U.S. Expects Bolsonaro to Say He Will No Longer Tolerate Illegal Deforestation
The U.S. government has already outlined the roadmap it expects from Jair Bolsonaro's speech during the Climate Leaders Summit, scheduled by Joe Biden for April 22-23. The Americans want Bolsonaro to affirm that he will no longer tolerate illegal deforestation in Brazil and come up with a concrete plan to reduce destruction in the short term, which could include increasing funds for environmental enforcement agencies. As Folha showed, the Brazilian president is considering allocating more resources for agencies like Ibama and ICMBio during the Biden summit, but he faces resistance from the Ministry of Economy, which does not want to increase spending amid the pandemic and the fiscal crisis. American interlocutors say they want to see more than just Bolsonaro's commitment to ending illegal deforestation by 2030, as the Brazilian wrote in a letter to Biden last week. They insist that it is necessary to show immediate actions so that the promises produce what they call tangible results and confirm that more resources for the environment would be one of them.