By TARSUS GENUS*
Will our State be prepared for a new level of unity and go beyond rebuilding our physical bases, devastated by the climate catastrophe?
“National Climate Security Authority and National Council on Climate Change”. The proposal for the state body was made by Minister Marina Silva, in early 2023, to strengthen the climate governance structure in Brazil and harmonize the various fronts of government action in the territory, articulated with the global structures that deal with the issue. All this – between one war and another – in which the colonial-imperial countries are engaged, which make the arms industry happy.
Marina Silva, in her speech at the project “Republic and Democracy – The Future Doesn’t Wait” by the Instituto Novos Paradigmas, stated: “the world needs to converge on two aspects: health, fighting the pandemic; and the environment, stopping the environmental collapse, with changes in the energy matrix and in the ways of producing. (…) We have crimes against the country and crimes against humanity (present) in Brazil. Crimes against the country when we witness the immense destruction of Brazil’s natural heritage and crimes against humanity when we witness the failure to confront the pandemic: the world is doing everything to defeat the virus and the Bolsonaro government is acting so that Brazil becomes a refuge for the virus, in addition to destroying our environmental assets.”[I]
The political connection that Marina Silva made, through her assertions, with the ill-fated president of the time is a turning point in a country that is currently facing the “Apocalypse”, not seen as the moment of an explosion, but as the beginning of an agony. It is a connection made by the analytical decency of those who do not dissociate humans from the tragedy, whether as victims or as authors of a disaster, which also calls us to understand the alternatives of the present.
The measure taken by the President immediately overcomes the agenda of crises that can be transferred to the territory, which have filled Lula's daily life: Maduro and the opposition manipulating the minutes to say that they won; the climate catastrophe of our State; the War in Ukraine and the terrorist actions of Hamas (responded to by successive war crimes by the Government of the State of Israel); the impeachment of “X” by the Supreme Court, a company that declared itself a virtual State within a real State, which showed him that the country has laws and courts.
Having a statesman as President is a privilege that few countries in South America currently have, to interfere in the world public scene, while at the same time acting on the territory, in a way that not only harmonizes conflicts and creates standards of governability – in a world driven mad by wars and perverted forms of opinion formation.
Both the President and Marina Silva demonstrated that they understand that “it would be a mistake to isolate short-term emergencies from reflection on long- and medium-term strategies, (as) both must be informed by the same vision of sustainable development (…) through a broad societal debate (that) will gradually unfold into a national project.”[ii].
The debates held at the Instituto Novos Paradigmas, based on this vision, led us to ask President Lula to create a specific agency to shape a strategic “medium and long-term” exit strategy for the state. This vision proposed, based on the climate crisis that erupted in Rio Grande do Sul – beyond the immediate reconstruction of Rio Grande do Sul – a contribution for the entire country, in the formation of a vision of development with ecological, social and environmental sustainability, since we did not have a National Authority with the power to establish one, to be responsible for a project of this magnitude.
The formation of a National Authority to address the challenge of climate transition brings two advantages to our State and two very relevant problems: the advantages are clear, first, the establishment of visible and localizable power to present proposals and demands and, second, the reliability of the person to whom the State's political forces must report; and the relevant problems are obvious: first, that the available resources will be distributed across the entire territory of the crisis (floods, fire and drought); and second, that the authorities with decisive power will be far from Rio Grande do Sul.
Is our state prepared for a new level of unity and to go beyond rebuilding our physical bases, devastated by the climate catastrophe? We don’t know, in fact. Not because of the “grenalization” of Rio Grande do Sul, as the most famous “sources” in the formation of political opinion say, but because of the trail of political hatred left by Bolsonarism in our state, which still persists in significant sectors of all social classes. But we must try!
*Tarsus in law He was governor of the state of Rio Grande do Sul, mayor of Porto Alegre, Minister of Justice, Minister of Education and Minister of Institutional Relations in Brazil. Author, among other books, of possible utopia (Arts & Crafts). [https://amzn.to/3ReRb6I]
Notes
[I] Republic and democracy – the future does not wait. The New Paradigms Institute (INP) and the Working Class Defense Institute (Declatra), with the support of the virtual magazine Democracy and Fundamental Rights (DDF). Summary Document of the series of interviews seeks to organize consensus to guide a new front in Brazil, 2021, p.78.
[ii] I. Sachs, Development…. Grammont University, Sebrae, p. 17.
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