How the toxic EU-Mercosur deal will undermine Brazil’s climate & deforestation goals
Friends of the Earth Europe | 26 April 2023
How the toxic EU-Mercosur deal will undermine Brazil’s climate & deforestation goals
This February, deforestation in the Amazon reached a new record high.
2021 was supposed to mark the start of the implementation of Brazil’s Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) to the Paris Agreement to limit global heating. But instead, gross emissions have risen 40% since the Paris Agreement.
Our new factsheet, produced with Reporter Brasil, exposes how big agribusiness and pesticide corporations have lost Brazil a decade of crucial climate action.
At the same time, heavy lobbying by big pharma over the course of Bolsonaro’s presidency weakened pesticide regulations, and authorisation of new toxic agrochemicals continues to reach record highs. These chemicals – many banned in the EU – are linked to air and soil contamination, lost livelihoods for organic farmers, and hundreds of pesticide poisonings across Brazil.
While the Amazon passes irreversible environmental tipping points and new toxic chemicals leave a trail of contamination, the European Union is actively signing away more of the planet and people in the lethal EU-Mercosur free trade agreement.
This factsheet is the second in a series. Read the first one on how European trade deals propel destructive agribusiness in the Mercosur region here.