Brazil cuts environment budget a day after US climate summit

Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro on Friday approved a 24 per cent cut to the environment budget for 2021 from 2020’s levels. This comes in a day after the country vowed to increase its budget to fight deforestation in the country.

During the climate summit organised by US President Joe Biden, Bolsonaro promised to double the budget for environment enforcement and to end illegal deforestation by 2030.

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In just less than 24 hours, Bolsonaro signed off on the 2021 federal budget which included $365.30 (2 billion reais) million for the Environment Ministry and agency overseen by the ministry. This marks a drop of 2.6 billion reais, as cited by the government’s gazette. Even then, spending may be tweaked over the year.

"The gesture of giving a speech yesterday isn't enough… Brazil's government needs to do its homework”, Congressman Rodrigo Agostinho, leader of the environmental caucus in Congress was cited as saying by Reuters.

In addition to the funding drop, Bolsonaro also vetoed a series of environmental budget provisions worth 240 million reais.

All questions to Bolsonaro so far have been directed to the Economy Ministry, which told Reuters that the budget for environment was in sync with what was proposed by the president originally.

Earlier on Friday, the country’s Environment Minister Ricardo Salles posted a request on social media asking for 270 million reais as additional funding for the country’s environment agency Ibama along with its parks service ICMBio.

(With inputs from agencies)