Together with the Ministers of External Relations and of Environment, we send to Your Excellency, Mr. President, the Statement of Reasons, in which we recommend that the message be submitted to the National Congress with the proposal of ratification of the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
We have thus reached the concluding phase of a long and turbulent process of international negotiation, which had its first high point at the Rio Conference in 1992, when we signed the Framework Convention on Climate Change, and which was given new and decisive impetus with the signing of the Kyoto Protocol in 1997.
Since July of 1999, I have had the privilege, granted by Your Excellency, of leading the Brazilian delegation in the successive rounds of negotiations for the creation of conditions that would permit ratification of the Protocol by all the international partners.
At this opportunity, I wish to express my sincere thanks to all those in the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Ministry of Foreign Relations and other Ministries, in particular the Ministry of Environment, and federal institutions, as well as in the academic community, the private sector and non-governmental organizations, who have helped, with their talent and dedication, in completion of the task assigned to me by Your Excellency.
In terms of the significance of the defection of the USA and the difficulties, first at the meeting at The Hague and subsequently at Bonn, we were able to balance, often with the indirect intervention of Your Excellency, difficult diplomatic problems and arrive at the present situation, in which there are growing indications that, in this first half of 2002, ratifications will be deposited which in number and quality will be sufficient to bring into full force the Kyoto Protocol and its mechanisms.
Thanks to the decision that Your Excellence would announce today, Brazil is locating itself at the vanguard of countries contributing to achieving this worthy objective, even before the important Johannesburg Conference is held, which will commemorate the tenth anniversary of the Rio Conference.
In fact, we in Brazil have worked with considerable seriousness on the issue of Kyoto. For example, around 100 institutions, including bodies of the federal government, state governments, public and private corporations, university groups and non-governmental organizations, have been mobilized by the Ministry of Science and Technology to participate in the development of the national inventory of anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases.
To evaluate the responsibility of countries for climate change it is essential to provide reliable estimates of emissions over time.
In this process, new technologies were developed for estimating emissions, especially in sectors most typical of developing countries in tropical regions – an experience that we are increasingly sharing with other countries in similar conditions.
Special attention should be made, in this context, of the methodologies for estimating emissions from processes of land use change, including deforestation, in which the Ministry combined the use of satellite images to estimate the variation of the areas covered by original forests, agriculture and livestock raising activities, and new forest growth, with the best estimates of biomass obtained by field work of the RADAM Project in the 1970s.
The estimates of methane emissions in hydroelectric reservoirs in the tropics also involved pioneering work, resulting in a better understanding of the complex process involving the effects of anthropogenic actions together with natural processes.
The effect of methane emissions on global average temperature increase, as a result of climate change, was clarified by Brazil, with important results for the Country and for all tropical countries, in which emissions from livestock, as well as, in many cases, irrigated rice production, are relatively important.
The importance of the emissions inventories is not, as might be supposed, that of situating Brazil in a ranking of countries in terms of their emissions of greenhouse gases. Brazilian emissions of these gases are, in fact, the fundamental measure, as established in the Convention, for the correct assessment of global climate change on the part of the international community.
Projects cannot be included under the Clean Development Mechanism without a correct estimate of emissions – both those that would potentially occur in the absence of the project, and those that actually occurred as a result of the project. The difference between these two figures corresponds to the reduction in emissions that could be certified, and be the object of commercial transactions.
The Ministry of Science and Technology has also been contributing to the development of a methodology that permits the transformation of the measure of cause – emissions – into a measure of effect – the increase in temperature and other global indicators of climate change.
In the last three years, the Ministry put resources from a range of sources towards global climate change, totalling around R$ 12 million, which allowed the engagement of the institutions I mentioned before. In practice, more than 500 experts participated in the national effort coordinated by the Ministry.
The Interministerial Commission on Global Climate Change, which I have the honor of chairing, is up and running. And it is ready to analyze the Clean Development Mechanism projects to be submitted for Brazilian approval. In this regard, a seminar was recently held about the criteria to be adopted in fitting the projects into Brazilian priorities for sustainable development. The seminar received an important contribution from government bodies and especially the Ministry of Environment, from organized industry sectors such as the Brazilian Business Center for Sustainable Development, from university groups and non-governmental organizations.
In addition, as requested by Your Excellency, the Ministry of Science and Technology provided the support necessary for the operation of the Brazilian Climate Change Forum, and thus ensured the perfect meshing between government activities and the excellent work of awareness-building in society carried out by the Forum, chaired by Your Excellency.
I should note that the work of articulation that we have carried out has contributed significantly to Brazil’s participation in all the international forums, if not with complete uniformity of points of view, than at least with a respectful understanding of the points of view of all national actors and with an engagement around the positions supported by the government.
In mention this fact because in other countries this is not always the case. This respect and resulting convergence of points of view has greatly strengthened and facilitated our diplomatic work, and is a patrimony to be carefully preserved.
I wish to use this opportunity to announce that the first national communication to the Conference of the Parties of the Convention, including the inventory of anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases, is being finalized and will be published in the coming months.
The work of developing the regulations for the Kyoto Protocol, which was successfully completed in Marrakesh, was an essential stage of international effort in terms of dealing with global climate change. Since then, however, the intensity of the work has not diminished. On the contrary, the establishment of regulations created the guidelines within which the detailed scientific and methodological work can proceed. Thus, just today, Ministry staff members are participating in meetings aimed at identifying methodologies that will permit accounting for emissions, or emissions reductions, in the forest sector.
With completion and publication of the Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change last year, this April work will be on the Fourth Report, to be completed for the year 2005 or soon thereafter.
This year discussions will take place on what to do after the first commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol, from 2008 to 2012. This discussion will be begun in the academic community and in open forums for discussion, and will continue thereafter in the negotiating forums themselves.
Brazil proposed in 1997 that the onus for mitigation of climate change be shared between the industrialized countries in accordance with their relative contribution to increasing the average surface temperature of the planet. With the start of discussion about the evolution of the Kyoto Protocol, there is a growing international interest in this proposal.
Mr. President
Under the guidance of Your Excellence, we remain engaged in the Kyoto Process, with the certainty that in its next stages, we, together with the international community, will be making gains in terms of the reduction of atmospheric warming demanded by global public opinion and desired by all Brazilians.
Thank you very much.
