A year after Brazil and 144 other countries signed a pact to zero deforestation by 2030, the commitment to the Declaration on Forests and Land Use is called into question at COP27, which began sunday in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. Not 20% of the signatories joined the alliance that aims to implement the pledge.

If the 2021 declaration encompassed 90% of the world's forests, the Forest and Climate Leaders' Partnership, signed on Monday, covers only 33% of the planet's forest areas. It has 25 signatory nations and the European Union (EU), but what draws attention are the absences of weight, among them Brazil, home to the largest tropical forest on the planet.

We are in the COP of implementation and what this low quorum shows is that, at the time of the promise, it is possible to raise several countries, but when it comes to implementing them, not so much," Stela Herschmann, climate policy expert at the Climate Observatory, told GLOBO. " Brazil is one of them. It signed last year with no intention of implementing it, so much so that this year it has not joined and remains the country responsible for a third of deforestation in the world.

The high rates of Brazilian deforestation were cited as bad examples during the launch. The expectation, however, is that the national positioning will be revised from January 1, with the change of command in the Plateau and the promise of President-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who will travel to Egypt next week, to take the desmate to zero.

For Germany, which announced hours after the result of the second round, together with Norway, the resumption of the Amazon Fund after three years of shutdown, the commitments ptistas are "very encouraging". Similar tone was adopted by John Kerry, President Joe Biden's special climate envoy.

We know what President-elect Lula did when he was in the presidency and we know what he's prepared to build -- the White House climate czar said during the partnership launch event, which south America has the participation of Colombia, Ecuador and Guyana.

Between 2004 and 2012, years of the governments of Lula and former President Dilma Rousseff, deforestation fell 80% in the Amazon, partly due to the success of the Action Plan for Prevention and Control of Deforestation in the Legal Amazon (PPCDAm). In the last three years, amid bolsonaro's catastrophic environmental policies, it has risen 73%.

Data from the Prodes system of Inpe (National Institute of Space Research) for the last fiscal year are not yet known, although its disclosure usually occurs at the end of October. Last year, they were released shortly after COP26, although it came to the fore that they had been ready since before the event began.

It is not only in Brazil that there are setbacks: to fulfill the promise, according to data released by the global forest watch monitoring project, the world would need to reduce the desmate by 10% per year between 2021 and 2030. Last year, the drop was only 6.3%.

Over the past two decades, deforestation rates in the Democratic Republic of congo, home to the world's second-largest rainforest, are the highest in history. Indonesia, which completes the top 3 of the rainforest areas, has been able to reduce its rates. According to information anticipated by Reuters in August, the ptistas negotiate with the governments of both countries a preservation alliance.

Amazon Alliance

Lula also makes signs for joint preservation initiatives with neighboring countries, and on Monday in Sharm el-Sheikh, Colombian Gustavo Petro said the twist in Brazilian environmental policy is "absolutely strategic" in calling for an alliance for the preservation of the Amazon. Alongside Venezuelan Nicolás Maduro, he said the countries are "determined to revitalize the Amazon jungle" and proposed "opening up a conservation fund" on the continent.

Maduro and Petro want to realize their plans at a summit early next year, and the Colombian has called on the U.S. to join the initiative, given that the country is the "most polluting" in the Americas. Former Foreign Minister Celso Amorim, one of Lula's top advisers, had already signaled last month that the PT plans an environmental summit next year.

An integrated look at the Amazon in which it is possible to share results and solutions can be decisive in the process of systemic transformation that Amazonian countries need to implement. It's as if we work with acupuncture points: what are the key points for these nine countries to work together, integrated and with a good volume of resources and to establish concrete solutions to the many problems that tropical forests face - said Karen Oliveira, director for public policy at The Nature Conservancy Brazil.

The countries of the UK-led partnership and coordinated by the US and Ghana together account for almost 60% of the world's Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Russia, China, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Peru are absences felt alongside Brazil, however — the quintet alone is home to nearly half of the world's rainforests. For Oliveira, however, low support should not be taken as a failure.

The COP is still at a very early stage. I make an analogy with football: the game has begun, the teams are exchanging passes, but there has not yet been that plucked for the goal. The announcement is a signage, an opportunity -- she said, noting that more money is needed for poor and developing countries to face the climate crisis.

At COP26, 12 countries announced $12 billion of public funding for forest protection in developing countries, and about 22 percent of the amount has already been spent. The only sign of new public investment so far came from Germany, which has pledged to double its international aid for preservation from $1 billion to $2 billion by 2025.

Colombia said it will invest $200 million annually over the next two decades to preserve its forests and called for greater solidarity from multilateral organizations and rich countries. Climate finance remains key on the second day of debate, with poor and developing countries demanding greater commitment.

Climate finance

Amid reminders that the $100 billion a year promised for the five-year period from 2020 to 2025 is behind schedule, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has called for a new approach, a request repeated frequently in the Red Sea resort. Loans granted at high rates that represent, he said, have "onerous costs" and represent the failure of the global financial system in place since 1944, drawn up by the U.S. and its allies at the end of World War II.

And according to a report produced jointly by the COP27 presidency and the presidency of the edition that preceded it in Glasgow, current promises are still far from what is needed: emerging countries, with the exception of China, will need up to $2.4 trillion annually by 2030 to combat climate change, and almost half of the value will need to come from international investors,  developed countries or multilateral bodies.

The poorest nations on the planet need to adapt to what is to come, but also mitigate their greenhouse gas emissions. The issue is another important issue in this COP, as countries must agree on the Work For Mitigation Program to reduce the gap between emissions cuts promises and actions. The parties promise a draft by Friday, but disagreements range from the scope of the initiative to its duration.

Source: Um só Planeta