Agriculture should deploy cutting edge technology to transform soil at the next frontier into carbon innovation. This is the assessment made by Joe Biden, President of the United States, this Thursday (22), during the Climate Leaders Summit.
This shows that agriculture will continue to be an important element in this battle to reduce polluting gases, and that it will always be in the sights of assessors of global warming.
Brazil, participating in the summit, presented very little. In addition to building on the achievements of the PT government, showing that over the past 15 years the country has avoided the emission of 7.8 billion tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere, President Jair Bolsonaro has made a proposal to anticipate the emission reduction target. of carbon by 2050, ten years after the previous proposal.
The government also promises to end illegal deforestation by 2030 and to double the resources allocated to enforcement measures. The problem is the constraint: foreign aid.
But that will only come through concrete actions and, in this regard, the past condemns this government which dismantled the environmental control system and neglects deviations.
It is good that Brazil takes seriously the country’s commitment to this fight to reduce polluting gases. The United States, Brazil’s main competitor in agriculture, and China, the world’s largest importer of agricultural products, are joining together in this fight.
Any deviation from Brazil could be a good reason for trade barriers. And Brazil is very dependent on China and the European Union.
The current government not only weakened inspection controls, but closed the door to foreign money, when it saw that it should satisfy the use of capital.
The country could be on another level of international understanding if it had truly fought off the offenders, who are a minority.
Achieving the goals proposed by the government will be a major challenge, especially for agribusiness. Agriculture processes more than a billion tonnes of products per year, with a predominance of road transport.
In addition, another way to reduce emissions is to preserve forests, something the government has not taken very seriously today.
The president stressed the importance of the country in the use of renewable energy, but there is no guarantee of the rules. The government, under pressure from truckers, has just reduced the mixture of 13% biodiesel in diesel to 10%, thus increasing pollutant emissions.
Several world leaders have emphasized that protecting the environment is a sign of development and job creation. For Xi Jinping of China, protecting the environment means greater productivity. But for Justin Trudeau of Canada, only serious policies work.
For Emmanuel Macron, from France, the action plan must be clear and measurable, while Angela Merkel, from Germany, says it must reach all areas, including transport.
Most leaders of developed countries understand that the richest should help developing countries in this process. Mario Draghi, from Italy, says that “we have to help the most vulnerable countries now so as not to regret it later”.
Cyril Ramaphosa from South Africa says that historically the rich are the biggest polluters, so they need to secure financial support for the less developed.
For Alberto Fernández of Argentina, the path the world has taken is suicidal, but he warned that there should be a swap of debt for actions to preserve the environment.
Reducing global warming cannot come from isolated countries, but joint action by all as if they were one, according to Yoshihide Suga of Japan.
Fighting for an environmental recovery is to improve the economic recovery, according to Ursula von der Leyen of the European Union.
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