Brazil bets on bioeconomy

This is a taster of the climate newsletter from?Context. Don't miss an issue:?subscribe?to get?Climate. Change.?in your inbox every week.

Brazil bets big on bioeconomy

As political promises to protect the world's rainforests gather dust on the diplomatic shelf, people like Brazilian rubber tapper Manoel Magno are out in the jungle doing the hard work of making a sustainable living that doesn’t harm the Amazon.

This, experts and state authorities in Pará believe, is the key to stemming forest loss on the ground: making it economically attractive to keep trees standing and prevent planet-heating emissions while helping communities get out of poverty.

Our correspondent Fábio Teixeira talked to companies big and small that are working with the Pará government to roll out its new $232-million "bioeconomy" plan, and to the producers who have organised themselves into co-operatives with a view to boosting their sales and prospects.

"Today most companies that really earn a lot of money with the forest are all outside the Amazon. We need to change this dynamic," says Fernanda C. Stefani , CEO of 100% Amazonia | Fábrica da Floresta , a Pará-based firm that ships Amazon produce to 60 countries

?Colombia's green businesses?

Meanwhile, in Colombia's mountainous Putumayo province,?a community-run processing plant?is supplying cosmetics companies with oil extracted from the fruits of the lofty canangucha palm trees, as an alternative to the cattle ranching and coca production damaging the forested home of the Inga Indigenous people, writes our reporter Anastasia Moloney .

Jeepney jitters

The question for policymakers and forest communities alike is whether this kind of "carrot" approach can succeed where the "stick" of clamping down on illegal logging and mining has largely failed to stop tropical deforestation - because bad behaviour is often more lucrative than good.

For that to shift, financial incentives need to tip the balance in favour of green, inclusive economic options - something that is proving hard to achieve in most parts of the world.

Take the Philippines, where the government has ordered colourful but polluting jeepneys - converted U.S. military vehicles used as public transport in cities like Manila - off the roads, to be replaced by quieter, cleaner and comfier buses imported from overseas.

Sounds like a great plan - but, as our correspondent Mariejo Ramos discovered, drivers and operators are now being forced to sell their cherished jeepneys at dirt cheap prices - while the new buses are unaffordable for most, even with subsidies and loans.

Trade unions have warned the modernisation programme will lead to the "wholesale disenfranchisement" of small transport operators, describing it as a form of state violence toward informal workers living hand-to-mouth, with some even?camping out in their jeepneys?after COVID-19 restrictions hit their income.

Let them eat coal

In India too, the debate is heating up around what a "just transition" should look like - in this case to a cleaner energy mix that doesn't leave coal communities out in the cold - and who should pay for it.

Talks have ground on for months over the prospects of India winning a donor partnership to finance the massive boost to renewables it needs to make, like those that have been signed with South Africa, Indonesia and Vietnam. But there's a major sticking point.

India wants a deal on its own terms, as Context’s Roli Srivastava reports: no phase-out of coal and funds for clean energy expansion in the form of grants, not loans - casting doubt over whether New Delhi can seal an agreement with rich nations this year as it chairs the G20.

Workers also want - and deserve - a look-in. "The just transition conversation is dominated by technical and financial issues, ignoring the social aspect... which is the most important," D.D. Ramanandan, general secretary of the All India Coal Workers Federation, reminds us.

To get more news and analysis from the front lines of a warming world, subscribe to?Climate.Change.,?free in your email, every week.