1. Introduction
With the end of the Cold War, after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the fragmentation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) in 1991, the international agenda to combat “communism” gives way to discussions of new and old themes such as: world hunger, poverty eradication, environmental degradation, and international terrorism. The feeling was that capitalism had triumphed as the hegemonic production system, under the aegis of the United States of North America (US). It was the beginning of what is conventionally called a new world order, a virtually unipolar order.
About environmental degradation, in the following year, 1992, was held the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, also known as Rio 92, the first large meeting promoted by the United Nations (UN) after the beginning of the new world order. At this conference, the need to establish regulatory norms for the relations between the Nation-States about environmental issues was identified. The set of institutions, documents, agreements, treaties, and rules that provide for the regulation of human actions on the climate, which go beyond the borders of National-States, is known as the environmental order of climate change, which in turn is part of the international environmental order.
Concern about environmental degradation has increased since the late 1960s and from the 1970s onwards, when environmental disasters occurred causing thousands of deaths and drawing the world’s attention. Since then, the scientific community and international organizations have been warning of the need for reforms in the production and consumption systems to preserve the Earth.1
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Report released in August 2021 gives a high alert. The planet is warming up and man is the main responsible for the catastrophic changes that are taking place in the world. António Guterres, UN secretary general, commenting on the report, warns that “the alarms are deafening, and the evidence is irrefutable: the greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels and deforestation are suffocating our planet and putting billions of people at immediate risk. Global warming is affecting all regions of the Earth and many of the changes are becoming irreversible”.2
Among the main human activities that cause global warming and consequently climate change, the following stand out: the burning of fossil fuels (oil derivatives, mineral coal, and natural gas) for energy generation, industrial activities, and transport; conversion of land use and forests (deforestation and burning for transformation into pastures); agriculture and livestock; disposal of solid waste (garbage). All these activities emit large amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2) and greenhouse gases (GHG).
Brazil and China have had a long-standing partnership in defending their countries’ right to development and occupy a leading position with developing countries in confronting advanced countries, in the search for more sustainable ways to combat climate change without harming the growth of their economies and the well-being of their citizens. It is interesting to examine the history of this partnership, and what are the perspectives of joint action in the ‘green retake’ after Covid-19 pandemic.
2. Revisiting the participation of China and Brazil in the international environmental order of climate change
Brazil and China are key players in the international environmental order of climate change, and they have been acting together for quite a long time.
On the external front, they collude in the G 77 – collective created on June 15, 1964, by the “Joint Declaration of the Seventy-Seven Countries” issued at the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). With 77 founding members, all developing countries, the organization was formed aimed at promoting the joint economic interests of its members and creating greater negotiating capacity within the United Nations institutions. Today, it brings together 135 countries that seek to ensure their domestic interests in economic growth, defending national sovereignty and the right to development, respecting the principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities”.3 They operate under the strong influence of two major players, China and India, two great emerging powers. The G77 became the largest negotiating group at the different United Nations Climate Change Conferences (known from time to time as the Conferences of the Parties – COP).
China, currently the second largest Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the world economy, and the main emitter of greenhouse gases, has great interest in remaining in the group to enjoy the advantages arising from its classification as a developing or late developing country. Its position in the negotiations has always been to guarantee, internationally, the absence of targets for reducing GHG emissions, as a strategy to protect its interest in economic development, considered a domestic priority for the Chinese government.
It was in 1990 that IPCC, launched in 1988, recommended the creation of a convention that would establish the basis for international cooperation on technical and political issues related to global warming. During the convention’s negotiating process, the principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities” was one of the bases for drafting the document and for structuring the international environmental order on climate change. The argument was that developed countries, historically liable for GHG emissions and the resulting climate change, were responsible for taking the lead in substantially reducing emissions and providing financial and technical support to developing countries.
In 1992, the text of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was finalized and opened for signature during the International Conference on Environment and Development, held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (Rio 92). Signed and ratified by 175 countries, the UNFCC aimed at stabilizing the emission of greenhouse gases (GHG). According to the convention, climate change was recognized as an issue that required the efforts of all countries to effectively address it.
For a long time, since Rio 92, and in the twenty five COPs that followed from 1995, China acted in defense of its position in a very forceful way and became one of the protagonists of the debates about climate change and its confrontation.
COP-3, held in Kyoto, Japan, in 1999, was very important because it led to the signing of the Kyoto Protocol – one of the main global agreements related to reducing the emission of GHG. About 141 representatives from different countries participated, but the protocol was ratified by only 55. The USA, at the time the largest emitter of GHG at that time, refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. For President George W. Bush, the goals established by the protocol would possibly harm the country’s economy. He also questioned the fact that there were no targets for developing countries. The treaty entered into force on February 16, 2004, after Russian ratification.
Industrialized countries, according to the Protocol, should reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 5.2%, especially carbon dioxide (CO2), based on the emission levels recorded in 1990. For Japan and the European Union, reductions of 7% to 8%, respectively, were established until 2012. Developing countries, such as China, Brazil, and India, did not receive targets and obligations to reduce their emissions. Therefore, the efforts would be through the “voluntary” initiatives of each country.
The Protocol proposes some actions, especially for developed countries, so that the goals are achieved. They are:
• Reform of the energy sector and the transport sector.
• Use of renewable energy sources.
• Reduction of methane emissions.
• Combating deforestation.
• Protection of forests.
• Promotion of sustainable forms of agriculture.
• Cooperation between countries on sharing information about new technologies.
From the Kyoto Protocol, what became known as the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) was created. The CDM is a flexibility within the Protocol that provides for certified emission reductions. In other words, countries now have alternatives to achieve their emission reduction targets through trading on the carbon credit market. Carbon Credits are acquired by countries that achieve reduction targets, thus obtaining the right to sell them to other countries that have not yet met their targets. The Carbon Credit is generated for each ton of carbon not released into the atmosphere. Countries that exceed emissions and do not reach the targets can establish projects that provide real and long-term benefits in terms of reducing emissions in developing countries. Thus, these countries, despite not having achieved their goals, end up managing to reduce gas emissions by operating in a sustainable manner in other countries. This reduction is then converted into Carbon Credits.
Ten years later, at the Conference of the Parties number 15 (COP-15), held in Copenhagen, Denmark, between December 7th and 18th, 2009, no new emission targets for after 2012 were set because there was no agreement. Brazil had an important leadership position in this conference: President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was the intermediary of divergences between the United States of America (under the presidency of Barack Obama) and China (under the presidency of Hu Jintao). It was at this COP that the BASIC bloc (composed of Brazil, South Africa, India, and China) emerged aimed at acting jointly in this COP and with the purpose of being a bridge between developed countries and the G77.
In 2013, the COP-19 took place in Warsaw, Poland. It was agreed that emission targets were necessary for all and would be based on nationally determined contributions (NDC) submitted by the parties on a voluntary basis.
As of 2014, at the COP-20 held in Lima, Peru, there was a change of position with the acceptance of the establishment of generalized quantitative targets, while maintaining the principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities” and NDCs for reducing emissions. Once again China was victorious and postponed a stricter commitment. With an energy matrix that accounts for around 70%, coal, the most polluting among fossil fuels, and with GDP growing at more than 7% a year, it was difficult for China to take on vigorous targets.
But it was COP-21 of 2015, held in Paris, France, between November 30th and December 12th, with the participation of heads of state (or representatives) from 197 countries that led to a real modification in relation to the previous ones. An agreement (known as the Paris Agreement) was signed between the nations, in which they committed to implement changes, based on national quantitative targets, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2025 or 2030, with revisions every five years. Many experts, and even the governments of some countries themselves, did not believe in the efficiency of the Kyoto Protocol, as it provided targets only for developed countries. Developing countries defended that the Paris Agreement should also follow the principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities”, which implies contributing according to each one’s capacities.
The Paris Agreement, 16 years after the Kyoto Protocol, imposed quantitative targets for all nations with a much greater rigor than that imposed by the old Protocol. It represented an advance in the global efforts to implement the convention and maintain the international climate regime. Two goals were agreed: to limit the planet’s maximum warming to an average temperature below 2°Celsius by the year 2100, making efforts to limit the temperature rise to 1.5°C; increase the planet’s ability to adapt to the adverse effects of climate change that cannot be avoided. The agreement would come into force when at least 55 countries, responsible for 55% of GHG emissions ratify it, the same rule as the Kyoto Protocol. It would be implemented from 2020 on
The new agreement innovates in relation to the Kyoto Protocol, as the GHG emission reduction commitments are established by the countries parties themselves, based on the NDC, voluntarily determined, as agreed in Warsaw, during COP 19 in 2014.
The document is vague regarding the definition of how and with what resources such objectives would be achieved. Nevertheless, developed countries have committed to guarantee funding of 100 billion dollars a year, starting in 2020, to ensure implementation and continuity of mitigation actions, technical assistance and technology transfer.
The United States ratified the Paris Agreement. However, under President Donald Trump’s denial, the US decided to withdraw for not believing that emissions are directly linked to issues such as global warming. For Trump, environmental laws hamper economic growth and are responsible for the loss of jobs in the US. Under the Presidency of Joe Biden, which began in 2021, the US joined the Agreement again.
As a participant in COP-21 and the Paris Agreement, Brazil made commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Among these commitments is a 37% reduction in emissions of these gases by 2025, expanding the reduction to 43% by the year 2030, based on 2005 emissions. Carbon neutrality4 would be achieved in 2060. Brazil advocates the adoption of remuneration mechanisms for the environmental services provided by our biomes to the planet, to recognize the economic nature of conservation activities. According to data from the Ministry of the Environment, emissions in Brazil, between 2016 and 2017, after the Paris Agreement, were reduced by 2.6 billion tons, and this was only possible due to the conservation areas that preserve the forests.
Among the main goals established by the Brazilian government to adapt to the requirements of sustainable development are:
• Expand the use of alternative energy sources.
• Increase the share of renewable bioenergy in the Brazilian energy matrix to 18% by 2030.
• Use clean technologies in industries.
• Improve transport infrastructure.
• Electrification of the Transport Sector.
• Low carbon agriculture.
• Decrease deforestation.
• Restore and reforest up to 12 million hectares.
In the recent period, under President Jair Bolsonaro, from 2019 onwards, these concerns have been relaxed in the same direction as Donald Trump, the president’s main international ally. Deforestation has advanced, but fortunately we are at the forefront in sustainable agriculture and in maintaining a relatively clean energy matrix. Recently, in April 2021, in a speech at the Climate Leaders’ Summit convened by US President Joe Biden, marking the US return to the Paris Agreement, President Jair Bolsonaro expressed his commitment for Brazil to achieve carbon neutrality in 2050, anticipating by ten years the responsibility assumed in the Paris Agreement and he also announced the intention of ending illegal deforestation by 2030. However, the international community is skeptical about the promises of a government considered uncommitted to the environmental issue.
China, in the Paris Agreement, insisted on its argument that it still must make up for lost time in relation to the West, in terms of industrialization and improving the living conditions of its population, and for that reason they could not drastically reduce emissions. But domestically, it is known that China has been taking a series of measures to grow without making the same mistakes as developed countries. Its energy matrix has progressed in terms of replacing coal by renewable energy sources such as solar and wind energy. Coal is still China’s main energy source, although its share in the country’s energy matrix has been falling. It went from 70.2% in 2003 to 57.7% in 2019.
COP-21 exposed the fragility of the G77 by explaining its internal differences. China is increasingly being urged by the international community to assume stricter goals in tackling climate change, as it advances as an emerging country, with its economy being the fastest growing in the world. India follows a similar path, distancing itself from the G77 countries. At COP-21, US President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged to work together to push forward an agreement to combat climate change. These efforts never materialized with the election of Donald Trump in 2016.
In the following COPs, from the 22nd COP to the 25th COP, the representatives of the countries dedicated themselves to the regulation for the accomplishment of the Paris Agreement. It is important to highlight the difficulty and time spent in negotiations for the agreements to become real and effective decarbonization practices be implemented. It seems to be clear that either we act now, or the impacts of the climate crisis will be dramatic and affect the lives of all of us inhabitants of planet Earth.
The COP-26, which will be held in Glasgow, Scotland, between November 1st and 12th, 2021, will address the goals agreed in the 2015 Paris Agreement. The domestically determined contributions (NDC) of each of the 196 signatory countries of the Agreement will be presented and evaluated. The meeting was supposed to occur in 2020 but, because of the Covid-19 pandemic, it was postponed. There is great expectation regarding this COP, given the worrying situation of recent extreme climatic and meteorological events – excessive heat, fires, floods, droughts, cyclones, tsunamis, tornados, melting glaciers, rising sea levels, hurricanes, etc., portrayed in the last IPCC report of August 2021.
For the first time, the United States has been manifesting itself more forcefully and, apparently, will defend more severe decarbonization policies. “The world must come together before the ability to limit global warming to 1.5ºC is out of reach,” said John Kerry – US Special Secretary and Biden’s top international climate agenda official, in response to the IPCC report. “What the world demands now is real action. We can get to the low-carbon economy we urgently need, but time is not on our side.” Glasgow “must be a turning point in this crisis” where all major economies will commit to “aggressive” climate action over the next decade. 5
In his address to the UN General Assembly on September 22, 2020, China’s President Xi Jinping announced that the country will increase the scale of its NDC to combat climate change. China plans to adopt stronger policies and measures to peak carbon dioxide emissions before 2030 and carbon neutrality before 2060, as announced in the Paris Agreement.
According to the Chinese Ambassador to Brazil, Yang Wanming,
China is working to achieve ambitious goals. In the next five years, for each unit of GDP, energy consumption will fall by 13.5%, and carbon dioxide emissions will decrease by 18%, while the forest cover rate will increase to 24.1%. The country seeks to reach the peak of CO2 emissions before 2030, when the emission per unit of GDP will decrease by at least 65% over 2005, and non-fossil fuels will account for about 25% of primary energy consumption. In addition, the forest stock is expected to increase by 6 billion cubic meters compared to 2005. To this end, China will accelerate the optimization of the industrial structure and the energy matrix, in accordance with the green and low carbon concepts, promoting an innovation in technology, economic activities and business models. With this, it is expected to form a new paradigm of modernization in which man develops in harmony with nature.6
These initiatives are expressed in China’s 14th Five-Year Plan for the period 2021-2025.
Brazil’s position, at this time, boils down to a 37% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2025 and an expansion of the reduction to 43% by the year 2030, based on the year 2005, as initially proposed in the Paris Agreement. There was a sign, recently, of the country’s willingness to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. President Jair Bolsonaro’s alignment with Donald Trump somewhat delayed the initiatives that were underway in previous governments. But governments, we know they pass.
3. Final Considerations
There are countless benefits that Brazil and China can enjoy if they share some strategies in the journey towards the ‘green recovery’, prioritizing and encouraging joint initiatives in the search for sustainable development. China’s 14th Five-Year Plan gives unmistakable signs that it will work towards a green recovery. The United States changed its position after Joe Biden’s victory for the presidency. In Brazil, we still must deal with a president who, in addition to relapse in measures to combat the Covid-19 pandemic manifests prejudice in relation to China. Asians and Asian communities are marked as carriers and contaminated by the virus, subject to verbal aggression and violence, led by the president himself in numerous speeches blaming China for the spread of the virus, and mocking the Coronavac vaccine, developed by the Asian country and produced in Brazil, in partnership with the prestigious Brazilian Butantan Institute. Should we hope for joint action?
Footnotes:
(1) On environmental disasters, causes and consequences from the Industrial Revolution that took place at the end of the 18th century, see Crisla Maciel Pott and Carina Costa Estrela, Histórico ambiental: desastres ambientais e o despertar de um novo pensamento, Dilemas ambientais e fronteiras do conhecimento II Estud. av. 31 (89), Jan-Apr 2017 • https://doi.org/10.1590/s0103-40142017.31890021
(2) The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC, was created by the United Nations Environment Program (UN Environment) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in 1988 with the objective of providing policy makers regular scientific assessments of climate change, its implications, and possible future risks, as well as to propose adaptation and mitigation options. Currently, the IPCC has 195 member countries, including Brazil and China.
For the 2021 report, see IPCC. Climate Change 2021, The Physical Science Basis, 08/09/2021
https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_WGI_Full_Report.pdf
(3) The principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities”, enshrined in Rio 92, breaks with the norm of legal equality between sovereign states by establishing that: everyone has the duty to promote ways to combat environmental degradation, however, the largest emitters of greenhouse gases, which are the developed countries, must bear the higher costs. The argument is that developed countries have historical responsibilities for climate change and must take the lead in substantially reducing emissions, providing financial and technical support to developing countries so that they can grow in the face of the challenges of poverty eradication and improvement, the quality of life of its peoples, the protection of the environment and the confrontation of climate change resulting from the acceleration of growth.
(4) Carbon neutrality happens when the country’s emissions are 100% offset by mechanisms that absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
(5) https://www.cnnbrasil.com.br/internacional/2021/08/09/alto-escalao-do-governo-biden-reage-a-relatorio-do-ipcc-e-o-alerta-final.
(6) http://br.china-embassy.org/eng/sghds/t1869970.htm