MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Brazil will go back to being environmentally conscientious if Lula wins

“We are going for economic prosperity protecting the people but also with a green agenda that protects our environment,” former Minister Silva also said.

Former Brazilian Environment Minister Marina Silva Thursday said during a press conference in Sao Paulo that “we need an environmentally sustainable, politically democratic and socially developed country.”

Silva made those remarks just days ahead of the Oct. 30 presidential runoff between Jair Bolsonaro and Luiz Inácio Lula Da Silva. She was flanked by Celso Amorin and Aloizio Mercadante. At the event for foreign correspondents, they addressed the climate agenda in case Lula is elected.

Amorin is a former Foreign and Defense Minister under Lula, while Mercadante is the coordinator of Lula's government program.

“Bolsonaro wanted to dirty and question the electronic vote, a system we have had for more than 20 years to generate inconveniences by promoting the paper ballot,” Mercadante said.

Silva outlined Lula's environmental policy. She underlined that “cooperation” with other countries would be essential in creating a sustainable economy. “We are not proposing the end of agricultural Brazil, but rather an agricultural Brazil, but with other practices that avoid deforestation,” she stressed.

“The preservation of the Amazon will require broad and intense cooperation among the countries covered by the biome to combat the organized crime that has settled in the region. Brazil will play a central role in the articulation with our neighbors,” added Silva, who has been challenging the current government's environmental policies. During her tenure as Minister of Environment, she managed to reduce deforestation by 80%, she stressed.

“We need sustainable development and not the kind of development we are seeing now. This means a country that is environmentally sustainable, politically democratic, and socially developed,” she went on.

Amorin pointed out that the climate agenda would be “central” in a possible future Lula administration.