Rainforest in Jaraqui, Brazil

    Environment and climate Reconciling environmental, social and economic interests

    The bulk of the Amazon rainforest lies in Brazil. The role that it plays for global water cycles and as a carbon sink is of key importance for the global climate and for economic development in South America. Yet every year, extensive areas of forest are cut down – in many cases illegally – in order to provide new land for farming or grazing. Illegal mining is also causing enormous damage in the rainforest.

    Balancing environmental, social and economic interests is one of the most important goals of German-Brazilian cooperation for sustainable development.

    Fighting deforestation is a matter of high priority for Brazil. The authorities are taking determined action against illegal deforestation, especially in the Amazon region, but also elsewhere. Several new protected areas and Indigenous territories have been designated. The Amazon Fund was reactivated in January 2023. The first new projects have been approved. Brazil is also acting as a regional leader on defining ambitious forest conservation targets for the entire Amazon region.

    The challenges are huge. In the last few years, there was an increase in legalised deforestation, organised environmental crime and illegal activities in the Amazon region.

    Between August 2022 and July 2023, deforestation in that region declined by 22.3 per cent compared with the previous year (which is the lowest level since 2018 and the biggest decrease since 2012). However, in the Cerrado, the wet savannah in the inland parts of South-Eastern Brazil, deforestation rates continue to be high, and rising (by three per cent from 2022 to 2023 compared to the previous year).


    Climate action and the 2030 Agenda

    Brazil was one of the first countries to ratify the Paris Agreement, and it has committed to cut its greenhouse gas emissions 37 per cent – compared to 2005 levels – by 2025 and 43 per cent by 2030. Its high share of renewable energy means that the country has enormous potential to play a pioneering role in decarbonisation and thus make a decisive contribution to global climate change mitigation. Concrete climate action measures are of key importance for this.

    The civil society working group for the 2030 Agenda (Grupo de Trabalho da Sociedade Civil para a Agenda 2030), which counts about 40 non-governmental organisations as its members, publishes an annual report on the implementation of the global Sustainable Development Goals in Brazil (the Relatório Luz). In 2022, the group found that there was only one of the 169 targets of the 2030 Agenda on which Brazil had achieved sufficient progress. In fact, on 65 per cent of them there had been setbacks.

    As at: 28/06/2024