Brasilia, Brazil
President Jair Bolsonaro said Monday that the U.S. government, which he described as “more left-wing,” has “almost an obsession” with the environment that “disrupts a bit” in Brazil.
“For my part, Brazil is open to continue talking to the US government. Obviously, the Biden government is a more left-wing government. A government that has almost an obsession with the environmental issue, so this it makes us a little upset, “he said in an interview on a local radio station.
“Brazil is the country that best preserves its environment. We suffered attacks all the time from European countries, “he added.
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Bolsonaro, a skeptic of climate change and an admirer of former US President Donald Trump, Is the subject of numerous international criticisms for its environmental policy and its stance in favor of extractive activities in protected areas, which experts say fuels deforestation, mining and illegal logging.
the far-right ruler had a quarrel with Biden during the last US presidential campaign, in which he publicly supported Trump, when the then Democratic candidate raised the possibility of economic sanctions if deforestation continued to increase in Brazil.
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Since Biden came to power, the relationship between the two has been fluid and even Bolsonaro pledged in April to Biden and the international community to eliminate illegal deforestation in Brazil by 2030, ten years earlier than initially planned. A goal that, judging by the latest data from devastation of the Amazon rainforest, it seems difficult to fulfill.
Between August 2020 and July 2021, reference period to measure the deforestation, the largest rainforest of the planet lost 8,712 km², 5% less than the 9,126 km² of the same period of the previous year, when the record was broken since the National Institute of Space Research (INPE) began to publish these data in 2015. AFP