With only one day difference, last May, congresses in Brazil and the US approved measures that seriously compromise the efforts to protect the environment and the reduction of emissions of
When reading the news, the expressions occurred to the “Double Whammy” expressions and the most formal “to Add Insult Over Injury” (add insults to the wound). Perhaps decades living with the English language at work, in films and readings have created this involuntary mental trigger – not that this would slow down a polyglot friend: we lost 10% of our IQ as we express ourselves in another language.
In the US, the House of Representatives approved by 215 to 214 votes which abruptly ends tax credits for low -carbon electricity sources and dramatically reduces incentives to develop green technologies, plummeting companies in the sector and feeding fears of increased energy prices. The package, whose official name is – PASMEM! – (Obbba, the great and wonderful bill), still needs the senate’s endorsement.
In Brazil, it was the Senate that approved, which, with the correct justification of modernizing and flexing the process of approval of enterprises, incorporated essentially political devices that end up weakening it to the point of making it ineffective.
Among them, the permission for medium -sized projects to begin with self -declaration and a last -minute jabuti – the special environmental license – which allows the use of “potentially causing significant degradation” resource in projects considered priority by the Council of Government.
Both approvals, still preliminary, were fuse of virulent public confrontations. In Brazil, Environment Minister Marina Silva was disrespected at a Senate hearing. In the US, there was, which referred to Obbba as “disgusting aberration.”
The most attentive reader may be strange that I have not included among the negative news – the step required for the prospecting license.
I believe it is the role of Ibama to proceed to the strict technical analysis of the environmental risks arising from the enterprise. This is not a simple task: just remember the huge difficulties in the 2010, where the leak lasted five months to 1.5 km deep. In the case under analysis, the well will be 2.8 km, with even more complex currents. Still, it is essential to respect governance and trust the technical capacity of Ibama.
The reasons for opposition to the project are strategic – the loss of prestige of our diplomacy in negotiations to establish a global order in the low carbon cycle, which are expected to gain far superior to the country – and economic: the risk of a project whose return will be more than ten years ahead, in a probable scenario of demand and price of falling oil. The responsibility for evaluating these risks is up to the executive, not to Ibama.
There is also the possibility that all this discussion is in vain and there is no oil in that area. The Guyana that today thrives with exploration is the old English Guyana, the farthest in the region. In French Guiana, neighboring the mouth of the Amazon, Total Energies ended the activities without finding oil.
But let us return to the double impact we started. It is to me that we have a much more picturesque and proper expression: “Beyond the fall, the kick.”
Well, spatiated and hidden, I decided to go to the liner. I remembered another English expression that contains the idea of duality: “Dual Track”. It is a common expression in the financial market, used, for example, when a company tries to raise capital by two alternative and concomitant paths: opening of capital in the stock market (IPO) and search for strategic investor.
In combating global warming, the parallel approach would involve the diplomatic path, which has been sought hard, but only relative since the meeting. In this way, the alignment of countries is sought to the commitment to reduce gee emissions to zero. A big step has been taken with ten years ago, but since then progress has been slow, with many countries procrastinating the dissemination of their NDCs (nationally defined contributions), and the setback suffered with.
The parallel path to be traveled simultaneously would be that of the so -called “climate litigation”. While diplomacy aims at convincing nations, climate litigation would aim at issuing companies. Carbon Majors Database 2024 data point to only 57 companies responsible for 80% of GGE global emissions.
The potential scope of this strategy can be inferred from the “executive order” recently issued by the US Executive, which considers criminal actions against oil companies a “threat to national security”.
In 2021, Shell was convicted in the Netherlands to reduce its emissions by 45% by 2030, in a process of environmental organizations. The company resorted, and a. These are the reasons for annulment that feed my hope that the legal way can be more effective than the diplomatic.
Essentially, the Court of Appeals considered that there was no clear legal basis to define an exact percentage of reduction for a specific company and, more importantly, it was ineffective to impose restrictive measures in this case, as other companies would supply the market, nullifying the global effect.
These arguments would fall apart if it was possible to move an action against all 57 companies simultaneously. Being so high the risk that it threatens us and so many brains and resources applied to combat warming, there will certainly be legal talent and creativity capable of engender such a strategy.
The version in our language for “Dual Track”, in this case, could be an expression we all know: “If it doesn’t go well, go wrong.”
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