These are the proposals of the most likely candidates to become the next Brazilian president

Brazil, being one of the countries with the greatest biodiversity and territorial area of ​​the continent, has a great responsibility in environmental issues such as conservation and sustainable use of resources and climate change. In fact, Brazil is one of the 195 countries that signed the Paris Agreement in 2015 with the aim of limiting the increase of the global temperature.

Leer en español: Elecciones presidenciales en Brasil: conoce la política ambiental de los candidatos

In these controversial elections because of the ideological extremes and the social movements that emerged in the country in order to make their voices heard, issues such as education, the political rights of citizens, security and corruption were exalted, leaving aside the debate on the proposals against the environment of each one of the candidates.

In LatinAmerican Post, we tell you what are the positions of the two candidates most likely to be the next president of the Republic of Brazil in relation to environmental issues, taking IGNORE INTO account the information published on their websites and official social networks.

A week before the first round of Brazil's presidential elections, it is acknowledged in the polls that, despite the high number of candidates for the presidency, the votes are concentrated on the candidate of the Workers' Party (PT), Fernando Haddad, and in the candidate of the Liberal Social Party (PSL), Jair Bolsonaro.

FERNANDO HADDAD

He was officially recognized as a candidate for the presidency by the PT on September 11, replacing Lula da Silva, who was condemned for corruption. He is a lawyer, with a master's degree in economics and a PhD in philosophy, currently a professor at the University of São Paulo (USP). Haddad was minister of education and mayor of the same city.

You can also read: Saving the planet: This is how this NGO does it

Among his proposals, aligned with those of his party, is to preserve and protect natural resources through what he calls "Ecological Transition for the new society of the XXI Century." To achieve this goal, the candidate highlights the need to:

1. Elaborate a new national policy of regional and territorial development that expressly includes the protection of the ecosystem.
2. Implement a national plan for the sustainable development of traditional peoples and communities, with economic strengthening of these communities and respect for the environment in which they develop themselves.
3. Adopt modern, flexible and intelligent green technologies that generate an economy with low environmental impact.
4. Implement a low cost financing policy for environmental projects. 
5. Adopt a green tax reform that includes taxes on pollution, coal and that has incentives for green productive developments.
6. Develop a new regulatory framework on mining that protects Brazilian socio-biodiversity.
7. Promote the right to water as a human right through measures to expand infrastructure and supply, with recycling policies and the use of non-conventional sources.
8. Deploy an urban sustainable development framework that includes policies on waste.
9. Generate a rural development framework that includes the promotion of low-carbon agricultural production, and agricultural toxins.
10. Encourage national public policies for the protection and defense of animals with the participation of citizens and a policy of permanent environmental education.

JAIR BOLSONARO

He is a reserve military who has exercised his political career in the Chamber of Deputies of Brazil, being elected seven times by the Progressive Party (PP) on behalf of Rio de Janeiro since 1991, but which for the elections was aligned with the Liberal Social Party.

You may be interested: Pollution seriously affects women's health

However, his proposals are mostly linked to security. Faced with the environment, Bolsonaro has stated that:

1. It is necessary to unite the ministries of agriculture and the environment to give harmony to the countryside and protect the producers. In its government plan it states that there must be a federal agricultural structure with powers in relation to agriculture, fisheries and the environment. This structure will be responsible for the issues of agricultural policy and economics, natural resources and the rural environment, the defense of food security in relation to fishing, fish farming and agricultural development, social security in the countryside and that is the only one door to meet the demands of agriculture and the rural sector.
2. Brazil should leave the Paris agreement, as did the United States.
3. An investment will be made in the innovation, science and technology industry focused on comparative advantage, such as the Northeast, in relation to other regions of the country.
4. The country's energy sector should be promoted through investments in it and the search for its debureaucratization, starting, for example, by reducing the term for environmental licensing.
5. Farmers and their families should be the managers of the rural space.

LatinAmerican Post | María Paula Cardoso
Translated from "Elecciones presidenciales en Brasil: conoce la política ambiental de los candidatos"

Listen this article