‘The tragedy in Rio Grande do Sul is also the responsibility of senators and deputies who dismantle environmental legislation’, says leader of the Climate Observatory

The heavy rains that hit Rio Grande do Sul, the most intense recorded in Rio Grande do Sul in decades, have already left dozens of people dead, caused damage in 300 municipalities, broke a dam and displaced more than 32 thousand people. There are still more than 60 people missing while the bad weather is already causing damage in other southern states.

The federal and state governments have created a task force and are trying to prevent more deaths by promoting evacuations and removing people from risk areas.

But the responsibility lies not only with the state and federal governments, says Marcio Astrini, executive secretary of the Climate Observatory (OC), but also with Congress — as tragedies are the result of a lack of adaptation and combating climate change, two areas where the Executives need to do more and where the Legislature has actively promoted setbacks, in his opinion.

“The conservative majority has approved several projects considered harmful to the environment. We have never had a Congress so dedicated to dismantling”, says the public policy specialist at the head of the Climate Observatory, a network of entities that monitors the climate issue in Brazil.

Furthermore, according to Astrini, actions that are limited to emergency responses in crisis situations are not enough. Extreme events like this — increasingly common due to climate change — can no longer be treated as “unforeseen”.

Although it is not always possible to accurately predict the intensity of an extreme event, we already know that they will become more frequent — and what measures need to be taken to adapt to them, says the expert.

Climate models have been predicting for decades an increase in extreme rainfall in southern South America, including the entire Prata basin (formed by the Paraná and Uruguay rivers), recalls Astrini.

“The biggest problem we face at the moment is not prediction, it is acceptance”, says Astrini. “We need to accept that, unfortunately, this is the new normal. But it’s not enough to accept it peacefully, you have to accept it and take action.”

Astrini explains that there are three types of possible response to the climate crisis: mitigating the causes, adapting in preparation for the consequences and reducing damage in the face of tragedies.

“Mitigation is when you attack the problem: it is when you stop deforestation, when you take a thermoelectric plant out of operation, when you replace a polluting source with a renewable source”, says the expert.

“Adaptation is when the problem will happen and you start to adapt, especially the populations most vulnerable to the problem. For example, when it takes populations out of the risk area, when it provides more assistance for a small farmer to deal with a drought.”

Actions are also necessary against problems that are not necessarily caused by global warming, although worsened by it, explains Astrini.

“Adaptation is also when you reinforce the health network, because dengue cases will increase, because the mosquito reproduction cycle will become longer due to disproportionate rains and prolonged heat.”

Dealing with losses and reducing damage is promoting emergency responses to tragedies.

“Loss and damage is what is normally done: you break ground, you go looking for survivors, you go build houses”, says Astrini. The problem, in the expert’s view, is that the actions taken by federal, state and municipal authorities tend to focus only on this third stage of response.

“People only act when they are already at the level of disgrace,” says Astrini.

“The money invested in the first layer is worth much more, because it prevents adaptation and avoids disaster.”

Actions that are being taken by both the federal government, the state government and the municipalities in the case of the rains in Rio Grande do Sul — Civil Defense alerts, evacuation of people from emergency areas, reestablishment of services, etc. — fall into the third type.

After the region was hit by a cyclone in September last year, the Ministry of Integration and Regional Development transferred R$82 million to the State government and another R$243 million to the municipalities of Rio Grande do Sul to deal with the crisis. According to a report by CNN Brasil, most of the money was used for emergency actions, such as purchasing supplies and clearing roads.

“We can have Civil Defense 30 times greater in Rio Grande do Sul or in any other State. People will continue to die, because Civil Defense will be able to save the lives of someone close to them, but not everyone. What saves the most lives is planning, and in the case of municipalities, urban planning”, says the leader of the Climate Observatory.

Although global warming is a worldwide problem, mitigation actions are not just the responsibility of international entities and national governments. They can — and need — also be targeted by local governments, says Astrini.

“Mitigation is an agenda of responsibility, not political gain. I’ll take an example here in the Cerrado, which broke the record for deforestation in the last period: more than 60% increase from August last year to now. And those who give deforestation authorizations are the state governments”, he says.

“And there are several other examples, such as looser environmental licensing legislation in the States, responsibility for basic sanitation, and the energy transition.”

The government of Rio Grande do Sul did not respond to BBC News Brasil’s request for information on mitigation and adaptation actions. Governor Eduardo Leite (PSDB) has been giving daily updates on the emergency measures taken in the State, which include alerts and removal of people from risk areas.

Astrini also says that it is necessary to remember Congress’s responsibility in relation to the climate situation that leads to tragedies like the one suffered by RS at this time.

“Deputies work day and night to destroy Brazil’s environmental legislation. Right now they want to end the Environmental Licensing Law, they want to end the legal reserve in the Amazon, they want to end the indigenous reserves”, says Astrini.

It refers to a bill that makes environmental licensing more flexible, allowing States and Municipalities to determine which projects need or not to carry out an impact analysis, among other measures.

Proponents of the PL argue that it will “reduce bureaucracy” and therefore facilitate economic development.

But Astrini says that the project not only does not solve the problem of bureaucracy but also could compromise sustainable development goals.

“We have never had a Congress so aggressive in this effort to dismantle environmental legislation in Brazil”, he states.

Deputies and senators opposed to important agendas for environmentalists argue that environmental legislation hinders economic development and, in some cases, deny scientific data on global warming or deforestation in Brazil.

“There are two moments when Congress helps Brazil in the environmental area: in the middle of the year recess and in the end recess”, says Astrini.

For Astrini, the federal government has been failing in the dispute with deputies and senators over environmental issues, despite having a good project for the area.

He cites, for example, the fact that the government bench was free to vote in any direction (instead of being instructed to vote against) the time frame for indigenous lands.

“We have never had a Ministry of the Environment with so much support in the government. It is the first time that a president has spoken about zero deforestation and zero tolerance for deforesters. You have a Minister of Economy who talks about the environment, a Ministry of Indigenous Peoples… But even so, things are not going as they should,” he says.

In addition to the tragedy in the South, there is other negative news in the area. The North registered a record number of fires from January to May this year, while the strike by employees of the country’s two main environmental inspection bodies — Ibama and ICMBio — has lasted more than 100 days.

For the expert, it is not just a question of a more robust budget for ministries in the area — which is also important — but the ability to integrate this vision across all sectors.

“Who causes Brazil’s emissions problem? They are the actors in the Ministry of Agriculture sector. And at the Ministry of Mines and Energy. It is these ministries that must have programs and investments to reduce emissions in their sectors”, says Astrini. “The Ministry of the Environment can fine an area that has already been deforested, but for mitigation actions you need the action of all agents.”

The BBC approached the federal government to talk about the matter, but did not receive a response until the publication of this report.

The government, which despite not having a majority in Congress managed to approve its agendas such as the new fiscal framework, has not “buy the fight” on environmental issues, says Astrini.

In the case of the time frame for indigenous lands, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva even tried to block the approval of the law that limits demarcation, but his veto was overturned by Congress.

The thesis of the time frame is that only areas occupied by indigenous people in October 1988, when the Federal Constitution was promulgated, could be demarcated.

Indigenous movements question the thesis because there were lands that, at that time, were not occupied because their original inhabitants had been expelled by invaders. Ruralists, on the other hand, claim that not establishing a time frame created legal uncertainty.

In addition to being a right of indigenous peoples, the demarcation of indigenous lands is considered by environmentalists and researchers to be one of the main ways of preserving Brazilian native forests — today, reserves prevent the deforestation of several areas whose surroundings have been devastated.

The Senate and Chamber have been on a collision course with the STF on several issues, in a dispute over the limits of each power.

The issue of the time frame, in fact, only had its vote accelerated as a response from the ruralist bench to a 2023 STF decision.

At the time, the Court rejected the landmark thesis, which was based on an ambiguous legal situation. Soon after, Congress approved new legislation determining the existence of a time frame.

“In some areas, such as the time frame, Congress has used the issue to attack indigenous people and the Supreme Court.”

In addition to recent decisions taken by the conservative majority in Congress and projects in progress, Astrini criticizes the public stance of deputies and senators in relation to environmental issues.

“They are privileged men, with space, who speak to their voters and form public opinion. They never tire of repeating that this thing about the environment, about environmental rules, is nonsense”, says Astrini. “But then the consequences arrive and who is responsible?”

For the OC’s executive secretary, these parliamentarians “encourage those who want to disrespect environmental laws and harm those who want to do it right.” “So they have enormous responsibility for situations like this (in Rio Grande do Sul) and have to be held responsible for it. .”