Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva urged world leaders to take immediate action to fight back against climate change as he accused the international community of having "numbed" to its responsibility to care for the world's poor.
The popular leftist put inequality and the climate crisis at the center of his speech on Tuesday during the annual United Nations General Debate that was held in New York. he said that the world must overcome resignation, which he claims made us accept such unfairness as a natural phenomenon.
Brazilian President Calls for Climate Action
Lula da Silva said that there is currently a lack of political will from those who govern the world to overcome inequality. This year is the Brazilian president's first appearance at the global summit since resuming office earlier this year, which he achieved after being out of power for more than a decade.
The official touted a new geopolitical order that could challenge the West's global economic sway and he has pushed for greater dialogue regarding the war between Russia and Ukraine. Since taking the presidency back from former President Jair Bolsonaro, Lula da Silva worked to position himself as a climate progressive and global leader on the issue, as per CNN.
He worked to bring the Amazon deforestation levels this summer to the lowest rate in the last six years. This is an extraordinary reversal of the situation after the environmentally damaging policies of his predecessor, Bolsonaro.
During Lula da Silva's speech on Tuesday, he noted that the whole world has always talked about the Amazon rainforest but argued that it was now speaking for itself. The Brazilian president also urged rich nations to complete their clean energy and international climate funding goals.
The leftist president argued that a $100 billion funding plan was quickly becoming an "insufficient" sum. Lula da Silva claims that wealthy countries grew based on a model with high rates of climate-damaging gas emissions.
In recent months, Lula da Silva traveled around the globe and visited 21 countries, from the United States to China, Italy to India, and Argentina to Angola. He has been looking to boost his country's cred with each state visit and speech, making one multilateral forum after another, according to the Associated Press.
Brazil is Back
The Brazilian president also said during his UN speech that Brazil is re-encountering itself as a region, as well as the world and multilateralism. He repeated his slogan that "Brazil is back" and said that his nation has returned to give its due contribution to face the world's primary challenges.
The situation comes as Lula da Silva's government has agreed to cancel Bolsonaro's cuts to its climate ambition and to begin efforts on a new and improved climate target. The decision was agreed upon by a group of government ministers at the Interministerial Committee on Climate Change that was held last week.
Officials will change the country's climate plan and resume the level of ambition that it presented in 2015 "in terms of absolute values of greenhouse gas emissions." The nation's former environment minister and Lula advisor, Izabella Teixeira, welcomed the decision and said that Brazil is finally recognizing the mistakes that were made by the previous government under Bolsonaro, said the Climate Change News.
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