MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Brazil's VP says Bolsonaro would be greeted with stones at Glasgow's climate summit

Bolsonaro will not attend Glasgow's summit over security concerns

Brazilian Vice President Hamilton Mourao said that if President Jair Bolsonaro was to attend the COP 26 climate change summit in Glasgow he would be greeted with stones.

Bolsonaro arrived Friday in Rome for the G20 summit and will remain there until Tuesday, but he will not travel to the UN conference beginning Sunday in Scotland.

“Everyone knows that the president suffers a series of criticisms, he was going to arrive at a place where everyone is going to throw stones at him,” Mourao said.

“Most of the people who are environmentally conscious are from the left, therefore there is a political criticism embedded,” added General Mourao, who is also the head of the Amazon Council, a body that brings together ministries from different areas applying joint policies on the largest rainforest in the world.

Mourao also argued that behind the questions about Brazil's ecological policy lurks “the economic question” of the governments that promote “barriers” to exports from “our thriving agribusiness.” He added that the exported agricultural products do not “come from the deforested areas” of the Amazon.

The Brazilian newspaper O Globo has reported that during or after the Scottish summit some governments or companies in Europe may decide to boycott some Brazilian products as a form of pressure against deforestation.

Although he will not be in Glasgow, Bolsonaro will participate at the climate summit virtually through a video, which has already been recorded and sent to the organizers of the event. O Globo has also reported that those responsible for the president's agenda want to prevent him from being the object of protests.

This Saturday and Sunday he will take part in the meeting of G20 leaders in Rome.
Bolsonaro, president of the country with the largest Catholic population in the world, will not meet the Argentina-born Pope Francis while in Rome. In 2019, members of the Brazilian government publicly criticized the Amazon Synod held at the Vatican as a “threat” to national sovereignty.