Amazon focus as Germany’s Scholz to meet Lula in Brazil

Germany promised an additional 31 million euros ($33 million) for the Brazilian Amazon ahead of a visit Monday by Chancellor Olaf Scholz to the South American giant reeling from rainforest destruction under ex-president Jair Bolsonaro.

Protection of the Amazon — a crucial sink for planet-warming carbon dioxide — was high on the agenda for talks with new President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva that would also aim to “deepen the resumption of relations,” according to the Brazilian presidency.

Scholz will be the first German chancellor to visit Brazil since 2015, and the first Western leader to meet leftist Lula since he became president on January 1 after four years of frosty relations with Brazil under far-right Bolsonaro.

Shortly before Scholz’s scheduled arrival in the capital Brasilia, German economic cooperation minister Svenja Schulze announced her country would make the additional funding contribution to Amazon preservation after “difficult years”.

This was on top of a pledge it made earlier this year of a 35-million-euro payment to an Amazon protection fund.

Germany, along with the fund’s biggest donor Norway, had halted payments after deforestation surged under climate-sceptic Bolsonaro.

“Brazil is the lung of the world. If it has problems, we all have to help it,” Schulze said at a press conference in Brasilia with Lula’s new environment minister Marina Silva.

Bolsonaro’s four-year term was marked by a surge in fires and clear-cutting in the rainforest.

Average annual deforestation on his watch rose by 59.5 percent from the previous four years, and by 75.5 percent from the previous decade, according to government figures.

The issue was also a major sticking point in a trade deal between the European Union and trade bloc Mercosur, comprised of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay.

The blocks reached an agreement in 2019 following 20 years of talks, but it has not yet been ratified.

Scholz, who visited Chile and Argentina before heading to Brazil, said in Buenos Aires on Saturday a “quick conclusion” was needed to the trade deal impasse, adding that with Lula in place, “we are in a better position.”

Lula had presided over a sharp drop in deforestation when he previously led Brazil from 2003 to 2010, and has vowed to reboot environmental protection.

He has said it was “urgent” for a deal to be concluded, but stressed on the campaign trail that further negotiation was needed to ensure Brazil does not lose out on “our interest in reindustrializing.” 

Energy is also on the agenda for talks between the leaders of Europe and South America’s biggest economies.

German business is seeking new opportunities overseas following the economic shock caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and as concerns grow about reliance on China.

All three countries on Scholz’s itinerary — Argentina, Chile and Brazil — are rich in natural resources and “very interesting partners,” a government source in Berlin said.

In an interview Saturday with the Grupo de Diarios America (GDA) consortium of South American newspapers, Scholz said Germany wanted to boost cooperation with Latin America and the Caribbean on “renewable energies, green hydrogen and responsible trade in raw materials.”

Germany would also seek to use the Latin American tour to drum up further international support against Moscow as the war in Ukraine drags on, a Berlin government source said.

Argentina, Chile and Brazil have criticized the invasion of Ukraine at the United Nations but have not adopted sanctions against Moscow.

Lula caused shock last year when he said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was “as responsible as” Russian President Vladimir Putin for the conflict.