LANGUAGE

WHO WE ARE

Convergência pelo Brasil was born from the mobilization of the former Finance Ministers and former Presidents of the Central Bank towards the perception that the recovery of the Brazilian economy after Covid-19 will pose immense challenges to society, and from the conviction that in order to solve the social and economic problems aggravated by the health crisis and to return to grow sustainably, the country will have to consider the climate risks to implement adjustment measures and internal incentives, as well as to take action in order to expand its international integration.

As the manifesto points out – to which the former ministers and former president of the Central Bank were signatories – and which marked the creation of Convergência para o Brasil: overcoming the crisis requires convergence around an agenda that allows us to resume economic activities, to address social problems, while building a more resilient economy by dealing with climate risks and their implications.

Defying the expectations of that moment, August 2020, the pandemic has not yet been overcome and the problems persist. In this short period of time, Brazil has moved further away from the environmental, social and governance (ESG) principles that increasingly guide developed economies and their relations between countries.

While an increasing number of countries and companies around the world establish policies and goals to zero their net carbon emissions, last year Brazil saw an increase in deforestation in the Amazon and uncontrolled fires in the Pantanal. All in the face of the powerlessness of the bodies responsible for supervising and stopping such crimes, whose structures have been systematically depleted.

Such misalignment in relation to environmental, social and governance (ESG) values has increased Brazil’s distance from its global peers, making the efforts necessary for the sustainable recovery of the economy even more complex.

As stated in our manifesto, expanding international cooperation regarding the climate will help to align public policies and actions – jointly supported by the private sector and civil society – with the commitments made in the Paris Agreement.

We thus reaffirm our commitment to the four principles that we have established as fundamental to the changes we believe are vital to the country: achieving a low carbon economy, zeroing deforestation in the Amazon and the Cerrado, increasing climate resilience, and boosting research and development of new technologies. Now we take a step further towards that manifesto.

Convergência pelo Brasil is now an initiative, a forum, whose purpose is to spread knowledge and promote the debate on climate change and the economy. To that effect, we are creating a portal, a platform with wide and diversified content to inform and encourage discussions on relevant topics of this agenda of transformations.

The formulation of economic policy guidelines considering climate issues is imperative, already present on the agenda of the world’s largest economies, which are heading towards the so-called “green new deal”.

Such issues that must be at the top of our priorities as well, under penalty of Brazil wasting all its environmental capital and the potential of its corporations, which would further deepen our economic, social and environmental problems.