Latest news with #MarinaSilva
The Guardian
3 days ago
- Business
- The Guardian
Brazil's environmental movement is under threat – and Lula is siding with oil industry
Political bullying is rarely as brutal as it was in Brazil this week when the environment minister Marina Silva was ambushed in a senate meeting. Her thuggish tormentors – all white male politicians on the infrastructure committee – took turns to publicly belittle the 67-year-old black woman, who has done more than anyone to protect the natural wealth of the country – the Amazon rainforest, Pantanal wetlands, Cerrado savannah and other biomes – from rapacious abuse. One by one, they lined up to attack her for these globally important efforts. Decorum gave way to name-calling and sneering: 'Know your place,' roared the committee head, Marcos Rogério, a Bolsonarist who cut Silva's microphone as she tried to respond. The leader of the centre-rightPSDB, Plínio Valério, told her she did not deserve respect as a minister. The Amazonas senator Omar Aziz – from the Centrão party and a supporter of president Lula – talked over her repeatedly. Their motives appeared to be partly ideological, partly misogynistic and largely self-interested. All of them were trying to force through economic projects – roads, oilfields, dams or plantations – that are under scrutiny by Silva's environment ministry. Never mind that this is her job, they seemed to say, how dare she not allow them to have their way? But she did dare. Despite her frail physique, Silva is a fighter. Born in the Amazon rainforest, she helped to found the Workers' party alongside Lula during the era of military dictatorship. She campaigned against deforestation alongside Chico Mendes, who was assassinated in 1988. In her first stint as environment minister, between 2003 and 2008, she established a monitoring-and-penalty system that she said reduced forest clearance by 80%. Later, she ran as president for the Green party, securing nearly 20m votes – more than any other Green candidate in world history. Twelve years ago, she founded her own party – the Sustainability Network. Silva refused to tolerate being abused and silenced, and walked out of the senate meeting. Outside, when she finally had a chance to speak, she turned on her tormentors: 'My place is the place to defend democracy, my place is the place to defend the environment, to combat inequality, sustainable development, to protect biodiversity, and infrastructure projects that are necessary for the country,' she said defiantly. 'What is unacceptable is for someone to think that because you are a woman, black, and come from a humble background, that you are going to say who I am and still say that I should stay in my place. My place is where all women should be.' This version of what happened has been reported widely in the Brazilian media, but it tells only part of the story. What is missing – and more important – is why the pack of senators felt Silva was vulnerable. That is because over the previous few days, Lula had taken the side of the oil industry rather than the Amazon rainforest, and then – not by coincidence – the Brazilian environmental movement suffered one of the biggest legislative defeats in its history. At the centre of everything is a long-running row over oil exploration in the Foz do Amazonas. BP and the French oil company Total used to hold most of these rights, but they baulked at the political and environmental challenge of drilling so close to the world's biggest centre of terrestrial biodiversity. Instead, Brazil's state-run oil company, Petrobras, stepped up. For Lula – and the senators in nearby regions – that meant potential votes, jobs and export earnings. The only thing standing in their way was the environment ministry, which has delayed a licence for years due to the risks of a possible spill in such an ecologically sensitive area. That handbrake was lifted earlier this week, when the head of the environmental regulator, Ibama, ignored the warnings of 29 expert advisers by moving on to the next stage of the approval process for operations in the Foz do Amazonas. This capitulation followed pressure from Congress and the president. This was followed by the biggest legislative setback for the environment in more than 40 years. To the delight of the mining, construction and farming industries, the senate has passed a long-pending bill that strips a range of environmental licensing powers from Silva's ministry. This piece of legislation – dubbed the devastation bill by opponents – allows companies to self-license or avoid environmental licensing for road construction, dam-building and other projects. It is a shift of control from the representatives of the people to the executives of big companies. Lula could yet wield a veto on this bill. But so far the president's response has been tepid. His party has a weak presence in congress, so he depends on a broad and fractious coalition, many of whose members are enmeshed in agribusiness or mining. Next year's presidential election seems to be weighing on his mind more than November's Cop30 climate summit in Belém. In the wake of the attacks on Silva by the senate infrastructure committee, Lula publicly came to her defence. He said she was right to walk out in the face of so much provocation. But he has not faced up to his responsibility for leaving her exposed. Nor has he faced up to the contradictions of his own promise to achieve zero deforestation by 2030 and his support for evidently incompatible projects, such as oil drilling off the coast of the Amazon, an upgraded BR319 road that would open up the forest between Manaus and Porto Velho to greater clearance activities, and a new grain railway that would increase pressure for more soya bean plantations. Sign up to Down to Earth The planet's most important stories. Get all the week's environment news - the good, the bad and the essential after newsletter promotion At the Amazon Summit in Belém two years ago, he declined to sign up to Colombian president Gustavo Petro's calls for a fossil-free rainforest. Soon after, at Cop28 in Dubai, his government shocked many of its supporters by announcing it would join the Opec+ oil cartel. Lula can argue that this is pragmatism as Brazil depends on petroleum sales for a growing share of its GDP. Fossil fuel realpolitik is likely to be evident at a Brics summit in Rio de Janeiro in July, where the Brazilian president will rub shoulders with China's Xi Jinping of China, Russia's Vladimir Putin, India's Narendra Modi and other world leaders. Lula has thrown Marina Silva under a cement mixer once before – in 2008, when she was forced to leave his second-term government because too many ministers saw her as a drag on economic development. He may feel reluctant to do so again before Cop30, because he knows she is vital for Brazil's environmental credibility in the eyes of much of the world, and he does not want his country to return to the pariah status it endured during the Bolsonaro years. But the sands are shifting and Lula seems unsure of his footing. His base – the working class and poor – are already suffering the brunt of climate impacts. The south of Brazil has been deluged by devastating floods. The northern Amazon has been stricken by record droughts and fires. Civil society and progressive thinkers – almost all of whom usually support Lula – have been far more active than the president in opposing the devastation bill and defending the environment minister on social media, where many public figures have posted 'Marina is not alone' messages of support. But like many other centre left leaders in the world, Lula is struggling in the age of Trump, of rightwing extremism, of warmongering, of geopolitical realignment and corporate backtracking on the environment. As Silva showed, it takes courage to face those forces. Lula has often stood by her in that fight, but does he still have the stomach and the inclination to continue?
Straits Times
22-05-2025
- Business
- Straits Times
Brazil's Senate approves bill to loosen environmental licensing
FILE PHOTO: Brazil's Minister of Environment Marina Silva looks on during a press conference at the COP29 United Nations climate change conference, in Baku, Azerbaijan November 22, 2024. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov/File Photo BRASILIA - Brazil's Senate has approved legislation to loosen environmental licensing, despite criticism from climate policy groups and figures inside President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's government. The bill, which was approved in the Senate by 54 votes to 13 late on Wednesday, would allow projects considered to have a small or mid-sized impact, such as dams and basic sanitation, to be built without the approval of environmental agencies. The legislation, which still requires approval from Brazil's lower house of Congress, enjoys widespread support from the powerful agribusiness caucus, as well as high-ranking figures in Lula's government such as his chief of staff Rui Costa. The bill highlights government divisions on environmental policy as Lula tries to burnish his green credentials before the country hosts the United Nations climate summit known as COP30 in the Amazonian city of Belem in November. The approval is a blow to Environment Minister Marina Silva, who had said the bill would be a major setback that "dismantles" licensing in the country. The government's role in negotiating the bill was limited by its internal divisions, sources told Reuters. It engaged in "harm reduction" by backing a version of the bill considered to have less impact on existing environmental law, they said. Greenpeace and Brazil's Climate Observatory, a collective of environmental organizations, have criticized the proposal saying it deprives vulnerable populations such as Brazil's Indigenous of a say in projects that could affect their communities. The bill was put to a vote as Brazil's environmental agency Ibama faces intense scrutiny for licensing delays, including a drilling request by state-run oil firm Petrobras hoping to explore for oil off the coast of the Amazonian state of Amapa. Senate President Davi Alcolumbre, an important backer of the bill, hails from Amapa and has been pushing for the development of the oil industry in the region. REUTERS Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
The Star
22-05-2025
- Business
- The Star
Brazil's Senate approves bill to loosen environmental licensing
FILE PHOTO: Brazil's Minister of Environment Marina Silva looks on during a press conference at the COP29 United Nations climate change conference, in Baku, Azerbaijan November 22, 2024. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov/File Photo BRASILIA (Reuters) -Brazil's Senate has approved legislation to loosen environmental licensing, despite criticism from climate policy groups and figures inside President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's government. The bill, which was approved in the Senate by 54 votes to 13 late on Wednesday, would allow projects considered to have a small or mid-sized impact, such as dams and basic sanitation, to be built without the approval of environmental agencies. The legislation, which still requires approval from Brazil's lower house of Congress, enjoys widespread support from the powerful agribusiness caucus, as well as high-ranking figures in Lula's government such as his chief of staff Rui Costa. The bill highlights government divisions on environmental policy as Lula tries to burnish his green credentials before the country hosts the United Nations climate summit known as COP30 in the Amazonian city of Belem in November. The approval is a blow to Environment Minister Marina Silva, who had said the bill would be a major setback that "dismantles" licensing in the country. The government's role in negotiating the bill was limited by its internal divisions, sources told Reuters. It engaged in "harm reduction" by backing a version of the bill considered to have less impact on existing environmental law, they said. Greenpeace and Brazil's Climate Observatory, a collective of environmental organizations, have criticized the proposal saying it deprives vulnerable populations such as Brazil's Indigenous of a say in projects that could affect their communities. The bill was put to a vote as Brazil's environmental agency Ibama faces intense scrutiny for licensing delays, including a drilling request by state-run oil firm Petrobras hoping to explore for oil off the coast of the Amazonian state of Amapa. Senate President Davi Alcolumbre, an important backer of the bill, hails from Amapa and has been pushing for the development of the oil industry in the region. (Reporting by Ricardo Brito and Lisandra Paraguassu in BrasiliaWriting by Fabio TeixeiraEditing by Brad Haynes and Conor Humphries)
Yahoo
09-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Marina Silva: World Is 'At the Limit' of a Livable Climate
Brazil's Minister of the Environment and Climate Change Marina Silva takes part in the 11th Meeting of Environment Ministers from the BRICS member countries and holds a press conference at the Itamaraty Palace in Brasilia on April 3. Credit - Ton Molina/NurPhoto—Getty Images Marina Silva's achievements may seem borderline miraculous. Since taking office for a second run as Brazil's environment and climate minister in 2023, the country has quickly and dramatically reversed deforestation trends with strict enforcement of environment rules that had been abandoned by her predecessor. According to the most recent official account released last fall, Amazon deforestation had fallen to the lowest level in a decade. In 2023 alone, it dropped nearly in half from the prior year. 'When we took office, we had deforestation on an ascending curve that was out of control,' she told me on April 30. 'We had to rebuild institutions, command and control organizations, and increase public funding.' And yet, as we met in her office in Brasília, she was careful not to linger too long on the success. The Amazon rain forest is dangerously close to a tipping point that could rapidly reshape not just the world's most famous rainforest biome but the whole planet. Once reached, the Amazon would lose the ability to sustain itself and vast swathes would transform into savannah, resulting in the loss of biodiversity and also a massive release of carbon dioxide. To halt it, she says, leaders will need to embrace new mechanisms to stop legal deforestation and catalyze efforts to reforest degraded land—all while continuing ongoing enforcement work. But, she says, saving the Amazon will require work beyond Brazil's borders: the world will need to slow its burning of fossil fuels. 'Even if we can nullify deforestation, with climate change, if we don't reduce carbon from fossil fuel emissions, the forest will be destroyed anyway,' she says. For Silva, who was born and raised to a family of rubber tappers in the remote Amazonian state of Acre, this is the next step on a lifelong journey of Amazon protection. But it's also a key, potentially make or break moment as Brazil occupies the center of the climate movement this year as it hosts the annual U.N. climate conference, COP30, in November. 'We're already at the limit, at the changing, shifting point of the climate crisis,' she says. 'There was a window of opportunity of not shooting over the 1.5 degree limit, and now it's just a sliver.' Even a seasoned climate expert would be forgiven for struggling to track all the work happening in Brazil ahead of COP30. Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, known simply as Lula, has made climate a top priority with ministers across the government focused on tackling the issue. Silva, a national figure in Brazil who finished third in the 2014 presidential election, has turned her ministry into a central node in the effort. While I was in Brazil, the government announced a $2 billion financing program to reforest up to 1 million hectares (about the size of the island of Hawaii) of degraded land in the Amazon. And in recent months Silva has doubled down on work with her counterpart in the finance ministry on a $125 billion fund aimed at protecting tropical forests around the world. Beyond the rain forest work, the government has rolled out a carbon price for domestic industries—and talked about how it might work with other countries to harmonize equivalent policies elsewhere. Silva hopes that these efforts all come together at COP30 as part of a broader effort to make the conference a pivotal moment for the implementation of climate initiatives globally. She described the emerging COP30 goal as a 'global ethical stocktake': Lula and U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres will hear from a wide group of stakeholders—from philosophers to Indigenous people to political leadership—with an eye to helping the world chart a plan for putting climate solutions into action. 'We can't keep pushing things off,' she says. 'We need to implement.' It goes without saying that this year's climate negotiations will be rife with challenges—perhaps none more significant than the challenge posed by the U.S. pullback from the international Paris climate engagement. Silva did not mince words on the role of the U.S. and the Trump Administration in muddying global climate discussions. Without my prompting, she criticized everything from his exiting the Paris Agreement to his decision to ice the National Climate Assessment. All of that leaves a massive gap in the necessary climate action, she says: 'Things have become more difficult, especially with the decisions of the Trump Administration.' My visit to Brasilia happened to coincide with a key meeting of the BRICS countries—a group of emerging market countries that cooperate as a counterweight to U.S. and European power. In my hotel, I spotted the Chinese foreign minister walking through the lobby with his entourage along with other country delegations. But Silva says the rest of the world can't replace the actions needed from the U.S. 'We can't be deniers, not with geopolitics, not with climate,' she told me. 'The vacuum created by the U.S. is the U.S.'s vacuum.' She pointed to challenging geopolitics, in part, to respond to questions about Lula's own climate leadership. Despite his focus on the issue, some environmental activists have criticized him, saying he is moving too slowly and not doing enough. One area of particular concern: new oil exploration efforts in the Amazon region currently under consideration. Asked about the pending decision, Silva first pivoted to the stone-cold geopolitical realities. Oil demand remains high and supply is strained. The U.S. position has created a sense across the globe that fossil fuels will be around for a while. The solution, she says, is a well-managed transition. 'What I defend is a fair transition, a planned transition for everybody,' she says. 'When I say fair and planned, it's because it's not magic.' COP30, with Brazil at the helm, is a good place to start implementing such a transition. This story is supported by a partnership with Outrider Foundation and Journalism Funding Partners. TIME is solely responsible for the content. Write to Justin Worland at
Time Magazine
09-05-2025
- Politics
- Time Magazine
‘We're Already at the Limit' of a Livable Climate Warns Brazil's Marina Silva
Marina Silva's achievements may seem borderline miraculous. Since taking office for a second run as Brazil's environment and climate minister in 2023, the country has quickly and dramatically reversed deforestation trends with strict enforcement of environment rules that had been abandoned by her predecessor. According to the most recent official account released last fall, Amazon deforestation had fallen to the lowest level in a decade. In 2023 alone, it dropped nearly in half from the prior year. 'When we took office, we had deforestation on an ascending curve that was out of control,' she told me on April 30. 'We had to rebuild institutions, command and control organizations, and increase public funding.' And yet, as we met in her office in Brasília, she was careful not to linger too long on the success. The Amazon rain forest is dangerously close to a tipping point that could rapidly reshape not just the world's most famous rainforest biome but the whole planet. Once reached, the Amazon would lose the ability to sustain itself and vast swathes would transform into savannah, resulting in the loss of biodiversity and also a massive release of carbon dioxide. To halt it, she says, leaders will need to embrace new mechanisms to stop legal deforestation and catalyze efforts to reforest degraded land—all while continuing ongoing enforcement work. But, she says, saving the Amazon will require work beyond Brazil's borders: the world will need to slow its burning of fossil fuels. 'Even if we can nullify deforestation, with climate change, if we don't reduce carbon from fossil fuel emissions, the forest will be destroyed anyway,' she says. For Silva, who was born and raised to a family of rubber tappers in the remote Amazonian state of Acre, this is the next step on a lifelong journey of Amazon protection. But it's also a key, potentially make or break moment as Brazil occupies the center of the climate movement this year as it hosts the annual U.N. climate conference, COP30, in November. 'We're already at the limit, at the changing, shifting point of the climate crisis,' she says. 'There was a window of opportunity of not shooting over the 1.5 degree limit, and now it's just a sliver.' Even a seasoned climate expert would be forgiven for struggling to track all the work happening in Brazil ahead of COP30. Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, known simply as Lula, has made climate a top priority with ministers across the government focused on tackling the issue. Silva, a national figure in Brazil who finished third in the 2014 presidential election, has turned her ministry into a central node in the effort. While I was in Brazil, the government announced a $2 billion financing program to reforest up to 1 million hectares (about the size of the island of Hawaii) of degraded land in the Amazon. And in recent months Silva has doubled down on work with her counterpart in the finance ministry on a $125 billion fund aimed at protecting tropical forests around the world. Beyond the rain forest work, the government has rolled out a carbon price for domestic industries—and talked about how it might work with other countries to harmonize equivalent policies elsewhere. Silva hopes that these efforts all come together at COP30 as part of a broader effort to make the conference a pivotal moment for the implementation of climate initiatives globally. She described the emerging COP30 goal as a 'global ethical stocktake': Lula and U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres will hear from a wide group of stakeholders—from philosophers to Indigenous people to political leadership—with an eye to helping the world chart a plan for putting climate solutions into action. 'We can't keep pushing things off,' she says. 'We need to implement.' It goes without saying that this year's climate negotiations will be rife with challenges—perhaps none more significant than the challenge posed by the U.S. pullback from the international Paris climate engagement. Silva did not mince words on the role of the U.S. and the Trump Administration in muddying global climate discussions. Without my prompting, she criticized everything from his exiting the Paris Agreement to his decision to ice the National Climate Assessment. All of that leaves a massive gap in the necessary climate action, she says: 'Things have become more difficult, especially with the decisions of the Trump Administration.' My visit to Brasilia happened to coincide with a key meeting of the BRICS countries—a group of emerging market countries that cooperate as a counterweight to U.S. and European power. In my hotel, I spotted the Chinese foreign minister walking through the lobby with his entourage along with other country delegations. But Silva says the rest of the world can't replace the actions needed from the U.S. 'We can't be deniers, not with geopolitics, not with climate,' she told me. 'The vacuum created by the U.S. is the U.S.'s vacuum.' She pointed to challenging geopolitics, in part, to respond to questions about Lula's own climate leadership. Despite his focus on the issue, some environmental activists have criticized him, saying he is moving too slowly and not doing enough. One area of particular concern: new oil exploration efforts in the Amazon region currently under consideration. Asked about the pending decision, Silva first pivoted to the stone-cold geopolitical realities. Oil demand remains high and supply is strained. The U.S. position has created a sense across the globe that fossil fuels will be around for a while. The solution, she says, is a well-managed transition. 'What I defend is a fair transition, a planned transition for everybody,' she says. 'When I say fair and planned, it's because it's not magic.' COP30, with Brazil at the helm, is a good place to start implementing such a transition.
