BRASÍLIA – A year ago, then-President-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva received a hero’s welcome at the UN climate talks when he announced to the world: “Brazil is back” in the fight against global warming.

Having largely made good on his promise to curb the destruction of the vital Amazon rainforest, current President Lula heads into this year’s edition of the talks with a mission: to sell ambitious new plans to protect the world’s forests and persuade rich countries to do so. more to do The climate fight.

Since Lula, 78, took office for the third time in January, Brazil has halved deforestation in its vast swath of the Amazon compared to the previous year – a sea change from the wave of clear-cutting under Lula’s far-right predecessor Jair Bolsonaro (2019- 2022).

Brazil believes progress and the use of 89% clean electricity will give it a head start heading into COP28 talks in Dubai, which begin on Thursday.

The Latin American giant is going to the talks “with its head held high” and plans to “make more demands than we face,” said respected Environment Minister Marina Silva.

She said Brazil would push for rich nations to finally make good on their unfulfilled promises to provide climate finance to the most vulnerable countries and “take our foot off the fossil fuel accelerator.”

Silva said Lula, who has vowed to end illegal deforestation by 2030, would also propose creating a fund in which wealthy nations would pay tropical forest countries for every hectare of preserved forestland, whose carbon-absorbing capacity is a key resource against global warming.

NOT WITHOUT WORRIES

But there are also flaws in Brazil’s recent environmental record.

In the Cerrado, an important tropical savannah beneath the Amazon, deforestation under Lula has increased by 34 percent compared to the same period last year, according to satellite monitoring.

Meanwhile, the Talanoa Institute, a climate policy group, said in a recent report that Brazil is unlikely to meet its Paris climate agreement goal of cutting its carbon emissions by 480 million tons by 2025.

Incidentally, this is the same year that Brazil will host the UN climate talks.

Lula has also been criticized over state oil company Petrobras’ plans to drill for oil at the mouth of the Amazon River.

Nevertheless, the veteran leftist is traveling to Dubai with a series of climate initiatives.

In addition to the 80-country tropical forest plan, he will announce a major program to restore degraded farmland in Brazil, allowing the agricultural powerhouse to expand its total farmland from 65 million to 105 million hectares without clearing more forest.

The government plans to invest around $120 billion in the plan over a decade.

G20 PRESIDENCY

Lula’s arrival at COP28 on Friday will coincide with Brazil taking over the rotating G20 presidency – where his government said it also plans to make climate change a key issue.

Global warming is causing “serious economic and social problems,” said Mauricio Lyrio, Brazil’s chief negotiator in the club of the world’s 20 largest economies.

Brazil, hit by extreme weather events such as torrential rains and drought this year, plans to pressure wealthy countries to invest more in combating climate change and reducing emissions, Lyrio said.

“Funding is fundamental. Countries need to spend more,” he said.

Brazil also plans to use its year-long G20 presidency to focus on fighting poverty and creating a “global alliance against hunger.”

It would be modeled on a Lula hallmark – the ambitious programs that helped lift 30 million Brazilians out of poverty during his first two terms as president (2003-2010).