U.S.’s exit from Paris Agreement, tariff wars could hamper global progress on climate: Brazil Environment Minister by StuffsEarth

Brazil’s Minister of Environment Marina Silva. File
| Photo Credit: StuffsEarth

Threats from a global tariff war and the U.S.’s withdrawal from the Paris Agreement were inimical to progress at the 30th edition of the Conference of Parties (COP), the annual global climate meet, set to be held at Belem, Brazil in November, the country’s Environment Minister Marina Silva said at a press conference on Thursday (March 6, 2025).

“Wars, disputes on tariffs, technology disputes across different countries could impact availability of resources as well as hamper the confidence and trust among Parties. The less action and money we see, the lesser the cooperation we will witness among countries,” Ms. Silva said, speaking through a translator.

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The 29th edition of the COP, which concluded in Baku, Azerbaijan was widely perceived as one that failed to deliver on the necessary finance, of $1.35 trillion annually by 2035, to keep global temperatures from consistently exceeding 1.5C of pre-industrial times. Ultimately, countries’ representatives could only agree to $300 billion, also termed the New Collective Quantified Goal.

Ms. Silva said that the recent experience with the pandemic demonstrated that there were certain problems, such as health, that could not be solved without global cooperation. The other major crisis requiring everyone to cooperate was the climate crisis. Developed countries needed to be “stepping up” action because of their historical responsibility in the creation of the problem. She said that irrespective of the U.S.’s stance, the country’s “federal structure” meant that there would be action at the “sub-national” level to address climate challenges. “It has happened in the past, too,” Ms. Silva said.

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The Minister underlined that despite all the challenges, multi-lateral engagement was the only way forward. “As the saying goes, multi-lateralism is difficult, but without it, progress is impossible. Despite the challenges we face, the world needs to direct money towards nature and conservation,” she emphasised.

The policy of imposing tariffs, the way the U.S. was going about it, could have some “benefits over the short term,” she observed, but over time, even citizens who were “ideologically consonant with the government could turn restive” as such policies could stoke inflation in food prices, “and [the climate crisis could] whet wildfires and burn people’s homes”.

In response to a question from The Hindu, Ms. Silva said that Brazil looked to partnering with India to strengthen negotiations on the “tripod of adaptation, mitigation and finance”. She said India had historically been very “vocal” in demanding that developed countries make good on their commitments to increasing climate finance.

One of the initiatives that the Brazilian government is making ahead of the summit is to organise a series of ‘Global Ethical Stocktakes’. The first Global Stocktake concluded at the Dubai COP in 2023, where the objective was for every country to review their progress in reducing fossil fuel use. “The ethical stocktake will be held in different regions around the world, which face pressing climate challenges in the run-up to COP 30,” Ms. Silva said.