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Dilma Rousseff of Brazil Brings Many Objectives to the U.N. Dilma Rousseff of Brazil Pledges to Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions
(about 20 hours later)
President Dilma Rousseff of Brazil is scheduled to address the United Nations General Assembly on Monday. The New York Times’s Rio de Janeiro bureau chief, Simon Romero, looks at her message for international leaders and how it might be received. President Dilma Rousseff of Brazil kicked off the United Nations General Assembly on Monday with an ambitious pledge to reduce her country’s greenhouse gas emissions by 43 percent over the next 15 years.
The tradition is thought to stretch back to the founding days of the United Nations. Lore has it that this distinction was given to Brazil as a consolation prize after President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s proposal to make Brazil a permanent member of the Security Council fell through, according to Geraldo Zahran, a professor of international relations at the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo. Brazil is the world’s seventh biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, and with Ms. Rousseff’s pledge it becomes the first major developing country to promise an absolute reduction in emissions by 2030, in line with a climate pact set to be signed in Paris in December.
Brazil has various objectives at the United Nations. In addition to their ambition to obtain a permanent seat on the Security Council, its leaders are focused on Internet governance, gender equality, the international migrant crisis (Brazil is preparing to accept more Syrian refugees), and affirmative action policies. They also want to promote Brazil’s progress in battling deforestation in the Amazon basin. Ms. Rousseff touched on some of these themes in public remarks over the weekend. She also promised to “put an end to illegal deforestation” of the Amazon and recover millions of hectares of degraded farmland. And she said Brazil would turn to more sustainable sources of energy.
It is hard to know. Last year, Ms. Rousseff was in the midst of a tightly disputed re-election campaign when she spoke at the United Nations, and her speech, which focused largely on Brazil’s achievements in reducing poverty, was widely viewed as one directed at a domestic audience. This year, Brazil is facing its worst economic crisis in decades and an array of intensifying corruption scandals, while Ms. Rousseff is battling calls to resign. “We will aim for a proportion of 66 percent of hydropower in our electricity generation output; a share of 23 percent of renewable sources, including wind, solar and biomass power,” Ms. Rousseff said.
It is a delicate time for her to leave for New York. She might emphasize that her government has allowed judicial investigations into graft scandals to proceed, bolstering Brazil’s institutions even though her leftist Workers’ Party faces intense pressure as a result of bribery revelations. By tradition, the president of Brazil is the first head of state or government to address the assembly each year, a supposed consolation prize after the country was not given a permanent seat on the Security Council when the United Nations was founded.
Ms. Rousseff might try to steer clear of the reasons Brazil’s economy has gone from boom to bust. The economic crisis has opened her administration to withering criticism over policies that some believe make Brazil more vulnerable as commodities prices have fallen. Ms. Rousseff hinted at that long-simmering snub in her speech.
“The Security Council needs to be expanded in its permanent and nonpermanent categories, to become more representative, legitimate and effective,” she said. “Most member states do not want a decision on this matter to be postponed.”
Ms. Rousseff commented on the migrant crisis in Europe, saying that Brazil had previously accepted Syrian refugees, but she stopped short of pledging specifically to accept more migrants fleeing war in the Middle East.
“In a world where goods, capital, data and ideas flow freely, it is absurd to impede the free flow of people,” she said.
Brazil is facing its worst economic crisis in decades, as well as an array of intensifying corruption scandals, while Ms. Rousseff is battling calls for her to resign.
Parts of her speech sounded as much intended for her audience at home as for world leaders in the hall.
“Currency devaluation and recessive pressures brought about inflation and a strong reduction of tax revenue, leading to restrictions on public finance,” she said. “In order to face this situation, we are rebalancing our budget and have strongly reduced public expenditures, including investments.”