Photo by Alexandre Schneider/Getty Images)
As center-left leaders in Europe and the U.S. prioritize the fight against climate change, the same cannot be said of their Latin American peers.
BY OLIVER STUENKEL
MARCH 17, 2021
SÃO PAULO – When former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva made his much-awaited first speech as a de facto 2022 candidate last week, he cleverly projected himself as the exact opposite of Jair Bolsonaro: statesmanlike, centrist, pro-science and well-connected across the world. The former president also lambasted Bolsonaro’s mishandling of the pandemic, the economy and his controversial foreign policy, describing the former army captain as both divisive and incompetent.
Yet while Lula seemed to criticize every single one of Bolsonaro’s policies, one topic was conspicuously absent: During his nearly 90-minute speech, the left-wing leader did not once mention climate change, deforestation or fires in the Amazon forest and the Pantanal wetlands, all of which have made regular global headlines over the past several years.
Considering Bolsonaro’s anti-environmental stance is one of the major reasons for Brazil’s growing diplomatic isolation — and with it, potentially serious consequences for the economy — it was a remarkable omission. Lula could have easily scored points with environmentalists by criticizing Bolsonaro’s decision to weaken the country’s deforestation watchdog, Ibama, decrying the president’s decision to allow the suspension of Norwegian and German financial..
Read full article here.
