deforestation by 8.4%, or 67,200 hectares, an area more extensive than the municipality of Florianópolis.

Therefore, the Federal and State governments have an essential role in developing and implementing social policies to strengthen Amazon’s productive chains and policies to generate employment and income.

“The Lula government must prove that it has proposals to solve the social and economic challenges of the Amazon’s people. They must prove that poverty is a central concern and that job creation is critical to their strategy. Otherwise, the right-wing will adhere to this same discourse and use it, not only against the environmental agenda but against the government itself”, said Mr. Leitão in an interview with Bloomberg this week.

When COP 30 lands in Brazil, the fight against poverty must have already been included in the climate change mitigation and sustainable development agenda.

*  Meeting of the UN Conference on Climate Change that will be held in 2025 in Belém do Pará.