Rio de Janeiro – Eight days before the start of the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP-15), in Copenhagen, Denmark, the minister of Environment, Carlos Minc, believes that Brazil has become one of the event’s key players.
According to the minister, the Brazilian deforestation reduction targets, of reducing forest clearing by 36.1% to 38.9% up until 2020, and the positive results in deforestation in the Amazon are examples of the country’s growing importance.
“This year, we had the lowest rate of deforestation in the last 21 years in the Amazon. We are hunting down illegal cattle raisers, coal miners and loggers. In the Atlantic Forest, we are going in the opposite route, of expanding the area, and our target is to double its extension in 20 years. With the results we have achieved and the targets we are going to set forth, I believe that Brazil has become a key player, carrying out actions to be presented in an important event such as this one.”
Minc stated once again that he is much more optimistic now regarding the conference results than he was two months ago.
“Two months ago, people doubted that Brazil had targets, the United States and China were signalling that they might not present any target, developing countries were waiting on wealthy ones to take a stand and vice versa. It was really a tied-up knot. And Brazil helped untie that knot. We are not going to solve everything in Copenhagen, but now at least we are going to solve many issues,” said the minister during the celebration of the 70th anniversary of the Serra dos Órgãos Mountain Range National Park, in the state of Rio de Janeiro.
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
