So Bolsarano has been elected as the president of Brazil. He had some quite bizarre and unpleasant policies in the run up to the election and has polarized Brazil’s population. While I find it abhorrent that a person who is racist, sexist and has dislike for most other people who are not like him has been elected as the president of Brazil my issues with him are along a different line.
He is keen to scrap indigenous rights and to significantly cut back on the protection of the Brazilian rainforest. He is also keen to follow Trump out of the Paris climate agreement. The problem with this is that if he were to significantly ramp up deforestation in the rainforest of Brazil this has a global impact. Importantly with a significant increase in deforestation in South America it will be very hard to meet any of our current climate ambitions. Bolsarano has a criminal conviction for environmental damage, which gives us some idea about what his policies will be like.
What is also highly concerning is the fact that this seems to have been at least partially encouraged by the election of Trump in the USA. If many other countries follow the American example and go with someone who pays no attention to science or common sense it is going to make it very hard for the rest of the world to stop runaway global warming becoming a serious issue.
There are checks and balances on the presidential power in Brazil and we will have to wait and see how his election impacts things.
