Born to a family of rubber tappers from Brazil’s Amazon rainforest, Marina Silva had her first paid job as a maid, learned to read at 16 and became an environmental activist by 17 alongside the famous campaigner Chico Mendes.
Now Brazil’s environment minister, next month she will host world leaders in the Amazonian city of Belem for the UN COP30 summit to discuss how to save the rainforest, and the planet, from climate change and the destruction of nature.
After years serving in Brazil’s federal parliament, in 2003 Silva became environment minister under President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, overseeing a historical decrease in the country’s deforestation rate, taking up that same position 20 years later.
Since Lula started his third presidential term in 2023, Brazil has cut Amazon deforestation again by half, data from the country’s Institute for Space Research shows.
But forest protection faces ever increasing challenges from infrastructure projects and farming.
Silva says rich countries are failing to provide sufficient resources for action on the global climate, but have increased spending on defence.
Silva spoke to Context ahead of COP30.
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Unfortunately, developed countries have not fulfilled the commitment made under the (2015) Paris Agreement. They are the largest historical emitters and, since they have already solved their social and technological problems, they have to help the transition of developing countries.
Marina Silva, environment minister, Brazil
What does the government expect from COP30?
We want one of the positive results at the end of COP30 to be the strengthening of climate multilateralism.
That’s why we’ve stated that this is the COP of truth, the COP of implementation.
We’ve sought to lead by example, presenting our NDC (nationally determined contribution - a plan in which a country outlines how it intends to reduce greenhouse emissions to meet the Paris Agreement) already at COP 29, aligned with the 1.5 Celsius (34.7 Fahrenheit) ambition.
Unfortunately, so far, the number of NDCs that have been presented is only 62.
There is great bewilderment over the fact that the European Union has not presented its NDC so far, not to mention the immense damage caused by the United States leaving the Paris Agreement, even though an NDC was presented under Biden.
One mechanism could be a kind of roadmap to finance the transition to the end of fossil fuels.
What is the great difficulty in unlocking climate financing?
Unfortunately, developed countries have not fulfilled the commitment made under the (2015) Paris Agreement.
They are the largest historical emitters and, since they have already solved their social and technological problems, they have to help the transition of developing countries, as well as accelerate their own CO2 emission reductions.
According to experts, US$1.3 trillion is what is needed in terms of minimum resources to make these transitions.
But there is a great paradox; while developed countries are unable to secure the resources to help countries in vulnerable situations, resources for armaments and security have increased by more than 5 per cent. And investment continues at around US$4 (trillion) to US$6 trillion in carbon-intensive activities.
Upper-middle-income developing countries, such as Brazil, China, India and South Africa, have been making internal efforts with incredible results.
Brazil is the country with the greatest contribution to reducing CO2 emissions since the (1997) Kyoto Protocol - more than 5 billion tons of CO2 by reducing deforestation.
And we also have additional reductions, because we have 30 per cent ethanol added to gasoline and 15 per cent biodiesel added to diesel. Not to mention that we have an energy matrix that is 45 per cent clean and an electrical matrix that is 90 per cent clean.
How could the Tropical Forests Forever Facility contribute?
It helps to enable financing, because developed countries keep saying that resources can’t be only public - private resources are needed.
Developed countries will be able to put money into this global fund and will get it back. For each dollar of public resources we expect to leverage US$4 of private resources.
No one can say anymore that there are only public resources, because when you put in the initial public resources, that will leverage private resources within a market logic.
It is already established that 20 per cent must be for Indigenous peoples and traditional communities, and they are discussing the best form to regulate this.
You are often criticised in Brazil as an obstacle to big projects and legal deforestation. How do you react to that?
We are living through a climate emergency, and what is being done is good for everyone, including those who temporarily don’t understand it.
We have a reliable environmental policy that has reduced deforestation in the entire country. Even so, agribusiness has grown by 15 per cent.
This shows that it’s not necessary to associate agribusiness with deforestation or burning, it’s possible to grow through productivity gains.
Brazil can double its agricultural production without the need to cut down one more tree, just by using technology and restoring its millions of hectares of degraded land.
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