Sept 27 (Reuters) - Executives of more than 100 major
companies urged Brazil to take a leading position in U.N.
climate talks in November, at a time when Amazon rainforest
destruction under President Jair Bolsonaro has made the country
an environmental pariah.
The corporate leaders, generally chief executives of
Brazilian companies or the Brazilian units of multinational
companies, in a joint statement warned that Brazil could be
"excluded from a new economic-climate order that is unfolding
before our eyes".
The signatories include the local chiefs of e-commerce
company Amazon and Shell oil as well as the
global chief executives of world's largest meatpacker JBS
and planemaker Embraer.
"Brazil should maintain its central position in this
dialogue, or risk enormous losses for the productive sector and
for Brazilian society," the statement said.
It called for an agreement on rules for global carbon
markets, a main sticking point in past U.N. negotiations.
At the most recent major U.N. climate summit in 2019,
countries failed to come to an agreement on carbon markets with
Brazil, Australia and other countries refusing to drop a demand
to carry over credits from old carbon trading schemes.
The letter also urged Brazil to take action to stop illegal
Amazon rainforest destruction.
Deforestation and fires in Brazil's Amazon surged after
Bolsonaro took office in 2019, causing an international outcry
that the right-wing president was not doing enough to stop the
devastation.
Deforestation hit a 12-year high in 2020 with an area nearly
14 times the size of New York City destroyed.
In August, Environment Minister Joaquim Pereira Leite
signaled a change in policy that included doubling the
environmental enforcement budgets and hiring some 700
environmental agency workers.
Bolsonaro told the U.N. General Assembly in a speech last
week that Brazil is committed to conservation and vowed to
combat illegal deforestation, although environmental groups said
they were skeptical that the conciliatory tone represented a
real shift in policy.
(Reporting by Jake Spring; Editing by Angus MacSwan)
