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News > Brazil

Germany: 'G7 Summit Should Address Amazon Crisis'

  • Protest outside the Brazilian embassy due wildfires at Amazon rainforest, Paris, France, August 23, 2019.

    Protest outside the Brazilian embassy due wildfires at Amazon rainforest, Paris, France, August 23, 2019. | Photo: Reuters

Published 23 August 2019
Opinion

Cornered by international criticisms againsts its poor environmental policies, the Brazilian far-right government maintains that the nation's environmental crisis is "an invention of the left."

The wildfires in the Amazon rainforest are an "acute emergency" that should be discussed during the Group of Seven (G7) summit to be held in Biarritz, France, says German government spokesperson, Steffen Seibert, in support of French President Emmanuel Macron's suggestion to do so during the international meeting coming up Aug. 24-26.

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From Berlin, Seibert said that German Chancellor Angela Merkel is convinced that the issue of the massive Amazon fires that have spread past Brazil and into Peru and Bolivia should be on the G7 agenda.

“The scale of fires in the Amazon is alarming and dangerous not only for Brazil and the other countries directly affected but for the whole world because the Amazon rainforest is of such paramount importance for our global climate system and for global biodiversity. It is no exaggeration to say it is the world’s green lung,” the German official added.Previously, Macron said that Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro lied about his environmental commitments, triggering the French president to withdraw his support for the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between the European Union (EU) and Mercosur.

Ireland’s Prime Minister Leo Varadkar also condemned the Brazilian government and said he will not support the trade agreement either.

“There is no way that Ireland will vote for the EU-Mercosur FTA if Brazil does not honor its environmental commitments. I am very concerned that this year has seen record levels of destruction of Amazonian forests by fire,” Varadkar said and accused Bolsonaro of an “Orwellian” attempt to blame the wildfires on environmental charities.

The United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres also expressed concern about what is happening at the Brazilian rainforests.

"In the midst of an international climate crisis, we cannot allow more damage to occur in an important source of diversity and oxygen," he said.

A trade agreement between the EU and Mercosur countries was later reached Friday afternoon.

"Monster!! Your days are numbered. Scoundrels!!" The meme reads, "Ernesto Araujo says the Left invented the destruction of the Amazon. Named as 'the world's worst diplomat' by Jacobin magazine, Foreign Minister Ernesto Araujo, who is also Donald Trump's menion, claims that the destruction of the Amazon, captured by the images of INPE and NASA, is an invention."

The Brazilian government has continued to insist over the past week that "environmental sensationalism" is responsible for the "environmental crisis rhetoric" and has been created by "the Left as its last weapon."

On Friday, Bolsonaro’s top aids also tried to blame the over 72,000 separate firest in the Amazon forest and savannahs on the Sao Paulo Forum, a Latin American conglomeration of social movements and leftist parties across the region.

"Unable to convince the Brazilians, the Sao Paulo Forum now uses its allies in the international press and radical environmentalists (who have been manipulated for decades of propaganda) to attack the country and question its sovereignty," Foreign Minister Ernesto Araujo tweeted.

"We cannot be naive. Europeans take advantage of the environmental issue to impose barriers to the Brazilian growth and trade," said Onyx Lorenzoni, the president's Chief of Staff.

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