“The world will not come to an agreement on climate with understatements and wrangling, without a strong commitment on CO2 emissions reduction targets and the assurance that poor countries will have their rights of development guaranteed”, underlined President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva during the final plenary session of the 15th UN Climate Conference (COP15), held this Friday, 18th December.

With an improvised speech, the President said he was “a little frustrated” with the directions of the negotiations for a global agreement in Copenhagen up to now, and that only a miracle could change this situation. While highlighting a possibly weak outcome of the UN Climate Conference, the Brazilian President announced that Brazil could contribute to an international fund to finance greenhouse gas reduction measures in poor countries. “If an additional sacrifice from Brazil is made necessary, we are willing to take part in the financing”, stated he.

According to Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, guaranteeing the rights of poor countries to develop themselves and protect the environment and their forests is a requirement. He also said that the money proposed by developed countries in the negotiation table is no favor or handout. “The money proposed in the negotiation table is to pay for two decades of greenhouse gas emissions by those that had the privilege to industrialize first”.

President Lula also highlighted that Brazil was ambitious in establishing voluntary targets and giving the example of commitment to the fight against climate change. “While trying to contribute to the discussions of this conference, Brazil has taken up a daring position”, said he. “We have presented our targets up to 2020, taken up a commitment and approved in the National Congress a law that commits Brazil to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions from 36.1 to 38.9% by 2020.

With information from Blog do Planalto.

December 18, 2009