Brazilian Bolsonaro defends Covid and climate management at the UN
The Brazilian president’s speech was delivered calm, if not monotonous at times, opening with a numbing sales pitch from his country to investors who have touted developments in sanitation and transportation services. He presented “a new Brazil whose credibility has been found in the world” – a country very different from the country devastated by the coronavirus under his watch and lashed by the fires in the Amazon, where Bolsonaro pushed for development.
“Why are you taking a vaccine? To have antibodies, right? My antibody level is really high. I can show you the document,” he said on a live broadcast. on social networks. He added that he will only make the decision to get vaccinated “after everyone in Brazil has received the vaccine” – a dissonant voice as the General Assembly pushes this year to increase vaccination worldwide. and coaxing the richest countries to share more doses with the poorest. those.
But while the Brazilian president has tended to use appearances at the UN to dismiss foreign authority – showing a similar allergy to being told what to do when it comes to another global crisis: global warming – he seemed to avoid any direct confrontation on that front.
This year, a calmer Bolsonaro acknowledged “environmental challenges” but boasted that the Amazon region experienced a 32% drop in deforestation in August compared to the previous year, citing figures from the Institute. Brazilian National Space Research Report indicating 918 square kilometers of deforestation. The number, however, is still nearly double what was recorded in August 2018, before the Bolsonaro administration.
A more moderate tone was expected from Bolsonaro this year, said Brian Winter, editor of Americas Quarterly and vice president of policy at the Americas Society / Council of the Americas. On the one hand, the mood in the assembly was simply different, with fewer right-wing populist leaders joining Bolsonaro in giving the middle finger to international interlocutors.
“Bolsonaro is more isolated than ever,” Winter told CNN. “Trump on the left, Netanyahu is gone. The main country that really aligns with his brand of right-wing conservatism is Victor Orban’s Hungary,” he said. (Bolsonaro, however, had scheduled a meeting with conservative and anti-LGBTQ Polish President Andrzej Duda before he took the stage on Tuesday.)
In a meeting on Monday with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Bolsonaro displayed the same stubbornness in a gentle manner that he then displayed on the podium. The two leaders discussed the climate and Covid-19, and Bolsonaro “affirmed Brazil’s commitment to sustainable development,” read a statement from the Brazilian Foreign Ministry after the meeting.
But when it came to getting vaccinated at the behest of the United Nations, he was more still than ever.
During footage from the meeting at UN Headquarters, Johnson could be heard telling Bolsonaro, “AstraZeneca, this is a great vaccine. Get the AstraZeneca vaccine. I’ve had it twice.” Bolsonaro burst out laughing. “No, not yet,” he said.
Reporting provided by Rodrigo Pedroso of CNN in Sao Paulo.