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Hours before boarding for Acre to participate in the 15th Annual Meeting of the Governors’ Task Force for Climate and Forests (GCF Task Force), Acrean Marina Silva, Minister of Environment and Climate Change, said in São Paulo, “international negotiations may be harmed” about the project that loosely environmental licensing and approved by the Senate. The minister’s statement was given at a public forest concession auction for forest management in São Paulo on Wednesday (21).
This year’s GCF Task Force is being held in Rio Branco from Monday (20) until tomorrow, Friday (23), at the Convention Center of the Federal University of Acre (Ufac). In Acre, the minister should claim to have “total disagreement” with the advance of proposals in the National Congress that make environmental rules more flexible, especially in licensing. “The changes represent a setback that threatens both the climate commitments of Brazil and trade agreements in negotiation, such as Mercosur and the European Union,” said the minister in Sao Paulo and should repeat it if confirmed her coming to Acre, where she began her political career.
Earlier this month, two Senate commissions approved a bill that flexes the rules for environmental licensing and creates a new milestone for regularization of economic activities. The proposal has been in an unusual way, with a joint report of environmental and agriculture committees. According to the minister, it is possible to produce agility in the licensing process without loss of quality.
The minister will attend the meeting this Friday/ Photo: Bruno Spada
“The problem is that men may even make it flexed from the point of view of the legislation. But nature does not observe and does not consider these flexibilities. What contaminates the waters will continue to contaminate the same way. What produces CO2 emission will continue to issue and warm the planet. And the indirect impacts are being disregarded for the licensing process, we have highly deleterious. Being produced, ”said Marina Silva, after forest management auction on the stock exchange in São Paulo.
Marina Silva also said that the government, through Senator Jaques Wagner (PT), government leader, and allied benches, seeks to negotiate to prevent setbacks. She argues that projects like this pass “a signal” to other countries and have an impact not only on CO2 reduction goals, but on negotiation processes between Mercosur and the European Union.
“It is a change that is being passed. And the government is very concerned about all this, because we want to safeguard the economic interest, the social interest, the environmental and geopolitical interest of our country,” he said.
Another point of concern in the Senate approved bill is the automatic renewal for activities considered as low or medium polluting potential. “If you can imagine what happened in Brumadinho, for example, and Mariana, who were considered medium impact ventures, what most affected were, so say, a series of indirect impacts that to this day we have to deal with them, obviously not considering the impact of all, which was the loss of people’s lives.”
Asked about the statement of Petrobras president Magda Chambriard, who said “Let’s Drill, Baby!” During an event in the United States where he defended the oil exploration of the Brazilian equatorial margin, ranging from Foz do Amazonas to Rio Grande do Norte, in a clear reference to the phrase popularized by Donald Trump, “Drill, Baby, Drill” -, Minister Marina Silva avoided direct comments, but responded ironic, mentioning other phrases of famous authors: “ Your. I prefer to use other references. Victor Hugo, for example: nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come. We have to change the development model, make energy transition, but I will not make comment, I can only speak of references to repeat sentences, as we should not destroy the conditions in which life was given.
What changes in environmental licensing
One of the main changes provided for the end of the so -called three -phase process, currently in force, in which environmental licensing is traditionally divided into three phases: Prior License (LP), Installation License (LI) and Operating License (LO). This process could be replaced by the Single Environmental License (LAU), which attests to a single step the installation capacity, expansion of the activity/enterprise.
Another point of change concerns the need for the Environmental Impact Study (EIA) to evaluate the possible impacts of the activity or enterprise in the environment. By the new text, entrepreneurs will be able to issue a License for Commitment Adhesion (LAC), which dispenses with the need for detailed analysis by environmental agencies – except high environmental impact activities.
One of the main reasons for controversy concerns the automatic renewal of environmental licenses. Currently, entrepreneurs need to periodically revalidate their licenses. From the rules approved in the Senate committees, automatic renewal is valid for activities considered as low or medium polluting potential.
There are also changes regarding penalties for those who commit the crime of building or reforming polluting works or services without environmental license. In this case, the rules were hardened, as the penalty jumps from one to six months in prison to six months to two years in prison or fine, or both cumulatively. The penalty may double, if the enterprise licensing is subject to the previous study of environmental impact
