Ambassador Luiz Alberto Figueiredo Machado
Itamaraty Minister André Corrêa do Lago

Dear Sirs,

We, organizations and social movements that fight for climate justice and are members of the Belem Letter group, we have followed the national policies on climate change and the negotiations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Kyoto Protocol.
            
We were very worried about the outcome of the decisions of Cancun that were not enough to take concrete steps to confront the climate crisis, nor showed an effective way to reduce emissions in countries of origin and the creation of mechanisms to support the populations that are already vulnerable and will be impacted by climate change.

We reiterate our demand for the Brazilian government to reject the use of REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation) as a carbon market mechanism and that it would not be accepted as an offsetting to emissions from the North, under any conditionality.

We reaffirm our rejection of market mechanisms as instruments to reduce carbon emissions, based on the firm conviction that the market is not the space capable of taking responsibility for life on the planet. The latest COPs, particularly Copenhagen and Cancun, and its aftermath have shown that governments are not willing to undertake commitments consistent public and thus transfer the responsibility of practice greetings to private goals, while domestic policies, as in the case of Brazil, also have been appropriate to market interests. This makes public investment and control over the achievement of goals legitimize the global CO2 market, which appears as a new form of investment and speculative financial capital and survival to a model of production and consumption bankrupt.
 
We urge the Brazilian government to reaffirm the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities, to ensure that decisions on the offsetting mechanisms and new forms of carbon market are not adopted, both for REDD+ as under general sources of funding for the second period commitment for the Kyoto Protocol or in new sector policies.
 
We believe that the offsetting mechanism will not lead to emission reductions required in developed countries and only divert the focus of negotiations which should converge towards an agreement at COP 17. This agreement must be guided by emission reduction targets for developed countries and higher than 40% compared to 1990, for the period 2013-2017, based on science and to consider the historical responsibility and climate debt.

We realized from the projects already underway, that the deregulation of achieving the targets for the market can also have serious consequences for communities and local populations in the South, both in relation to the management and violation of rights to land and territories and on their ways of life associated with the forest management and conservation.

Brazil has seen in recent weeks the impressive increase in deforestation in the Amazon towards the impending relaxation of the most important landmark environmental development, the Forestry Code, with an increase of 540% between March and April this year, only in the state of Mato Grosso, according to data from IBAMA. The current attempt to deregulate the national environmental matters could have serious implications for achieving the international targets assumed in both the Climate Convention and the Convention on Biological Diversity, and places Brazil in the face of serious contradictions between his foreign policy and initiatives has been taking in the domestic sphere.
 
For all these reasons, the undersigned organizations argue that international negotiations on climate cannot be focused on the transfer of achieving the targets for market mechanisms, such as in instruments as REDD+. Brazil, while a mega-diverse countries of the world, has undertaken the challenge of a real transition to a new model of production, distribution and consumption, sponsored by the State. This model should be based on proposals already under way from the matrix agroecology, solidarity economics, land and urban reform and democratization of the use and occupation of land in the territories and community management of a diverse and decentralized energy model, which guaranteeing the right to an ecologically balanced environment and food security and sovereignty.
 
Sign:

Actionaid Brazil
Amigos da Terra Brasil (Friends of the Earth Brazil)
ANA - Articulação Nacional de Agroecologia
APTA - Associação de Programas em Tecnologias Alternativas – ES
Associação Global de Desenvolvimento Sustentado
CEAPAC - Centro de Apoio a Projetos de Ação Comunitária
CEPEDES – Centro de Estudos e Pesquisas para o Desenvolvimento do Extremo Sul da Bahia
CIMI – Conselho Indigenista Missionário
ESPLAR- Centro de Pesquisa e Assessoria
FASE – Solidariedade e Educação
Fórum Carajás
Fórum Mudanças Climáticas e Justiça Social
GAMBA – Grupo Ambientalista da Bahia
GIAS – Grupo de Intercâmbio em Agricultura Sustentável – Mato Grosso
INESC – Instituto de Estudos Socioeconômicos
Jubileu Sul Brasil (Jubilee South Brazil)
Plataforma DHESCA Brasil
Rede Alerta contra o Deserto Verde
Rede Brasil sobre Instituições Financeiras Multilaterais
Terra de Direitos
Via Campesina Brasil