Macron, Lula strengthen climate pacts

French president Emmanuel Macron's first visit to Brazil not only strengthened ties between the two countries but also advanced their environmental agendas.

Macron visited Brazil for three days last week, visiting Belem — near the mouth of the Amazon and set to be the host city of Cop 30 in 2025 — Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo and the capital Brasilia. He was accompanied by Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva showing that the two countries have resumed their relationship.

Macron had cut ties with Brazil during the administration of former president Jair Bolsonaro, who put little focus on international relations and environmental protections. But Lula has since reversed those policies.

Macron called the trip "a new page" between the two countries, while Lula said that "no traditional [global] power is closer to Brazil than France."

The two countries announced 23 joint agreements during the meeting, including some towards the energy transition and prioritizing environmental programs, such as a €1bn ($1.1bn) investment program to protect the Amazon rainforest using private and public funds and the development of nuclear fuel for Brazilian submarines.

France and Brazil also signed a letter of intent that includes strategies for the energy transition, biomethane, hydrogen, carbon capture and storage technology development and the natural gas market.

They also agreed to cooperate on critical mineral projects, committing to exchange information on legislation, regulation, budgeting and management in the mining sector, as well as conducting studies on attracting financing to common projects.

Additionally, Brazil's Bndes development bank and France's development agency AFD signed a deal to raise R1bn ($196.7mn) to finance green and sustainable infrastructure projects in the Amazon and Brazil's north and northeast. The agreement seeks investments in low-carbon mobility and renewable energy generation, among other fronts.

Discrepancies

But the trip did not come without hiccups. Macron took the opportunity to call the existing commercial EU-Mercosur agreement — which also addresses topics such as climate change — "terrible and outdated", a mere hours after Lula had commended it.

It also became evident that the two presidents do not see eye to eye on the issue of inviting Russian president Vladimir Putin to the G20 summit of heads of state in Rio de Janeiro later this year. Lula has said before that Putin will be invited, but has since avoided the subject. Macron said that the G20 must reach a consensus to invite the Russian president and that doing so will be a "job for Brazilian diplomacy."

By Lucas Parolin