Brazil's new environment minister says country should stay in Paris Agreement despite climate sceptic president Bolsonaro

Ricardo Salles says remaining part of international accord must not sacrifice Brazilian autonomy on environmental issues

Ricardo Salles, who was appointed by Brazilian president-elect Jair Bolsonaro as environment minister, has said his nation should remain part of the Paris Agreement (AFP/Getty)

Brazil’s future environment minister has said his nation should remain part of the Paris Agreement despite doubts cast by president elect Jair Bolsonaro during his election campaign.

However, he also emphasised that Brazil must be allowed to retain its autonomy when making environmental decisions.

Mr Bolsonaro sparked international concern when he said on the campaign trail he may pull out of the Paris accord, which sets targets for cutting greenhouse gases to avoid catastrophic global warming.

Since being elected he has sent mixed signals about his green intentions, saying Brazil could stay in the agreement if certain conditions are met but also indicating he wishes to strip powers from his nation’s environment agencies.

“My inclination is ... to say that we shouldn’t leave the agreement,” Ricardo Salles, who is tipped to become minister after Bolsonaro assumes office on 1 January, said in an interview.

“But on the other hand, it doesn’t signify that we will accept any and all sanctions, restrictions and programmes indisputably.

“All countries must respect Brazilian autonomy to manage its territory and to decide its environmental policies internally,” he said.

Brazil has committed to cutting emissions 37 per cent by 2025 and 43 per cent by 2030 under the agreement, although the country has yet to fully lay out how it will meet those goals.

Brazil will use common sense in the details of how it will deal with the agreement, and the country thus far has been very responsible in preserving a large proportion of its native vegetation, the incoming minister said.

Mr Salles, who previously served as the top environmental official for the state of Sao Paulo, said he does believe climate change exists, although he could not say for sure whether it is human-made or a change that is occurring naturally.

Brazil should leave that question to academics and get on with the “less charming” business of environmental protection, he said, including dealing with waste, biodiversity, soil issues and converting the car fleet to lower emission biofuels.

Mr Bolsonaro will not cut the budget of the ministry and environmental agencies government oversees, which include enforcer Ibama – the Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources – and conservation area administrator ICMBio, Mr Salles said.

But environmental agencies are not producing the results they should be with the resources they are given, and he said he will seek to correct this “mismanagement” and “inefficiency”.

Asked about whether Brazil should reconsider Ibama’s decision last week to deny Total SA a permit to drill in the sensitive Foz do Amazonas basin near the Amazon rainforest, Mr Salles said it would have to make sure ideology did not enter into the decision and that it was based solely on facts.

The country must strike a balance in environmental licensing, whether for farms or mines, and development, as overly strict rules drive people to illegality or lead producers to exit the market, he said.

Though Mr Bolsonaro has not been as forthcoming about his views on climate change as US president Donald Trump, he has been associated with known climate change deniers, including his new foreign minister who called global warming a “Marxist plot”.

When Mr Trump first announced his decision to quit the Paris accord, the Brazilian president elect shared an article defending the decision on Twitter titled “the greenhouse fables”.

Recently he criticised the Brazilian government’s environment agencies and said he will take away their powers to impose “fines all over the place”.

Attendees at the UN COP24 climate summit currently underway in Poland have expressed concerns that under Mr Bolsonaro’s leadership Brazil could be turned into a “climate rogue” state.

Additional reporting by Reuters