BRASILIA • Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro approved a 24 per cent cut to the environment budget for this year from last year's level, according to official numbers published just one day after he vowed to increase spending to fight deforestation.
Speaking on Thursday - which was Earth Day - at the summit organised by US President Joe Biden, Mr Bolsonaro pledged to double the budget for environmental enforcement and end illegal deforestation by 2030.
The US government applauded those targets, part of a shift in tone by the far-right leader, although many environmentalists said they would not take the rhetoric seriously before seeing real progress.
Less than 24 hours later, Mr Bolsonaro signed off on the 2021 federal budget that included 2 billion reais (S$485 million) for the Environment Ministry and agencies it oversees, down from the 2.6 billion reais initially approved last year, according to the official government gazette. Spending can be adjusted over the course of the year.
"The gesture of giving a speech yesterday isn't enough," said Congressman Rodrigo Agostinho, leader of the environmental caucus in Congress. "Brazil's government needs to do its homework."
Mr Bolsonaro vetoed a list of environmental budget provisions worth 240 million reais, including outlays for environmental enforcement.
His office directed questions to the Economy Ministry. The ministry said the environment budget now was in line with what the President originally proposed, and the vetoes counteracted spending increases approved by Congress.
Late on Friday, Environment Minister Ricardo Salles posted on social media a request addressed to the Economy Ministry for 270 million reais in additional funding for environmental agency Ibama and parks service ICMBio.
A detailed budget listing individual expenditures has yet to be released, so it was unclear how much is set aside for environmental enforcement.
A breakdown of Mr Bolsonaro's vetoes listed 11.6 million reais being cut from the enforcement budget for Ibama.
After years of ever tighter budgets, the latest cuts threaten to completely paralyse environmental agencies, Mr Agostinho said.
With the world's largest area of tropical forest, Brazil has a uniquely influential role and responsibility among nations in maintaining system health. Its forests take in an enormous quantity of the world's carbon pollution every year. So keeping those forests intact is critical to achieving overall environmental goals.
If they are increasingly vulnerable to fire, drought and pests, that bodes ill for global efforts to fight climate change.
Mr Bolsonaro has said the forests belong to Brazil, and not the world.
A previous high-profile effort, established by governments and businesses in 2014, to halve illegal deforestation failed spectacularly last year.
Despite the pandemic, Brazilian tree loss jumped 25 per cent last year over the previous year.
REUTERS, BLOOMBERG
