On 8 August Brazil’s government led by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva hosted representatives from the member states of the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organisation (OTCA) for the first day of a two-day leaders’ summit in the northern city of Belém, capital of Pará state.
Analysis:
Since taking office in January, Lula has sought to position Brazil as a global leader on environmental protection and has called for fostering regional integration, with multilateral forums such as the OTCA group of eight Amazonian countries serving as an ideal vehicle for Lula’s foreign policy goals. The very act of hosting the first OTCA summit in 14 years could be seen as a positive signal, as a major paradigm shift from the administration of Lula’s right-wing predecessor Jair Bolsonaro (2019-2023), under whom regional cooperation and the protection of the Amazon biome were not prioritised. But the joint communique signed by the leaders in yesterday’s session (a 113-point document known as the ‘Belém Declaration’) lacked a clear roadmap detailing shared objectives and timeframes on how Lula’s green agenda, of which reducing deforestation is a key pillar, could be achieved.
- The Declaration’s vague commitments to “the ideal of reaching zero deforestation” did not echo Lula’s previously stated goal of reaching net zero deforestation by 2030, which he announced last November at the United Nations (UN) climate change conference (COP27) in Egypt.
- The Belém Declaration did provide some encouraging signs for the Lula administration’s goal of fighting crime in the Amazon, including security operations targeting criminal organisations, such as illegal mining groups, whose activities have been known to cause deforestation and pollution.
- Point 65 of the Declaration welcomed the “future establishment of the Amazon International Police Cooperation Centre with headquarters in Manaus”, capital of Brazil’s Amazonas state. Point 66 called for a “process of dialogue for the creation of an Integrated Air Traffic Control System” to monitor the transnational routes used by the aircraft of criminal groups, such as drug trafficking organisations (DTOs) and illegal miners.
- Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro similarly called for increased cooperation on security responses and judicial oversight. In his speech yesterday, Petro even suggested the creation of an international “Court of Amazonian Environmental Justice” and an “Amazonian NATO”, a military agreement akin to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) which could institutionalise joint operations between the armed forces of OTCA countries, although neither of these regional integration goals were specified in the Declaration’s text.
- Petro’s speech also addressed an elephant in the room by calling for fossil fuels to be phased out. Rather than concrete pledges to phase out or phase down fossil fuel production, point 79 of the Declaration called for a “dialogue among State Parties on the sustainability of sectors such as hydrocarbons and mining”.
- Speaking to press in Belém yesterday, Brazil’s foreign minister, Mauro Vieira, insisted that Brazil’s and Colombia’s stances on fossil fuels “were not divergent”, adding that many countries depend on fossil fuels but that “does not mean that they will be against” decarbonisation.
- Other points of the Declaration called for more international cooperation on financing mechanisms for sustainable development initiatives. The day before the summit, Brazil’s state-owned development bank (BNDES) signed an agreement with the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and financial institutions from other OTCA countries to provide R$45bn (US$9.18bn) for sustainable businesses in the Amazon region.
Looking Ahead: The next major climate diplomacy forum which Lula and other South American presidents are expected to attend will be the UN climate change conference (COP28) in the United Arab Emirates which takes place from 30 November to 12 December.
