{"id":68935,"date":"2009-10-20T13:14:18","date_gmt":"2009-10-20T15:14:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/?p=68935"},"modified":"2013-06-05T15:34:49","modified_gmt":"2013-06-05T18:34:49","slug":"fernando-henrique-cardoso-no-leniency-for-deforestation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/fernando-henrique-cardoso-no-leniency-for-deforestation\/","title":{"rendered":"Fernando Henrique Cardoso: No leniency for deforestation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Published in November 2008<\/em><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-69765\" title=\"\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/10\/art3676img12.jpg\" width=\"200\" height=\"299\" srcset=\"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/10\/art3676img12.jpg 200w, https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/10\/art3676img12-120x179.jpg 120w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px\" \/><span class=\"media-credits-inline\">EDUARDO CESAR<\/span>Former president Fernando Henrique Cardoso has been monitoring the environmental debate for at least four decades. After stepping down from his position as President of the Republic, he divides his time between lectures and special courses in US universities and the activities of his institute, (iFHC), which holds seminars on subjects that are of interest to society, such as democracy, development, political institutions, media, federalism \u2013 and, in particular, science and the environment. His connection with this issue dates back to the sixties and seventies. As a result of the political persecution that followed the military coup of 1964, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, then a professor and researcher, spent some time at universities in Chile, France and the US as a professor of sociology, his field of expertise.<\/p>\n<p>While abroad, he spent time with some of the main players in the environmental debate, long before this became mandatory, such as Ignacy Sachs, Johan Galtung and Marc Nerfin. He was the president of Brazil in 1997 when the Rio+5 meeting and the Kyoto conference were held and was involved with other heads of state in the negotiations that led to the famous protocol. This document established deadlines, ranging from 2008 to 2012, by which the signatory countries undertook to cut their emissions of greenhouse gases.<\/p>\n<p>In August of this year, Fernando Henrique opened the ceremony at which the FAPESP Program for Research into Global Climate Change was launched. This is the greatest and most articulated multidisciplinary effort ever conducted in Brazil to increase knowledge about this issue. The former president explained how society progressively woke up to the fact that conserving the environment is important. At the request of Carlos Henrique de Brito Cruz, the Foundation\u2019s scientific director, he delivered a copy of the program to Ricardo Lagos, former president of Chile and currently an advisor to UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon. In this interview, Fernando Henrique talks about the progress and acceptance of environmental issues in Brazil and throughout the world.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Was the establishment of the Club of Rome (which brought together academics to discuss a range of issues, in particular environmental ones, back in 1968) the first initiative of people of significant standing within society to try to change matters in aid of the environment? How do you see those times? <\/strong><\/em><br \/>\n\u201cIn so far as I recall, yes it was. The idea of the Club of Rome was zero growth. This was incompatible with developing countries. Naturally, the Brazilian left-wing was against it. And so was I, of course. The idea at that time was that development was a central issue. The Club of Rome wanted zero growth because it believed that certain assets are limited. However, the common feeling was that everything was limitless \u2013 the air and the sea would be available forever, no problem. There was no notion of limitation. One of the first people to develop this notion was Ignacy Sachs, a professor at France\u2019s School of High Studies of Social Sciences [EHESS \u2013 \u00c9cole des Hautes \u00c9tudes en Sciences Sociales]. He has always had great environmental concerns. Though perhaps, before him, Johan Galtun, a Norwegian, had already focused on the issue. He taught at Flacso [the Latin-American College of Social Sciences] in Chile. I also taught there in the sixties. I used to see him going into the lecture hall playing a flute. He\u2019d been an assistant to Paul Lazarsfeld, a social sciences scholar.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Where did Lazarsfeld come from?<\/strong><\/em><br \/>\n\u201cHe taught at Columbia, in the US. Galtung had worked with him there and was up to date; he knew everything. Once I attended a meeting in Sweden, in the seventies, at which we discussed how to put development and environmental conservation together. The concept of eco-development was developed, I believe, by Sachs. Subsequently another friend, Marc Nerfin, a Swiss who was the chief organizer of the 1972 Stockholm Conference, created the International Foundation for Development Alternatives in a town near Geneva. I was on the Board of this foundation.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Were you in France at that time? <\/strong><\/em><br \/>\n\u201cNo, I was in Brazil. We had already established Cebrap [the Brazilian Analysis and Planning Center], but we had no means of survival. So I spent some time studying in France. I had been a regular professor there in the late sixties; I taught courses at the School of High Studies. During the seventies, I kept coming and going. In the mid-seventies I taught at Cambridge and spent some time at Princeton, in the US. Sometimes I went to Sweden.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Did your interest in this issue appear as a result of these meetings? <\/strong><\/em><br \/>\n\u201cIt resulted from their influence. I remember a meeting in Canada, which has a foundation similar to FAPESP. A meeting was held there on the development and environment issue and its star was Sachs. He strongly influenced a lot of people here in Brazil. Sachs is Polish and lived for many years in Brazil; he has a home here and another one in France. He worked with Michal Kalecki, the great Polish economist, one of the major renovators.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Did the concept of sustainable development start to take shape as a result of these discussions? <\/strong><\/em><br \/>\n\u201cNaturally, this expression came later; it\u2019s more recent. But concern with environment-friendly development actually appeared after the Stockholm Conference. The turning point was Stockholm and, later, the 1992 Rio Conference. It was in Rio that an arena for governments to manifest themselves better was really provided.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>These mega-conferences that took place afterwards turned into something rather\u2026<\/strong><\/em><br \/>\n\u201c&#8230; chimerical!\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Exactly. Don\u2019t they strike you as a huge marketing tool that lack effectiveness? Or, at least, that only work very slowly?<\/strong><\/em><br \/>\n\u201cThe governmental machine is always very slow.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Everywhere?<\/strong><\/em><br \/>\n\u201cEverywhere. Intergovernmental machines are even worse. At the end of the day, all themes that concern current affairs and political, social and economic thinking tied in with these conferences. For instance, the UN held a conference on racism in Durban, Africa. Nothing comes of it, let\u2019s say, but the subject is raised. Conferences have been held about women. And about the habitat, about cities. An administrative office was created. In other words, converting this into public policy may be difficult, because it depends on each country\u2019s government, but an intellectual environment is generated that enables ideas to become somewhat contagious. And in this sense I think it\u2019s positive. One of these UN initiatives yielded practical results. It was conducted by Amartya Sen, the Indian economist and 1998 Nobel Prize winner. He is married to Emma Rothschild, who was a great friend of Ruth\u2019s [Ruth Cardoso, Fernando Henrique\u2019s wife, who died in June of this year]. Amartya and Mahbub ul Haq, a Pakistani who was the president of Pakistan\u2019s Central Bank in the seventies, created the Human Development Index &#8211; HDI.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Didn\u2019t you win a UN award because of this index? <\/strong><\/em><br \/>\n\u201cYes, in 2002. I was the first person to win the human development award because Brazil achieved the greatest improvements in these areas in the nineties. Had there been no HDI, we would\u2019ve been unable to measure the progress of anything other than GDP-related items. It\u2019s a simple index that tracks per capita income growth, the extent of literacy and life expectancy. It was this which enabled the practice of evaluation to be disseminated. Here in Brazil, we adapted it for the Jo\u00e3o Pinheiro Foundation in the state of Minas Gerais, which assessed the HDI of towns, one by one. This resulted from this sort of debate, even though they seem to go nowhere. There was a meeting in Africa about the environment that Nelson Mandela and I attended and where we proposed \u2013 Jos\u00e9 Goldemberg came up with the idea and I adopted it \u2013 the target of all countries to produce at least 10% clean energy. Well, we aren\u2019t getting exactly this, but progress is being made. Brazil has advanced a lot regarding the conservation of forests. At the end of the day, this is an outcome of these conferences. However, it\u2019s a fact that action is always far more sluggish than one would like to see.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>You were against slash burning, but they continued doing it. Why is it so hard to get compliance with the president\u2019s wishes? <\/strong><\/em><br \/>\n\u201cActually, because one must go through channels that are more bureaucratic than political in order to succeed. Getting back to the slash burning example, I\u2019m very friendly with F\u00e1bio Feldman [environmentalist and former federal congressman]. We created a council on global warming. We were the first country to do this during my term.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>During your first or your second term?<\/strong><\/em><br \/>\n\u201cSecond. I was the council\u2019s chairman and F\u00e1bio, its executive secretary. We held a few meetings to clarify matters to ministers, secretaries, governors, etc. regarding the issue. And Fabio used to drive me crazy in connection with slash burning. He always looked at me to complain: \u2018They\u2019re burning more than they say\u2026\u2019 On that occasion, we managed to build a satellite with China, the first to take pictures over the Amazon Region several times. That was in my first term. Back then, you could already figure out what was being burnt. But this only increases one\u2019s anguish, because you know what is burning but lack the means to put a stop to it. That region is huge, local interests are very strong and there\u2019s no effective policing\u2026 Today, at least, the mentality of the region\u2019s governors has changed a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>In which states of the Amazon Region is preservation greatest?<\/strong><\/em><br \/>\n\u201cAmazonas and Amap\u00e1 are preserved. Not the south of Acre, though. The forest is attacked from the south because the population puts pressure on it. There are very strong pressures there. First from the lumberyards, which pay the Indians to fell trees and sell timber. Then there\u2019s pressure from local governments, as they profit from timber exports. And there\u2019s pressure from small farmers, in so far as population displacement occurs. I was recently reading in newspapers that it is Incra [the National Institute for Colonization and Agrarian Reform] that conducts the settling of farmers over there. At the time of the military, only large companies, the multinational ones, were strong players and cut down forests. And the government offered incentives for them to do so.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>To advance deeper into the country.<\/strong><\/em><br \/>\n\u201cThey wanted plantations and pastures in the Amazon Region. I have a book about the region at that time, <em>Amaz\u00f4nia: expans\u00e3o do capitalismo <\/em>[Amazonia: capitalism expansion, published by Brasiliense\/Cebrap], dated 1977. I went there with Juarez Brand\u00e3o Lopes, a professor from USP [the University of S\u00e3o Paulo], to conduct an occupational research study in the Amazon Region. The book wasn\u2019t written with him, but with Geraldo M\u00fcller, who was my advisor, and with the help of Tet\u00ea [Teresa Marta], Marta Suplicy\u2019s sister. Severo Gomes [businessman, former senator and former minister, who died in 1992] was my friend and had a farm in the south of Par\u00e1. We went there and I thought it was all rather weird, because they asked for documents and permits, and there were soldiers. Severo received us and, in the evening, the region\u2019s bishop, whose name was Cardoso, a Dominican from the state of Minas Gerais, and a senior nun from a convent over there came to dine with us. Talking to them that evening we found out that there were guerillas in the country. And we didn\u2019t know about it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-69763\" title=\"\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/10\/art3676img21.jpg\" width=\"203\" height=\"299\" srcset=\"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/10\/art3676img21.jpg 203w, https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/10\/art3676img21-120x177.jpg 120w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 203px) 100vw, 203px\" \/><span class=\"media-credits-inline\">EDUARDO CESAR<\/span><em>Given all your dealings with the left, didn\u2019t you know about the Araguaia guerrillas? <\/em><\/strong><br \/>\n\u201cNo, nobody in Brazil knew. That was back in 1975. Severo, Juarez and I had gone all over that region\u2026 Later, when I returned, there were wounded soldiers on the plane. But this story is just a detail. I went there to do research. We called the people from the area to talk. Capitalism was penetrating over there. There was a \u201ccat\u201d \u2013 which is what the guys who co-opted labor were called \u2013 who decided I wanted to buy land. He said \u201cDon\u2019t you worry; buy the land, because over here, we\u2019ll look after everything for you. There\u2019s a system: the folks cut down the woods and stay there for 15 days. Then they go back to town, spend three or four days, and return to the woods. They can\u2019t take guns or women, and they can\u2019t drink. If they do any of that, we give them an alcohol injection and they\u2019ll never do it again.\u201d He was talking about the peons that were co-opted, mainly in Maranh\u00e3o. I visited a village called Reden\u00e7\u00e3o. Today it has, I don\u2019t know, about 100 thousand inhabitants, it\u2019s a city. It had brothels and a drugstore to draw people. That was the idea at the time.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>All of this with a tax break?<\/strong><\/em><br \/>\n\u201cOf course. There was the Volkswagen farm and those of other multinationals. And of course, all of that was going to turn into a desert. You cut the trees down, the cattle stampede the land and it doesn\u2019t turn into anything. This kind of government measure, encouraging deforestation, has ended. However, the fatal capacity for controlling deforestation is still small. How is this measured? By satellite. We have Inpe [the National Space Research Institute] to do this. Then there are those who analyze the data. There was always a discrepancy between the true figures and the official figures. Once I went to dinner at the house of Ronaldo Sardenberg, my last Science and Technology minister. I had dinner there with Fabio, and a young woman who was his friend and who knew everything about the Amazon Region, and the person in charge of the satellite work and the analyses, to see if we could figure out what the correct slash burning and deforestation figures were. It\u2019s very difficult. Even as president, even when you want things, there is no guaranteed set of tools. And it\u2019s no use the government wanting to solve everything: it must be done by society. For as long as society is lenient about these matters, there will be no solution. Today we see that deforestation is still advancing. My position is zero deforestation. But there are always some interesting initiatives. We held two meetings at the Getulio Vargas Foundation in S\u00e3o Paulo and I was favorably impressed with the Brazilian cement and steel businessmen\u2019s efforts. They\u2019re all trying to control CO2 emissions. Our responsibility regarding global warming is slash burning. The feces of animals, of cattle, which also produce methane, is another factor. But the bulk of it is not industrial. The problem is burning the forest. And nothing can justify that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Capitalism at the time when you wrote Amazonia was far more savage than today\u2019s, right? <\/strong><\/em><br \/>\n\u201cI think so.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>How can this process be controlled? <\/strong><\/em><br \/>\n\u201cThere is more than enough advanced capitalism. But right now we\u2019re witnessing the melt-down of all stock markets\u2026 Capitalism has always had this irrational component, it\u2019s true. But not that irrationality that we were talking about before. That kind is savage. As is what China has now. If society has no conscience, if it exerts no pressure and has no government, the sources of private interest destroy everything. There must be an instrument of counterbalance, plus regulation. The worst thing is when the State offers incentives that go against nature, which was the case at the time of the military. At that time there was no awareness; now there is. In the state of Amazonas there was a governor, Gilberto Mestrinho, who hated the nature conservation issue. I met him in the Senate. He believed in the power of unfettered progress. His attitude has now changed.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>It changed?<\/strong><\/em><br \/>\n\u201cIt did. Amazonino Mendes, another Amazonas governor, also changed. The current one, Eduardo Braga, is totally concerned with this issue, at least verbally; I don\u2019t know what he\u2019s actually doing. I introduced him to Al Gore when he was here. Jo\u00e3o Alberto Capiberibe, from Amap\u00e1, is also concerned. Today, the State is far more aware of the need to offset the more savage forces.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Intergovernmental issues seem to pose a greater difficulty, as you mentioned. The Bali Meeting in 2007 indicated that today\u2019s challenge is to try to combine the interests of both the poor and the rich countries. <\/strong><\/em><br \/>\n\u201cThere is no easy solution. But Brazil\u2019s delegation over there, as far as I know, achieved a reasonable solution during the discussions on forest conservation. I think that we should absolutely insist on the value of standing forests and even of planted forests. This was never taken into account when we discussed the Kyoto Protocol originally. I think that that Kyoto has become insufficient. The protocol\u2019s idea was shared and unequal responsibility. An arrangement was devised there whereby developed countries can continue polluting provided they pay for the non-pollution of others. This is rather archaic, to imagine that we can accept that nobody has the right to pollute with no attempt at compensation. I always remember [Mikhail] Gorbatchev, because I was very impressed by his position in the eighties.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>And what was that?<\/strong><\/em><br \/>\n\u201cHe was the leader of a communist state, a world power based on atomic production, who said: \u2018Look here, we can\u2019t go on like this.\u2019 I think that theoretically this is very interesting. In Marxist theory one can\u2019t talk about Humanity without a degree of mystification: everything indicates that there will only be Humanity when a universal class comes into being. When the workers rule the world, everyone will be equal. Then we\u2019ll have Humanity. Other than this, what we have are social classes. Humanity is mystification and opposing social classes are what concretely exist. These are [Karl] Marx\u2019s ideas. Or, above all, the ideas of Marx\u2019s disciples \u2013 Marx was always more intelligent than his disciples. Gorbatchev said the opposite: \u2018We can\u2019t go on like this. Atomic terror is no solution; having an atom bomb not only hurts others; it all goes into the atmosphere and comes back to me. We must think that it\u2019s a process that affects Humanity.\u2019 I think this, in the late eighties, was a huge change. This evolution is very interesting, because in the tradition of leftist thinking it doesn\u2019t exist. The idea of progress dates back to the 18<sup>th<\/sup> century. It\u2019s the belief that progress is unlimited and that one needn\u2019t think about the limits that nature imposes. Man would always discover a new technology to solve it all. It\u2019s a blind trust in technological progress. Then Gorbatchev came along and said \u2018Look here, think about this, be careful, because progress can be destructive.\u2019 So we must have other values, including respect for the environment.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Was Gorbatchev aware of this concept?<\/strong><\/em><br \/>\n\u201cI met him several times. He has a relative awareness of this. But it\u2019s hard to really tell, because he speaks no English, only Russian. He\u2019s very talkative, very pleasant. And he has a good-looking daughter who translates well, besides the official translator. Still, interaction is complicated. Perhaps he doesn\u2019t have a conceptual awareness, let\u2019s say, of what he said and did. And he\u2019s not a person with such an abstract thought process. But I know he did engage in this conceptual change. Today, the ethical theme in science has made a comeback. Science has become less arrogant. Will it solve all world problems? No.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>We recently witnessed major debates about genetic modifications and embryo stem cells. <\/strong><\/em><br \/>\n\u201cIt was good, wasn\u2019t it? Of course, research must be conducted, but there are limits. That\u2019s also true of the development and environmental issues. I think that social awareness has advanced. I see that young people show a lot of environmental sensitivity. Brazil has always held, at least where rhetoric is concerned, advanced positions about the environment. Lately that has slackened off a bit. We\u2019re back to a \u2018growth is what matters\u2019 type of situation. Environmental concerns have been rather set aside due to growth ambitions.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>You have always been critical of energy from nuclear sources. Wouldn\u2019t that be a good solution today?<\/em><br \/>\n<\/strong>\u201cThe problem is disposing of atomic waste. However, given current circumstances, we must rethink this. I was heavily struck by a conversation I had with people from Alcoa. They\u2019re injecting gas into holes where there was oil before. Instead of releasing it into space, they\u2019re putting it under the ground. Something akin to this will have to be invented for nuclear waste. More than 60% of France\u2019s power is atomic energy. Germany and Spain can afford the luxury of turning this down because they import power from the French. That makes it easy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>We interviewed professor Jos\u00e9 Goldemberg a few months ago and he was critical of Brazil\u2019s current diplomatic posture. He said Brazil is playing China\u2019s game and that it could hold a far more proactive position. How do you see this? <\/strong><\/em><br \/>\n\u201cI agree with him. Indeed, Brazil\u2019s diplomatic posture was heavily underscored, understandably, by the seventies\u2019 economic boom and a vision of a powerful Brazil. Regarding the environmental issue, I myself forced the discussion in favor of the Kyoto Protocol. I talked to Bill Clinton (he called me on more than one occasion during negotiations), to Sardenberg (when he was in Holland, negotiating the issues) and to our diplomatic corps\u2026 Well, diplomacy more or less goes along with politics when this is convenient. As it is doing now, in the case of Lula. He has fewer environmental concerns and is more interested in growth; diplomacy has sort of taken up an attitude derived from the struggle of the poor against the rich. They aren\u2019t third-world advocates; I\u2019m exaggerating, but there\u2019s an element of this. China is part of the Third World, the US and Europe are in the First world; so we\u2019re together with China, we\u2019re not in the First World. Well, I think this is a simplification. And so do they. For instance, the ambassador who has always dealt with this, Everton Vieira Vargas, is very good. There are several like him at Itamaraty [the Brazilian Foreign Office]. But there are others that think otherwise. If China prefers things over here, they establish an alliance with China. I think we shouldn\u2019t maintain unconditional relations with anyone. We must consider our interests and the interests of Humanity regarding profit. China will have to take measures, because it knows it can\u2019t go on with things as they are at present. Brazil pulled away from it a bit in Bali, but it must pull away further, because we don\u2019t need to pay for their mistakes. China decided to grow and it has a problem. I can understand it: one billion people need to eat. But now that they\u2019re eating, they need to pay more attention to how things are done. And Brazil isn\u2019t China. We should understand these processes. In any event, we have made fair progress regarding such matters.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Are you still a critic of the waste of energy? <\/strong><\/em><br \/>\n\u201cI think not wasting it is fundamental. We can gain a lot more.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Is this a trauma from the time of the nationwide power shortage? <\/strong><\/em><br \/>\n\u201cNo it\u2019s not. It\u2019s about seeing what happened and how we managed to handle matters. We developed capabilities and learned to save power. Only recently did the level of power consumption return to its former levels. There\u2019s a lot to be done, a lot of things left over.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>You gave a copy of the FAPESP Program for Research into Global Climate Change to Ricardo Lagos, the former president of Chile. Why? <\/strong><\/em><br \/>\n\u201cHe\u2019s an advisor on the environment to the UN secretary-general. I used to chair the Madrid Club, an association of former presidents founded by Gorbatchev. Clinton was its honorary chairman. We held a major meeting on how to render fighting terrorism compatible with democratic rules. When Ricardo left the government of Chile, I transferred two of my duties to him: the chairmanships of the Madrid Club and of the Inter-American Dialogue, in the US. And he, in turn, held a meeting on the environment. I gave him the FAPESP program to take to the UN and to the Madrid Club itself.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Can one expect some receptiveness from these institutions? <\/strong><\/em><br \/>\n\u201cReceptiveness yes; money no. It\u2019s mainly to publicize the program. We have resources in Brazil. So the problem is getting people interested, to show what can be done.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>And what about the environmental issue, in the light of the current major economic crisis? <\/strong><\/em><br \/>\n\u201cThe crisis will have a positive impact on the environment because it will reduce growth and pollution. But a greater effort to understand the issue won\u2019t necessarily occur. The crisis will just reduce the magnitude of the drama. One will spend less, consume less oil\u2026 In the US, there was major progress, and at the social awareness level as well. In California and in other states and cities, for example. Brazil works a bit like that. We aren\u2019t a centralized country. We have states and municipalities, a more active society, as in the US. There, the federal government lacks the power to curb the California governor. I think Brazil is able to do the same. I was very impressed at a meeting of the WRI [World Resources Institute], of which I am a member, along with Al Gore. There was a presentation about what was happening in American companies. They\u2019re much more advanced than the US government. And some of ours are as well. Talk to the Votorantim people to see this. They\u2019re proposing to change their type of blast-furnace in order to cut the emission of greenhouse gases.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Are you asked to deal with this theme at your institute? The iFHC website lists several seminars on this issue. <\/strong><\/em><br \/>\n\u201cA lot of people ask for this. At first it was difficult. I used to be the president of the Republic and am the honorary chairman of the PSDB [political party]. So they thought that the institute was going to work as a politician\u2019s disguise. But it doesn`t. To this day, I have difficulty in this regard . I\u2019m not that well informed about day-to-day politics, but people don\u2019t believe it. They think I\u2019m putting this on, that I\u2019m maneuvering \u2013 well, sometimes I am. But I no longer have patience with this type of thing and personal interest in it. Here at the institute we try to maintain a debate with society. And, in so far as possible, with the parties as well. In our seminars, we make an effort to get people from universities and companies, journalists and politicians. The difficulty is finding politicians interested in these subjects.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"No solution as long as society is lenient toward environmental damage","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[161],"tags":[],"coauthors":[98,104],"class_list":["post-68935","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interview"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68935"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68935\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68935"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=68935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}