Lula proposal may work wonders at COP27

Former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has suggested to Indonesia and Democratic Republic of the Congo that the three countries that are home to the largest tropical rainforests in the world adopt a united approach at the climate change summit in Egypt later this year.
Da Silva, known throughout Brazil as Lula, is poised to return to office and is comfortably ahead of incumbent Jair Bolsonaro in opinion polls for the upcoming presidential elections. He made the pitch earlier this week, saying that only a joint approach by the three nations would force rich countries to deliver on their commitments.
For sure, the proposal is not new, even though it comes at a critical time since the climate change talks have been stumbling at the key hurdle of who will pay to correct the imbalances created by the decades, or even centuries, of relentless release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
The next climate change summit, COP27, will take place in November this year at the Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh in Egypt. Among the many challenges for the organizer, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, is to ensure that countries deliver on their commitments.
While practically the entire world supports these commitments in one form or another, the main culprits responsible for the extreme state in which the planet finds itself are the developed nations, which have indulged in wanton destruction of their own forests to create cities and large industries, releasing the equivalent of almost 80 percent of total carbon emissions since 1850 and continuing to emit many times more than developing nations do, at least on a per capita basis.
Lula has proposed that the developing world is better off cooperating and building an alliance to push resolutions at the Sharm El-Sheikh meeting. The main objective would be to help developing countries preserve their forests, provided the developed world pays its share of the costs incurred, especially in terms of loss of livelihood for the millions who depend on the forests for their livelihood.
Ever since Bolsonaro took charge of the government in Sao Paulo, the Amazon basin has faced a surge in deforestation, with authorities giving the logging and gold mining industries a free hand, while weakening environment protection rules. Similarly, forests in Indonesia and the DRC have also been seriously damaged by industry.
Meanwhile, forests in Indonesia and other Southeast Asian nations have lost their capacity as carbon sinks due to large-scale logging not just for the wood industry but also to clear land for plantations, notably for producing palm oil and other kinds of farming.
But it is the Amazon basin that has suffered the biggest and most rapid damage to its forests, especially under Bolsonaro, whose weakening of environmental protection laws brought international criticism of his government.

It will be a monumental lost opportunity for the entire world, if developing nations fail to seize the momentum now and set the agenda.

Ranvir S. Nayar

Lula says together the three countries can exert enough pressure on rich countries to help with the cost of keeping the forests standing. His position is the reverse of that taken by Bolsonaro, who has cast aside a billion-dollar fund backed by Germany and Norway to restore Amazonian forests.
The idea is a good one, as together the three countries will have more clout not just to weigh in on the West, but also inspire other developing countries to join the alliance ahead of the COP27 meeting.
However, a united front for these three nations is far from being a foregone conclusion. The DRC has welcomed the proposal, but highlighted that deforestation in the African nation is driven by need arising from dire poverty, while in Brazil and Indonesia it is the greed of large agro-forestry firms and big farmers that is causing the damage. Indonesia, struggling to overcome crippling inflation and benefiting from a surge in prices of edible oil, is unlikely to commit to a curb on logging for the plantation industry, or even ensure that logging is carried out in accordance with environmental rules already in place.
That is why other developing countries need to quickly join in and jointly propel this proposal, as the demand for financial assistance from the West for climate mitigation and adaptation is practically a common need for all nations and by far the biggest hurdle facing the global community in combating carbon emissions.
Large countries, such as China, India, host Egypt, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Nigeria, need to come to a rapid understanding on joining in this proposal so that it can be tabled well before the COP27 deliberations get underway. Even then victory is anything but guaranteed, as the West has not only tried to wriggle out of its long-standing commitments on cutting carbon emissions, as well as financing poorer countries for adaptation and mitigation, but also shifted the goal posts on climate by going on an aggressive campaign asking large developing countries, notably China and India, to begin cutting their emissions.
It will be a monumental lost opportunity for the entire world, and not just the negotiators at Sharm El-Sheikh, if developing nations fail to seize the momentum now and set the agenda, instead of following the lead set by the rich world and its corporate bosses, as has been the case so far.

• Ranvir S. Nayar is managing editor of Media India Group.