Jair Bolsonaro: Brazil will not respect the Paris Agreement.

This is not the first time that this newspaper has spoken of the worst student of the global climate class. Brasil. And more precisely, his government.

Here he is again pointed out. Six young activists belonging to 2 different NGOs have just taken President Bolsonora and two of his ministers to court: the Minister of the Environment Ricardo Salles and the former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ernesto Araujo. Solicited. The reason ? Yet another example of a calamitous management of the climate crisis.

Often accused of promoting the destruction of the Amazon rainforest, Jair Bolsonaro and his two ministers are, this time, accused of violating the terms of the Paris Agreement signed in 2015. Indeed, the Brazilian government has decided to modify its own commitments and to significantly reduce its new objectives.

In 2015, Brazil pledged to reduce its emissions by 37% by 2025 compared to 2005 levels and by 43% by 2030, representing respectively net emissions of 1.3 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2 e) in 2025 and 1.2 billion tonnes in 2030.

A few months ago, the Brazilian president, true to himself, decided to review his copy by presenting figures much less friendly. In 2025, net emissions will rise to 1.76 billion tonnes and 1.6 billion for 2030. The country will thus be able to release 400 million tonnes of additional CO2 into the atmosphere by 2030.

Unacceptable for the Engajamundo and Fridays For Future Brasil movements who have decided to sue the Brazilian government in order to push it to reverse. As Txai Bandeira Suruí, representative of Engajamundo, said: "This revision" constitutes a flagrant violation of the Paris Agreement, which only allows countries to increase their targets and not reduce them. " "Brazil has achieved the feat of having a less ambitious goal than the previous one."

For its part, Fridays for Future Brasil expressed its strong dissatisfaction and the same determination in the person of its representative Marcelo Rocha : “Going to court is the only way to counter public policies like this, which endanger our future. and move us further and further away from the Paris Agreement targets, which are already insufficient. The carbon accounting sleight of hand carried out by this government is a threat not only to Brazilian youth, but also to the entire planet. ”

The Brazilian president is not at his first attempt. Its manifest lack of interest in the environment and climatic disturbances have already earned it the subject of several complaints. Among the most recent, the one filed before the International Criminal Court by the emblematic leader of the Kayapo people, Raoni.

Bolsonaro leads a murderous policy towards the peoples who live in the Amazon rainforest by opening up to mining and energy exploitation, against royalties, the indigenous territories. This is why, this time, Chief Raoni and his French lawyer, William Bourdon, decided to file a complaint against the Brazilian president for crimes against humanity. "It is a complaint for crimes against Humanity such as forced population displacements, invasions on their territories, the execution of Indian leaders as part of a premeditated and systematic destruction of the environment which has sheltered and fed these peoples for centuries, ” explains William Bourdon.

Already in 2019, the Arns Commission (Observatory of Brazilian Democracy) and the Collective for the Defense of Human Rights had requested that the president be the subject of an investigation for "incitement to genocide and systematic attacks against indigenous populations " .

Already ridiculed for his management of the pandemic in his country, one wonders how long President Bolsonora will remain deaf to the complaints and criticisms of which he is the subject, and continue to lead an environmental policy as unconscious as it is dangerous.

The ICC is in its role by examining complaints that are brought to it but what are other nations doing? Is deafness contagious?