Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Brazilian President-Elect, is expected this week at the UN climate summit taking place in Egypt to pledge to abolish the environmental policies of Jair Bolsonaro and protect the Amazon rainforest. Lula’s trip on Monday, November 14th, to the COP27 talks in Sharm el-Sheikh will be his first international visit since defeating Brazil’s far-right leader Jair Bolsonaro in the October 30th runoff election.
The sustainability warrior, who promised in his election campaign to work towards zero deforestation, will address the conference on Wednesday, November 16th. In a nod to his victory speech, in which Lula pledged to end Brazil’s ‘pariah’ status, his team said he had wanted to hold “more talks with world leaders in a single day than Bolsonaro had in four years.”
If Lula, who served as president from 2003 to 2010, manages to curb illegal mining and deforestation, he will make a significant contribution to the global fight against climate change, said a climate expert at the Rio Grande do Sul University, Francisco Eliseu Aquino. “Lula knows the COP talks well. He was always proactive in international discussions and kept a high international profile” during his first two terms, said Aquino.
