‘The dinosaurs didn’t know what was coming, but we do’: Marina Silva on what needs to follow Cop30
Soon after I returned home to Altamira from Cop30, I found myself talking about dinosaurs, meteors and “ambassadors of harm” with Brazil’s environment minister, Marina Silva.No one in government knows the rainforest better than Marina, as she is best known in Brazil, who was born and raised in the Amazon. No one is more aware of the sacrifices that environmental and land defenders have made than this associate of the murdered activist Chico Mendes. And no one worked harder to raise ambition at Cop30, the first climate summit in the Amazon, than her. So what, I asked, had it achieved?“This Cop revealed the truth that efforts until now have been insufficient,” she told me in a video call from Brasilia. “Our climate efforts continue, as ever, to buy time when we have no more time.”In a tearful and defiant address to the closing plenary of the conference in Belém, Marina had told applauding delegates that she – like many others – had dreamed of achieving more when they attended the 1992 Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit, which set up UN conventions for the climate, biodiversity and desertification. What had she meant by that?The then US president, George HW Bush, signs the Earth pledge at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. Photograph: M Frustino/AP“Reality itself says we did less than was necessary,” she replied. “But what gives us hope is we managed to maintain the connection between dream and action during these 30 or so years. If we didn’t have the Paris agreement and the efforts that preceded it, the planet would be on course for 4C of warming [above preindustrial levels].“Thanks to these efforts, global heating hasn’t reached that level and if that were to be counted in lives, in food systems, in energy systems, in technological advances, we would see that we have had many gains, that we have avoided many catastrophes, that we have saved many lives, many portions of food, and we have managed to preserve more areas of land from being totally devastated by desertification or by the rise in sea levels.“But our efforts are still insufficient. And now there is no more room for insufficiency, only a tiny crack for action remains. And when possibilities narrow, efforts to broaden them must be carried out with all speed, intensity and quality.”No one in the Amazon could doubt the need for urgency. The rainforest has dried up like never before in the past three years. On the way home, I was horrified to see a new stretch of forest had been burned along the side of the road during the three weeks I had been away.Marina said she had hoped that visitors to the Belém conference would see that a climate collapse was already under way in the rainforest. “Having a tropical forest that is losing humidity is science materialised in three dimensions: mighty rivers that dry up for long periods, to the point of killing the fish, harming biodiversity and isolating populations that have always remained integrated with each other through natural water channels,” she said. “I think Cop30 in the Amazon was a place to demonstrate and denounce what is happening and a place to initiate a response.”Houseboats and other vessels stranded at David’s Marina in October 2023, when the water level at the Rio Negro river port hit its lowest in 121 years. Photograph: Bruno Kelly/ReutersThe response came in the form of a bold move, supported by more than 80 countries and civil society, which dominated debate in Belém – a push to set a course for a just and planned transition away from fossil fuels and deforestation. It was backed by climatologists, championed by Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and largely orchestrated by Marina.The plan was cut from the final mutirão or joint decision – along with all mention of fossil fuels – after opposition from Saudi Arabia and other oil-producing states.But the idea of creating roadmaps to reduce dependency on oil, coal and gas will be taken forward by the Brazilian Cop presidency over the coming year. Marina insisted this was a great start. “The scientific community is celebrating that finally something has been put on the table to debate what really matters,” she said. “We recognise the outcome was not yet enough, but we must also recognise that what was put on the table is the response that we should have been working on for the past 30-odd years.”Each country should choose its own speed, she said. Oil and coal producers might need to move more slowly, but everyone needs to move in the same direction: “Being fair does not detract from the need to act. Being fair is just the basis on which we will take action.”skip past newsletter promotionThe planet's most important stories. Get all the week's environment news - the good, the bad and the essentialPrivacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.after newsletter promotionThe power of extractivist economic interests to delay and reverse climate action has also been apparent in Brazil. Congress, which is dominated by agribusiness interests, overturned several of Lula’s vetoes of a controversial bill to dilute environmental licensing just days after Cop30.Given these forces, how could governments ever push forward progressive policies on the climate and nature? For Marina, it is necessary to go to a deeper level of values. Ultimately, she said, it is a matter of survival – not just of an individual or a species, but the very conditions in which life is possible.Compared with the huge efforts to preserve the economic system after the 2008 financial crisis and the Covid-19 pandemic, and the immense military spending under way in Europe, itwas incredible how little was going into the campaign to stabilise the climate and nature, she said. “Something is wrong. And it’s not just wrong with the dynamics of multilateralism. It’s wrong with the ethical values that are guiding our decisions.“Recently we moved to confront the problem of Covid-19. Why are we only able to do this when the harm has already been done? Why don’t we show that ability when the problem has been detected and proven and already sending us its most malevolent ambassadors in the form of fires, heatwaves, ever-more-intense typhoons and hurricanes, loss of areas that were previously used to produce food and reduction in hydroelectric power generation capacity?“The visits of these sinister ambassadors should be enough for us to make preparations in a way the dinosaurs were unable to do. They didn’t know a large meteor was coming towards them. We know what is coming towards us, we know what needs to be done and we have the means to do it, yet we don’t take the necessary measures.”Marina is planning to do all she can to change that. The Brazilian government will push forward with a debate on roadmaps to halt deforestation and fossil fuels. It will participate in the first international conference on a just transition away from oil, coal and gas in Colombia next year.And it will try to lead by example, she says. “I am inspired by the fact we have reduced deforestation by 50% in the Amazon and agribusiness has grown by 17% in the last three years. This demonstrates it is possible to do this,” she said. “If we are not determined to achieve, we will apparently remain in the same place. And I say apparently because we are already heading towards an unthinkable place, where the very conditions of life are diminished.”
Exclusive: Brazil’s environment minister talks about climate inaction and the course we have to plot to save ourselves and the planetSoon after I returned home to Altamira from Cop30, I found myself talking about dinosaurs, meteors and “ambassadors of harm” with Brazil’s environment minister, Marina Silva.No one in government knows the rainforest better than Marina, as she is best known in Brazil, who was born and raised in the Amazon. No one is more aware of the sacrifices that environmental and land defenders have made than this associate of the murdered activist Chico Mendes. And no one worked harder to raise ambition at Cop30, the first climate summit in the Amazon, than her. So what, I asked, had it achieved? Continue reading...
Soon after I returned home to Altamira from Cop30, I found myself talking about dinosaurs, meteors and “ambassadors of harm” with Brazil’s environment minister, Marina Silva.
No one in government knows the rainforest better than Marina, as she is best known in Brazil, who was born and raised in the Amazon. No one is more aware of the sacrifices that environmental and land defenders have made than this associate of the murdered activist Chico Mendes. And no one worked harder to raise ambition at Cop30, the first climate summit in the Amazon, than her. So what, I asked, had it achieved?
“This Cop revealed the truth that efforts until now have been insufficient,” she told me in a video call from Brasilia. “Our climate efforts continue, as ever, to buy time when we have no more time.”
In a tearful and defiant address to the closing plenary of the conference in Belém, Marina had told applauding delegates that she – like many others – had dreamed of achieving more when they attended the 1992 Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit, which set up UN conventions for the climate, biodiversity and desertification. What had she meant by that?
“Reality itself says we did less than was necessary,” she replied. “But what gives us hope is we managed to maintain the connection between dream and action during these 30 or so years. If we didn’t have the Paris agreement and the efforts that preceded it, the planet would be on course for 4C of warming [above preindustrial levels].
“Thanks to these efforts, global heating hasn’t reached that level and if that were to be counted in lives, in food systems, in energy systems, in technological advances, we would see that we have had many gains, that we have avoided many catastrophes, that we have saved many lives, many portions of food, and we have managed to preserve more areas of land from being totally devastated by desertification or by the rise in sea levels.
“But our efforts are still insufficient. And now there is no more room for insufficiency, only a tiny crack for action remains. And when possibilities narrow, efforts to broaden them must be carried out with all speed, intensity and quality.”
No one in the Amazon could doubt the need for urgency. The rainforest has dried up like never before in the past three years. On the way home, I was horrified to see a new stretch of forest had been burned along the side of the road during the three weeks I had been away.
Marina said she had hoped that visitors to the Belém conference would see that a climate collapse was already under way in the rainforest. “Having a tropical forest that is losing humidity is science materialised in three dimensions: mighty rivers that dry up for long periods, to the point of killing the fish, harming biodiversity and isolating populations that have always remained integrated with each other through natural water channels,” she said. “I think Cop30 in the Amazon was a place to demonstrate and denounce what is happening and a place to initiate a response.”
The response came in the form of a bold move, supported by more than 80 countries and civil society, which dominated debate in Belém – a push to set a course for a just and planned transition away from fossil fuels and deforestation. It was backed by climatologists, championed by Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and largely orchestrated by Marina.
The plan was cut from the final mutirão or joint decision – along with all mention of fossil fuels – after opposition from Saudi Arabia and other oil-producing states.
But the idea of creating roadmaps to reduce dependency on oil, coal and gas will be taken forward by the Brazilian Cop presidency over the coming year. Marina insisted this was a great start. “The scientific community is celebrating that finally something has been put on the table to debate what really matters,” she said. “We recognise the outcome was not yet enough, but we must also recognise that what was put on the table is the response that we should have been working on for the past 30-odd years.”
Each country should choose its own speed, she said. Oil and coal producers might need to move more slowly, but everyone needs to move in the same direction: “Being fair does not detract from the need to act. Being fair is just the basis on which we will take action.”
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The power of extractivist economic interests to delay and reverse climate action has also been apparent in Brazil. Congress, which is dominated by agribusiness interests, overturned several of Lula’s vetoes of a controversial bill to dilute environmental licensing just days after Cop30.
Given these forces, how could governments ever push forward progressive policies on the climate and nature? For Marina, it is necessary to go to a deeper level of values. Ultimately, she said, it is a matter of survival – not just of an individual or a species, but the very conditions in which life is possible.
Compared with the huge efforts to preserve the economic system after the 2008 financial crisis and the Covid-19 pandemic, and the immense military spending under way in Europe, itwas incredible how little was going into the campaign to stabilise the climate and nature, she said. “Something is wrong. And it’s not just wrong with the dynamics of multilateralism. It’s wrong with the ethical values that are guiding our decisions.
“Recently we moved to confront the problem of Covid-19. Why are we only able to do this when the harm has already been done? Why don’t we show that ability when the problem has been detected and proven and already sending us its most malevolent ambassadors in the form of fires, heatwaves, ever-more-intense typhoons and hurricanes, loss of areas that were previously used to produce food and reduction in hydroelectric power generation capacity?
“The visits of these sinister ambassadors should be enough for us to make preparations in a way the dinosaurs were unable to do. They didn’t know a large meteor was coming towards them. We know what is coming towards us, we know what needs to be done and we have the means to do it, yet we don’t take the necessary measures.”
Marina is planning to do all she can to change that. The Brazilian government will push forward with a debate on roadmaps to halt deforestation and fossil fuels. It will participate in the first international conference on a just transition away from oil, coal and gas in Colombia next year.
And it will try to lead by example, she says. “I am inspired by the fact we have reduced deforestation by 50% in the Amazon and agribusiness has grown by 17% in the last three years. This demonstrates it is possible to do this,” she said. “If we are not determined to achieve, we will apparently remain in the same place. And I say apparently because we are already heading towards an unthinkable place, where the very conditions of life are diminished.”