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ENVIRONMENT

Germany vows millions for Amazon as Scholz meets Lula in Brazil

Germany on Monday outlined more than $200 million in contributions for environmental projects in Brazil as Chancellor Olaf Scholz visited the South American giant reeling from Amazon destruction under ex-president Jair Bolsonaro.

Published: 31 January 2023 09:00 CET
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz (l, SPD) and Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, President of Brazil, stand together after the press conference at the President's official residence.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz (l, SPD) and Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, President of Brazil, stand together after the press conference at the President's official residence. Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Kay Nietfeld

The package includes a brand-new $33.6 million in aid for Brazilian states for rainforest protection, on top of another $38 million already announced for an Amazon protection fund to which Germany and Norway had halted payments under climate-skeptic Bolsonaro.

Protection of the Amazon — a crucial sink for planet-warming carbon dioxide — was high on the agenda for talks between Scholz and Brazil’s leftist new President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva that also aimed to “deepen the resumption of relations,” according to the Brazilian presidency.

Scholz was the first German chancellor to visit Brazil since 2015, and the first Western leader to meet Lula since he became president on January 1 after four years of frosty relations with Brazil under far-right Bolsonaro.

Shortly before Scholz’s arrival in the capital Brasilia, German economic cooperation minister Svenja Schulze announced her country would make additional funds available for Amazon preservation after “difficult years”.

READ ALSO: ‘We’ve made a community’: Who are the Brazilians in Germany and where do they live?

“Brazil is the lung of the world. If it has problems, we all have to help it,” Schulze said at a press conference in Brasilia with Lula’s new environment minister Marina Silva. 

Bolsonaro’s four-year term was marked by a surge in fires and clear-cutting in the rainforest.

Average annual deforestation on his watch rose by 59.5 percent from the previous four years, and by 75.5 percent from the previous decade, according to government figures.

German funds for Brazil would also include $32 million for energy efficiency projects for small and medium companies, $9.7 million for “sustainable supply chain projects,” $5.7 million for renewable energy use in industry and transport and $14.2 million for reforestation of degraded areas, according to a Germany embassy statement.

$87 million would go towards low-cost loans for farmers to “reforest their land.”

Amazon destruction was a major sticking point in a trade deal between the European Union and the Mercosur grouping comprised of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. The blocs reached an agreement in 2019 following 20 years of talks, but it has not yet been ratified.

‘Very interesting partners’

Scholz, who visited Chile and Argentina before heading to Brazil, said in Buenos Aires on Saturday a “quick conclusion” was needed to the trade deal impasse, adding that with Lula in place, “we are in a better position.”

Lula had presided over a sharp drop in deforestation when he previously led Brazil from 2003 to 2010, and has vowed to reboot environmental protection.

READ ALSO: How climate change is threatening Germany’s forests

He has said it was “urgent” for a deal to be concluded, but stressed on the campaign trail that further negotiation was needed to ensure Brazil can pursue “our interest in reindustrializing.”

Energy is also on the agenda for talks between the leaders of Europe and South America’s biggest economies. German business is seeking new opportunities overseas following the economic shock caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and as concerns grow about reliance on China.

All three countries on Scholz’s itinerary — Argentina, Chile and Brazil — are rich in natural resources and “very interesting partners,” a government source in Berlin said.

In an interview Saturday with the Grupo de Diarios America (GDA) consortium of South American newspapers, Scholz said Germany wanted to boost cooperation with Latin America and the Caribbean on “renewable energies, green hydrogen and responsible trade in raw materials.”

A Berlin government source said Germany would use the Latin American tour to drum up further international support against Moscow as the war in Ukraine drags on.

Argentina, Chile and Brazil have criticized the invasion of Ukraine at the United Nations but have not adopted sanctions against Moscow.

Lula caused shock last year when he said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was “as responsible as” Russian President Vladimir Putin for the conflict.

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ENVIRONMENT

Climate protesters under fire in France, Germany, France and UK: UN expert

Environmental activists are increasingly facing hostility across Europe, a UN expert said, warning that the very right to protest was "at risk" in countries usually considered beacons of democracy.

Published: 16 March 2024 18:47 CET
Climate protesters under fire in France, Germany, France and UK: UN expert

Michel Forst, the UN special rapporteur on environmental defenders, told AFP in an interview this week that he was deeply troubled by the hardening tone against climate activists in countries including France, Austria, Germany and Britain.

Government ministers have been throwing about terms like “eco terrorists” and “Green Talibans” to describe non-violent activists, he claimed, also blaming some media reporting for contributing to an increasingly hostile
public attitude.

“It creates a sort of chilling effect,” warned Forst, an independent expert appointed under the UN’s Aarhus Convention — a legally-binding text that provides for justice in environmental matters.

“Currently, the right to protest is at risk in Europe.”

Forst said he had recently visited several European countries after receiving complaints that activists faced treatment that allegedly violated the convention and international human rights law.

Following a visit to Britain, he publicly voiced alarm at the “toxic discourse” and “increasingly severe crackdown” on environmental defenders.

 ‘Regressive laws’ 

Forst charged that “regressive laws” in Britain were being used to slap climate activists with harsh penalties, with one activist sent to prison for six months for a 30-minute slow march disrupting traffic.

Another activist had been sentenced to 27 months behind bars in the UK, he said.

He also decried harsh sentences in other countries, including Germany.

Forst travelled to France last month following complaints about a crackdown on a drawn-out anti-motorway protest near the southwestern city of Toulouse.

Activists, called “squirrels”, who have been squatting in trees destined to be chopped down to make way for the A69 motorway, have accused law enforcement of denying them access to food and water and using floodlights to deprive them of sleep.

Forst said he had been blocked from bringing food to the activists, and was “shocked” by what he found.

“Obviously, deprivation of food, of drinking water, of sleep is clearly against international law,” said Forst, a French national.

They are “considered acts of torture in international texts”, he added. 

Dangerous

Forst said that European media coverage often focuses exclusively on the drama around demonstrations and not on the climate crisis prompting the protests.

The world is in a very “dangerous time”, he said, but the general public often do not understand why young people are “blocking access to airports, or gluing their hands on the floor”.

As a result, states have felt justified in developing new policies and laws, paving the way for police crackdowns, and increasingly harsh sentences.

In Britain, he said that some judges were even barring environmental defenders from using the word “climate” to explain their motivation to the jury.

Forst said that he was investigating whether big companies, especially in the oil and energy sector, might be lobbying to increase the pressure on climate activists.

“The most dangerous” companies were even “using security forces, connections with the mafia… to target and sometimes to kill defenders,” he said.

Forst said he was currently organising consultations in Latin America and Africa with environmental activists there who are facing attacks by companies.

He is also investigating whether companies based in Europe are, through local subsidiaries, contributing to attacks on activists.

And the expert blasted European countries for “a double standard” by supporting environmental defenders in other parts of the world but “not protecting their defenders inside Europe”.

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