Carlos R. S. Milani
Rev. Carta Inter., Belo Horizonte, v. 19, n. 1, e1412, 2024
1-24
The Climate Emergency versus
the Right to Development: Where
do Brazil-China Relations Stand?
Emergência Climática versus
Direito ao Desenvolvimento: como
situar as relações Brasil-China?
Emergencia Climática versus
Derecho al Desarrollo: ¿cómo analisar
las relaciones Brasil-China?
DOI: 10.21530/ci.v19n1.2024.1412
Carlos R. S. Milani
1
Abstract
In this paper, my main argument is that a critical understanding of
Brazil-China relations challenges Brazil’s government to redefine new
paths for its own transition towards more sustainable development
policies, on the one hand, and for both Brazil and China to integrate
climate-related criteria in their strategic partnership, on the other
hand. Based on the review of secondary data, official reports and
available bibliography, the paper is structured around three main
sections: (i) The context: climate emergency and its implications
for development in Brazil; (ii) The focus: Brazil-China evolving
relations in the twenty-first century; and (iii) The discussion:
rejuvenating the Brazil-China strategic partnership.
Keywords: Climate emergency, development, sustainability,
Brazil-China relations.
1 Doutor pela Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales. Professor Titular
de Relações Internacionais no Instituto de Estudos Sociais e Políticos da
Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (IESP-UERJ). (crsmilani@iesp.uerj.br).
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8204-6827. Pesquisa desenvolvida graças
ao apoio do CNPq (306986/2023-0) e da FAPERJ (E-26/211.272/2021).
Artigo submetido em 22/01/2024 e aprovado em 04/09/2024.
ASSOCIAÇÃO BRASILEIRA DE
RELAÇÕES INTERNACIONAIS
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ISSN 2526-9038
The Climate Emergency versus the Right to Development: Where do Brazil-China Relations Stand?
Rev. Carta Inter., Belo Horizonte, v. 19, n. 1, e1412, 2024
2-24
Resumo
Meu principal argumento neste artigo é de que uma compreensão crítica das relações
Brasil-China desafia o governo brasileiro a redefinir novos caminhos para sua própria
transição em direção a políticas de desenvolvimento mais sustentáveis, por um lado, e
para que tanto o Brasil quanto a China integrem critérios relacionados ao clima em sua
parceria estratégica, por outro lado. Com base na revisão de dados secundários, relatórios
oficiais e bibliografia disponível, o artigo é estruturado em torno de três seções principais:
(i) O contexto: emergência climática e suas implicações para o desenvolvimento no Brasil;
(ii) O foco: a transformação das relações Brasil-China no século XXI; e (iii) A discussão:
renovando a parceria estratégica Brasil-China.
Palavras-chave: Emergência climática, desenvolvimento, sustentabilidade, relações
Brasil-China.
Resumen
En este artículo, mi argumento principal es que una comprensión crítica de las relaciones
entre Brasil y China desafía al gobierno brasileño a redefinir nuevos caminos para su
propia transición hacia políticas de desarrollo más sostenibles, por un lado, y a que tanto
Brasil como China integren criterios relacionados con el clima en su asociación estratégica,
por el otro. A partir de la revisión de datos secundarios, informes oficiales y bibliografía
disponible, el artículo se estructura en torno a tres secciones principales: (i) El contexto:
la emergencia climática y sus implicaciones para el desarrollo en Brasil; (ii) El enfoque:
la evolución de las relaciones entre Brasil y China en el siglo XXI; y (iii) La discusión: la
renovación de la asociación estratégica entre Brasil y China.
Palabras clave: Emergencia climática, desarrollo, sostenibilidad, relaciones Brasil-China.
Introduction
Brazilian presidents have since the 1990s considered China-Brazil bilateral
relations (particularly trade) a key dimension of Brazil’s foreign policy. In 1995,
Fernando Henrique Cardoso paid an official visit to Beijing; Lula da Silva even
mentioned China in his inaugural address in 2003; Dilma Rousseff made her
first international trip to Beijing in 2011, and the BRICSs group quickly became
one of her top economic priorities. The Bolsonaro administration, between 2019
and 2022, represented a paradoxical moment in Brazil-China bilateral relations:
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trade-wise the agribusiness export companies would be an important pro-China
economic sector and political lobby in the Executive and Legislative branches of
the federal state; however, diplomatically many of Bolsonaro’s high official made
disavowing public statements about China that in fact showcased ethnocentric,
uninformed and discriminatory visions of Chinese history and culture in the longue
durée and its recent economic accomplishments. The new Lula administration
has reestablished the strategic dimension of Brazil’s foreign relations with China:
Xi Jinping and Lula da Silva met in Beijing on 14 April 2023, having placed
climate change in the spotlight of Brazil-China bilateral relations.
Multilaterally, the two countries have important responsibilities, although they
play asymmetric roles in the United Nations climate negotiations, mainly through
the BASIC coalition, involving Brazil, South Africa, India and China. Both China
(1st) and Brazil (7th) are among the world’s major emitters of greenhouse gases
(GHG) in absolute terms, even if per capita emissions vary widely, with Australia,
the United States and Canada having approximately twice the emissions of the
European Union and China, and three times those of Brazil in 2020 (Climate
Watch 2023). In addition, China is one of the leading economies in energy
transition policies (Lo 2021; Meidan 2020). Brazil, whose profile of GHG emissions
is closely related to land-use and deforestation, is home to approximately 60%
of the Pan-Amazon rainforest; it has become a key player in the fight against
deforestation and, due to its economic weight in global meat and grain trade,
may eventually play an important role in transition scenarios towards low-carbon
agriculture models.
Having this background in mind, this paper aims to analyze the strategic
implications of the adoption of climate emergency as a key concept in the
field of a more socially and environmentally sustainable development from a
Brazilian perspective. The climate emergency here refers to the anthropogenic
climate change defined as an interdependent set of natural, social, economic, and
political problems that relate to unprecedented severity, scale, and complexity,
and all this within a timeframe that constrains short-term policy making and
global diplomacy due to long-term planetary effects. The focus of the paper is
on the interplay between Brazil’s domestic politics and Brazil-China relations in
an attempt to understand how trade, investment and foreign policy options may
produce challenges for Brazil to redefine new paths for its own development
policies, on the one hand, and for both Brazil and China to integrate climate-related
criteria in their strategic bilateral relations, on the other hand.
The Climate Emergency versus the Right to Development: Where do Brazil-China Relations Stand?
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Based on the review of secondary data, official reports and available
bibliography, the paper responds to the following research question: what are the
main challenges and opportunities posed by the climate emergency to Brazil-China
strategic relations? In order to answer this question, I analyze recent international
political economy trends and argue that the adoption of sustainability standards
due to the climate emergency implies a profound rethinking of the role of the
State in development, particularly in Brazil, and the redefinition of economic
and political priorities in the strategic partnership between the two countries.
The paper is structured around three main sections, followed by concluding
remarks: (i) Climate emergency and its implications for development in Brazil;
(ii) Brazil-China evolving relations since the foundation of BRICS, here considered
as a hallmark in the trajectory of strategic relations between the two countries,
both in bilateral and multilateral negotiations; (iii) Proposing policy parameters
to rejuvenate the Brazil-China strategic partnership.
The Context: Climate Emergency and Sustainable
Development in Brazil
The accelerated loss of biodiversity, increasing deforestation rates, rising
emissions of CO2 related to the continuous development of the fossil economy,
and the climate emergency are fundamental components of the Anthropocene
which have produced intense public debates about the rejuvenated responsibility
of the State in development models (Franchini, Viola and Barros-Platiau 2017;
Pettifor 2019). The concept of the Anthropocene was coined in 2000 by Paul
Crutzen, who had won the Chemistry Nobel Prize in 1995, and by biologist
Eugene Stoermer. They proposed to consider humankind a geological force in
shaping the functioning of the Earth system (Crutzen and Stoermer 2000). From
natural sciences to the humanities and social science research, the debate on
the Anthropocene has gained significant critical ground (Chandler, Muller and
Rothe 2022).
In the context of the Anthropocene, here understood as a diagnosis and a
condition of present international relations, many social scientists agree that
anthropogenic climate change is a threat amplifier and multiplier which is not
uniform in terms of its causal responsibility (Milani 2022). In August 2023, several
scientists published a report on the alarming state of the planet’s climate, recalling
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that “we witnessed an extraordinary series of climate-related records being broken
around the world. The rapid pace of change has surprised scientists and caused
concern about the dangers of extreme weather, risky climate feedback loops, and
the approach of damaging tipping points sooner than expected” (Ripple et al.
2023, p. 1). Based on the key contributions of the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC), social scientists have added that the human imprint on
the global climate must be unpacked according to inequalities and differences
among humans (race, gender), social classes, and states (Bourg 2018; Merchant
2020; Vanderheiden 2008).
Often, debates on the climate emergency assume that we will have to reinvent
ourselves as a society and civilization; that we will have to rethink economic
and political models that allow us to overcome these crises in the short term,
but also on the longer run — all of this to ensure our viability as humankind and
societies (Burke et al. 2016; Chandler, Cudworth and Hobden 2018). If climate
change does not endanger the planet itself, whose resilience is confirmed with
an approximate age of 4.6 billion years, the climate emergency and associated
crises threaten some humans more than others. The younger generations and
people living in the least developed countries, particularly small island developing
nations, and poorer communities living in coastal areas, are more vulnerable and
have less causal responsibility. Indeed, an additional problem in designing and
implementing collective action mechanisms to deal with the climate emergency
has been historical and geographical differences in terms of causal responsibilities
(McNeill and Engelke 2014; Milani and Chaves 2022).
The climate emergency impacts several IR agendas, including development
and security. As the UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, reminds us in the
document published in September 2021, entitled Our Common Agenda — Report
of the Secretary-General, “we have been reminded of the vital role of the State in
solving problems, but also the need for networks of actors stretching well beyond
States to cities, corporations, scientists, health professionals, researchers, civil
society, the media, faith-based groups and individuals” (United Nations 2021,
p.11). In fact, the COVID-19 pandemic has not only strengthened the perception of
risks associated with deforestation of tropical forests, the thawing of the planet’s
permafrost, and the melting of the glaciers in the Arctic Sea or in the Andes,
it has also generated an increased awareness of key interconnections between
development and security agendas in international politics. Like many other
transboundary threats to the security of individuals, societies, and ecosystems,
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no military capacity, no customs and border control, and no economic power
has been able to stop the worldwide spread of the new coronavirus. Moreover,
the construction of human vulnerability diagnoses has forced governments and
policymakers (at least those who were not in denial), to recognize “vulnerability”
as a process in which health, environmental-ecological, cultural-educational, and
political-economic issues were necessarily intertwined, involving the economic
system as a whole (Milani 2020; Moore 2014; Muradian and Cardenas 2015).
In its 14 February 2023 session, the UN Security Council opened the
debate on “Sea-Level Rise—Implications for International Peace and Security”,
acknowledging that to reduce affected countries’ vulnerabilities, it is critical to
develop synergies between the Council and other UN bodies in addressing the
negative effects of climate change on international peace and security, investing
in peacebuilding programs, and scalable, durable solutions based on nationally
owned and determined priorities. Although Council members are united about
the need to combat the adverse effects of climate change, members continue to
be divided over whether the Security Council should play a role in this respect
and under what circumstances. Most Council members espouse more systematic
engagement by the body on climate, peace, and security issues. Brazil, China, and
Russia, however, have traditionally had concerns about the Council’s approach
to climate change, which they view as primarily a sustainable development
issue, rather than a threat to international peace and security. These members
consistently express concerns about Council encroachment on other UN entities
and processes, most notably the UNFCCC, that are designed to deal with the
adverse effects of climate change (Security Council Report 2023).
In this complex context, what are the main challenges that Brazil is confronted
with in promoting its own attempts towards socially and environmentally
sustainable development strategies? Sustainability here stands on three pillars,
social, economic, and environmental, and the idea of “sustainable development”
binds them together to uplift the spirit of what Ignacy Sachs used to call
ecodevelopment” (Sachs 1980). Since the Paris Accords, signed as a result of
COP21 in 2015, sustainability also encompasses the climate dimension and deals
with the internalization of energy transition costs (Castro 2021; Melo 2021).
In this regard, responding to the climate emergency and submitting an
ambitious and rigorous Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) represents a
major challenge for a country such as Brazil, whose economic model is highly
dependent on the development of the agribusiness and the export of primary
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commodities and natural resources, particularly from the mining sector and the
oil industry. A first emblematic case comes from the agribusiness sector, which
is responsible for an important share in Brazil’s GHG emissions profile. It is
true that the fossil fuel industry is the leading actor denying, slowing down or
obstructing climate policies in the USA, the United Kingdom, Australia and many
other countries; however, the agribusiness sector, one of the fastest-growing
contributors to emissions related to land-use and deforestation is now globally
recognized as a key player in any transition scenarios towards more sustainable
development models (Edwards at al. 2023).2 According to FAO, animal-based
food responds for approximately 57% of food production emissions. FAO’s
global estimate of GHG emissions of animal agriculture, and other scholars have
estimated that the sector contributes alone between 11.2% to 19.6% of total
global GHG emissions (FAO 2006; Xu et al. 2021).
In Brazil, soybean monoculture and beef production are today the main
causes of deforestation in the Amazon and Cerrado regions. Latin America is the
region that exports the most beef and poultry in the world, with the livestock
sector growing at an annual rate of 3.7%. As global demand for meat increases,
so does the need for soybean production, which in turn leads to an irresponsible
expansion pattern of agricultural frontiers and deforestation rates, especially in
Brazil, the world’s largest producer of this commodity. In a context of climate
emergency and the search for technologies to mitigate environmental impacts,
little has been done to address the relationship between meat consumption and
production in the world, especially with regard to GHG emissions.
Figures published by Brazil’s Ministry of Agriculture show that the country’s
agribusiness exports represented 37.4% of total Brazilian exports in 2000, but
their share rose to 45.9% in 2016. Also in 2016, commercial exchange was led
by China, with 24.5% of the total exported by Brazilian agribusiness, while
the European Union (EU) and the United States of America (USA) represented,
respectively, 19.6% and 7.4%. In 2022, China rose to 33.4%, the EU reduced its
participation to 15.5% and the USA to 4.2%. Some sectors stand out in the Brazilian
agribusiness export basket, including the soybean complex, meat, sugar and
alcohol complex and forestry products, which, together, represent approximately
70% of the value exported by agribusiness in recent years (Brasil 2023). From the
2 Climate obstruction “broadly refers to campaigns and other policy actions led by well-organized and financed
networks of corporate and other actors who have actively sought to prevent global and/or national action on
climate change over the past four decades” (Edwards et al. 2023, p.1).
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sustainable development perspective, with a herd of 234.4 million in 2022, Brazil
has more cattle than people, according to the report of the Brazilian Institute
of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), released in September 2023. The majority
of the cattle is located on the Cerradoregion, the Brazilian savannah, posing
global warming and sustainability risks that are also related to local social and
environmental conflicts.3
A second important example concerns the mining sector. First, it is important
to recall that this industry does not affect the environment, natural reserves and
indigenous territories only through direct impacts related to the loss of territory,
deforestation, pollution of rivers, the reduction or degradation of agricultural
land, or the reduction in the variety and availability of biodiversity in the forest,
fields and waters. Mercury, for instance, is a highly toxic metal used in gold
extraction processes that contaminates rivers, fish and, therefore, indigenous and
riverside populations. Second, mining drives a series of other related economic
activities that are necessary for its maintenance, such as civil construction, the
generation and transmission of electrical energy, the mineral transport system
(such as pipelines, railways and waterways), transformation industries, such as
the steel industry, and export infrastructure such as ports and port complexes.
All of these activities intensify the impacts on territories located in areas of direct
influence of the mines, and on territories of traditional peoples and communities,
many of them located thousands of kilometers from where the ore is extracted.
In addition, mining activities may also be linked to other informal economies,
including illegal gold extraction and trade, arms and drug trafficking, which
have significantly expanded their territorial networks in the Brazilian Amazon
under the Bolsonaro administration (Machado 2011; Pereira 2022). Politically,
both agribusiness and mining sectors, in their majority, have supported anti-
sustainability, anti-science and anti-climate viewpoints, conspiracy theories, a clear
preference for Brazil-USA relations (particularly under the Trump administration),
pro-military dictatorship and ultra conservative political banners, which were
organically conspicuous in narratives and strategies of Brazil’s government
between 2019 and 2022 (Gonçalves and Cafrune 2023; Silva and Teixeira 2022).
Although former president Bolsonaro was defeated in the 2022 presidential
elections, many of his supporters were elected as federal deputies, senators,
3 Data available at https://www.ibge.gov.br/estatisticas/economicas/agricultura-e-pecuaria/9107-producao-da-
pecuaria-municipal.html?=&t=sobre (Access on 22 September 2023).
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governors of states, and reactionary ideas, networks and movements still spread
throughout the Brazilian society and political institutions.
Not less meaningful is the fact that the right to sustainable development
is still conflated with developmentalism, a strong intellectual tradition within
the Brazilian center-left ideological spectrum that is pervasive across media
professionals, bloggers and journalists, former and current ministers, political
parties, foundations, think tanks and scholars. As an economic mantra of many
center-left political and social actors, developmentalism pundits still prescribe,
for instance, that oil drilling at the mouth of the Amazon is an economic need to
promote social policies nation-wide. This is one of the policy debates that illustrate
the domestic contradictions related to developmentalism; as a matter of fact, one
of its key assumptions is, still nowadays, the zero-sum game between economic
growth and environmental protection. A broader and cohesive pro-climate, socially
inclusive and economically prudent vision of sustainable development that cuts
across different policy sectors is yet to be crafted and implemented by Brazil’s
federal and state-level governments. The need to understand how Brazil-China
trade and investment relations interact with Brazilian domestic contradictions
is our main goal in the next section.
The Focus: Brazil-China bilateral relations
In this section, I will focus on two domains, trade and investment, and analyze
the interactions between bilateral relations and Brazil’s domestic politics. First,
trade-wise, in the wake of China’s entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO)
in 2001, the Asian giant gained relevance among Brazil’s trading partners. This
trend was accelerated with the creation of the BRICS group and in the aftermath
of the 2008-2009 global crisis. In 2019, China surpassed the USA and became
Brazil’s main trading partner (Cano 2012; Nassif and Castilho 2020), contributing
to an export basket increasingly concentrated in commodities or manufactured
products that are intensive in natural resources. In 2018, they were responsible
for 96% of exports destined to China. That year, just three products (soybeans,
oil and iron ore) accounted for 77.2% of Brazil’s total exports to China.
In fact, China’s appetite for iron ore, oil, soybeans and meat, among other
products, has fueled an impressive growth in China-Brazil bilateral trade. Growing
Chinese demand and its effects on international prices during the first twenty
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years of the 21st century had a positive impact on Brazilian exports; however,
the consolidation of China as a major producer of manufactured products has
raised concerns among Brazilian firms about competition with locally produced
products. In recent years, China has become the main origin of Brazilian imports,
surpassed the participation of other trading partners (United States, European Union
and Mercosur) and increased Chinese participation in Brazilian manufacturing
sectors, with emphasis on sectors that are intensive in energy and technology
(Hiratuka and Sarti 2016; Sugimoto and Diegues 2022). These trends showcase
the centrality of China-Brazil trade relations in income generation and economic
growth in Brazil. However, in structural terms they may also pose challenges
to Brazil’s own aspirations for an environmentally sustainable development
model. Why so?
As part and parcel of this process, the agribusiness and the extractive
industry have become key sectors in Brazil’s political economy. Agribusiness
as a whole (calculating its direct participation and indirect effects, such as the
sale of agricultural machinery, inputs and services) contributed about 27.6% of
the country’s GDP in 2021, and 20.1% of total employment (Brasil 2023). In a
similar way, the extractive industry (mainly oil and mining) has grown by 87.9%
since 2000. The share of agriculture and extractive industries in Brazil’s total
exports grew from 9.1 and 7.1% in 2000 to 39.3 and 35.7% in 2021, respectively.
In contrast, manufacturing has grown much less rapidly. Brazilian manufacturers,
particularly textile producers, have been besieged by competitive producers in
China. Therefore, considering that China is an industry-based economic and
global political power, there is a need to analyze the composition of bilateral
trade relations: according to Albuquerque (2014) and Vadell (2013), they reflect
traditional North-South patterns, wherein Brazil plays the role of exporting natural
resources and China increases its exports of manufactured goods.
Of course, although China is the main export market for Brazil’s commodities,
China-Brazil trade is not the only relevant variable to analyze Brazil’s environmental
degradation. There are multiple historical, economic and political causes to unpack
Brazil’s environmental degradation, many of them at the national level. In 2016,
the year of the Paris Agreement ratification by Brazil, 51% of emissions were
caused by deforestation. Since then, deforestation has remained an authorized
practice in the context of fragile institutional governance and increase of illegal
networks, a trend that was deeply reinforced by the Bolsonaro administration
(Milani and Chaves 2022).
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Today, deforestation accounts for approximately 1.8 billion tons of CO2
equivalent emitted by food systems in Brazil (56.3% of the total emissions),
followed by agriculture (33.7%), energy (5.6%) and waste (4.2%). Since 1990, 92%
of emissions from deforestation have occurred due to the formation of pastures,
and another 5% due to soy production.4 As Raoni Rajão and his colleagues recall,
although most of Brazil’s agricultural output is deforestation-free, approximately
2% of properties in the Amazon and Cerrado (the Brazilian savannah) are
responsible for 62% of all potentially illegal deforestation; they also stress that
a substantial share of potentially illegal deforestation is linked to agricultural
export commodities (Rajão et al. 2020). In 2022, the forest and land-use sector
represented almost half of Brazilian gross emissions; Amazonian deforestation
accounted for nearly 80% of the sector’s total emissions (Pereira and Viola 2024).
In addition, the seizure and destruction of illegal mining machinery in the
Amazon totals approximately US$ 200 million, according to Brazil’s governmental
Institute of Environmental Protection, IBAMA. Actions against illegal mining in
2023 have already caused a billion-dollar loss to criminal activity. Among the
items seized or destroyed were tractors, excavators, ferries, dredgers, planes and
helicopters, as well as engines, boats, motorcycles, pickup trucks and camping
equipment. According to the federal police, a scheme involving companies
exploring and selling gold of illegal origin, and taken from Amerindian territories
and environmental protection areas, would have circulated almost US$ 2 billion
between January 2021 and September 2023.5
Another key domestic element in this complex equation is the role of the
agribusiness sector in Brazil’s elections, legislative responsibilities and compliance
with national environmental norms (Rajão et al. 2020; Santos and Moreira 2023).
All these elements are part and parcel of the political economy of agribusiness
and extractive industries in Brazil, even though the new Lula administration
has so far made efforts to move beyond this trend and set up the goal of zero
illegal deforestation by 2030.
4 Data and report produced by SEEG/Observatory of Climate, in Brazil, available at: https://www.oc.eco.br/o-agro-
quer-empurrar-a-conta-do-clima-para-voce/?utm_source=akna&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=23112023-
ClimaInfo-Newsletter. More data available on https://www.oc.eco.br/seeg-sistemas-alimentares/ (Access on
23 November 2023).
5 Information from: https://g1.globo.com/ma/maranhao/noticia/2023/09/27/operacao-de-combate-a-extracao-
ilegal-de-ouro-em-area-de-protecao-ambiental-e-realizada-no-ma.ghtml (Access on 28 September 2023).
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Second, the interaction between Brazil’s domestic politics and Chinese
investments points out a different picture, to a greater extent in line with Brazil-
China strategic relations in the field of climate change and energy transition,
as we shall see later on. Investment portfolios showcase an ambition for a
sustainable transition from the fossil economy to renewable sources of energy,
particularly in more recent years. Additional data published in the most recent
CEBC report on Chinese investments in Brazil signals that 2022 was a year of
contrasts. In 2022, China had the lowest amount of investment in Brazil since
2009, with approximately US$1.3 billion, 78% less than what it had invested in
2021; however, 2022 also features an impressive number of projects, 32 in total,
that is 14% more projects than 2021.
In 2022, the world’s main beneficiary of Chinese investments was Saudi
Arabia, followed by Indonesia and Hungary. Brazil was the ninth most important
destination for Chinese investments in the world in 2022, behind Argentina (Table
1). In 2021, Brazil had been the first largest destination for Chinese investments
in the world. In 2022, 50% of projects focused on the electricity sector, with
emphasis on State Grid Corporation of China, China Three Gorges and State
Power Investment Corporation (CEBC 2023).
Table 1: Main Recipients of Chinese Foreign Investment in 2022 (US$ billion)
Country Value
Saudi Arabia 5.55
Indonesia 3.91
Hungary 3.75
Singapore 2.73
USA 2.59
Malaysia 1.57
Zimbabwe 1.43
Argentina 1.34
Brazil 1.30
Germany 1.12
Source: CEBC (2023), p. 17.
In terms of stock, between 2005 and 2022, Brazil is the fourth largest
beneficiary of Chinese investments, behind the USA, Australia and the United
Kingdom. Between 2007 and 2022, Brazil had a stock of US$71.6 billion in
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Chinese investment: in terms of value, the electricity sector absorbed 45.5%
of these investments, oil extraction 30.4%, metallic minerals extraction 6.2%,
manufacturing industry 6.2%, infrastructure projects 4.4% and agriculture 3.4%.
The other sectors had individual shares of less than 2%. In South America, which
concentrates 96% of Chinese investments in Latin America, three recent trajectories
show different features of the portfolio: in the 2000s, the focus was on mining
and oil; in the 2010s, in mergers and acquisitions in traditional infrastructure,
construction contracts and public service concessions; in more recent years,
the focus has been on renewable energies and electric vehicle supply chains.
It is important to recall that the so-called lithium triangle (Argentina, Bolivia
and Chile) concentrates 61% of the reserves identified in the world. Brazil has
only 1% of these reserves (CEBC 2023).
At the national level, in 2023 Brazil’s new administration announced a
revised GHG emission target at the United Nations Climate Ambition Summit:
an annual cap of 1.32 Giga tons of GHG by 2025, equivalent to a 50% reduction
from 2005. That implies that Brazil intends to cap 2030 emissions at 1.20 Giga
tons of GHG, a reduction of 53% compared to 2005, a climate change target
that, if followed, would be more ambitious than the one announced by the USA,
which had pledged to cut emissions by 50-52% by 2030, also compared to 2005.
6
Therefore, Chinese investments in Brazil’s renewables and energy transition
may contribute to more policy coherence in both countries’ climate commitments.
There is no doubt that Brazil and China have been vocal players in climate
negotiations, and that both countries have ambitious expectations concerning
their future participation in energy transition frameworks (Franchini, Viola
and Barros-Platiau 2017; Jinnah 2017; Milani and Chaves 2022). Given the
asymmetries in terms of economic weight, development model and demographics,
the commitment of some countries is known to be more crucial to guarantee the
maintenance of the global average temperature below 1.5º C in relation to the
pre-industrial level, such as proposed in the Paris Agreement. There is no future
climate stability without the USA, China, and I dare say, without Brazil, a country
that hosts 60% of the sovereign territory over the Pan-Amazonia rainforest.
In the particular case of China, its participation in these efforts carried out
at a global level will be essential, since it is the world’s second most important
6 For more detailed information, please refer to: https://www.brazilclimatesummit.com/_files/ugd/80abb7_
6780e1ac6e064e6f8831dfc3b1a3fb63.pdf. See also: https://www.theverge.com/23875724/climate-week-nyc-
united-nations-climate-change-ambition-summit (Access on 28 September 2023).
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economy, the largest emitter in absolute terms, responsible for a third of global
carbon dioxide emissions and the largest global investor in renewable energies.
That is to say, China’s commitment will be fundamental to achieve climate
change mitigation objectives (Amaral and Milani 2023). As Tulio Carielo recalls,
“from 2016 to 2022 the value of China’s announced investments in the global
electric vehicle value chain increased more than forty-fold, from US$ 605 million
to US$ 23 billion” (CEBC 2023 p. 34). Latin America is a key region for Chinese
investments in the renewables sector: for instance, in 2022 Great Wall Motors
announced investment plans to produce electric vehicles and batteries in Brazil.7
Such investments illustrate in practical terms Beijing’s changing official
positioning in multilateral climate talks and decision-making instances, aiming
to take on more responsibility in the global climate burden. China’s Ecological
Civilization framework proposes the synchronization between socioeconomic
development, low environmental impact and reduction of greenhouse gas emissions,
as well as the efforts made by Chinese diplomacy to demonstrate that the country
is capable of contributing to collective planetary action and that is interested in
participating in international climate negotiations (Amaral and Milani 2023). As
Arthur Hanson asserts, China uses the narrative of the Ecological Civilization
as a coherent conceptual framework to adjust its development trajectory and
its foreign relation and as an attempt to meet 21st century challenges. “It differs
from sustainable development in the emphasis placed on political and cultural
factors, as well as on defining new relationships between people and nature that
would permit living well, and within the eco- environmental bounds of planet
Earth” (Hanson 2019, p. vi). Therefore, while Chinese investments in renewables
indicate clear-cut Chinese interests in global technological competition in energy
transition, it also demonstrates commitment and solidarity towards Southern
countries facing short-term adaptation difficulties, such as the least-developed
states, small islands, and countries with threatened coastal zones (Jinnah 2017;
Ugarteche and De Leon 2022).
At the Paris Climate Summit, known as COP21, China’s performance had
already become notable thanks to the commitment made for the first time to
absolute objectives. In October 2021, President Xi Jinping’s declaration that China
would be carbon neutral by 2060 was officially submitted to the United Nations
7 See: Financial Times (22 January 2022), available at https://www.ft.com/content/68ee9fc3-8af6-4feb-809f-
0e3b0f7a3ec4 (Access on 20 November 2023).
Carlos R. S. Milani
Rev. Carta Inter., Belo Horizonte, v. 19, n. 1, e1412, 2024
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Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and was well received by
the international community. Subsequently, the declaration in the United Nations
General Assembly that China would commit to stop building coal plants abroad,
if fulfilled, would represent a great leap in reducing greenhouse gas (GHG)
emissions, taking into account that the country is currently the largest sponsor
of these plants worldwide (CREA 2022). In multilateral climate negotiations,
China also aligns its national interests with those of developing nations in the
defense of the principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities”, CBDR,
which defends that countries should contribute to mitigation efforts according to
their respective capacities, thinking about the responsibility of global collective
action also in terms of historical contributions, since the Industrial Revolution
(Amaral and Milani 2023; Jinnah 2017).
In addition, China has issued guidelines on the actions of banks and
companies abroad have paid special attention to environmental standards
and the reduction of GHG emissions. Among the relevant documents are the
“Guidelines on Environmental Protection in Overseas Investment and Cooperation,”
which encourage companies to “apply the concept of ecological civilization” by
prioritizing “green and high-quality projects abroad” and adhere to international
environmental protection standards, especially when operating in countries with
weak environmental governance and the “Green Development Guide” for New Silk
Road (BRI) projects that, in order to reduce environmental impacts, stipulates a
system based on traffic light colors to classify companies according to estimated
environmental risk (Amaral and Milani 2023; Hanson 2019; MEE 2022).
The Discussion: rejuvenating the strategic partnership between
Brazil and China
According to the 2023 IPPC report Summary for Policymakers, global GHG
emissions have not stopped increasing, “with unequal historical and ongoing
contributions arising from unsustainable energy use, land use and land-use
change, lifestyles and patterns of consumption and production across regions,
between and within countries, and among individuals” (IPCC 2023, p. 4).
China represents approximately 26.5% (9.5 tons per capita) and Brazil 3%
(10 tons per capita) in global GHG emissions, whereas Least Developed Countries
(LDCs) and Small Island Developing States (SIDS) have much lower per capita
The Climate Emergency versus the Right to Development: Where do Brazil-China Relations Stand?
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emissions (1.7 tCO2-eq and 4.6 tCO2-eq, respectively) than the global average, 6.9
tCO2-eq (IPCC 2023).
Due to their respective share in global GHG emissions, but also in view of
their diplomatic history of emphasis on South-South relations and respective
degrees of vulnerability to climate extreme events, both Brazil and China need
to address the climate emergency in their domestic policies and international
strategies. Nationally, in both countries there are great social expectations for
a just energy transition, better land-use and forest management, cleaner air in
large cities, and the implementation of climate adaptation strategies to deal
with more frequent and intense extreme events (Da Veiga Lima and De Souza
2022; Qi et al. 2020; Souza Santos, Kahn Ribeiro and Souza de Abreu 2020;
Zhou, Wang and Feng 2023). According to the Yale Program on Climate Change
Communication, public opinion polls in Brazil show most Brazilians believe
that anthropogenic climate change exists and trust scientists when they reach
a common diagnosis on the phenomenon. In China nearly all citizens support
the country’s participation in the Paris Climate Agreement (96%), and around
90% of respondents support the transition towards low-carbon futures.8
Internationally, other Global South countries call for a concrete expression
of the South-South diplomacy of solidarity that both Beijing and Brasilia have
historically supported in several multilateral forums, such as the United Nations
Office for South-South Cooperation and the BRICS grouping. Least developed
countries and small islands are among those less responsible and most vulnerable
states who require urgent and responsible action by the big players, including
China and Brazil. In its most recent summits, the BRICS group has discussed
ways and means toward a less Western-centric global order, decided to set up
economic institutions (such as the New Development Bank) and produced
considerable impact on issues related to South-South cooperation, hierarchy
and status in international politics (Duggan et al. 2022; Kahn 2015; Nogueira
Batista Jr. 2016; Stuenkel 2020; Zondi 2022). The foundation of the BRICS is a
hallmark in the trajectory of recent Brazilian foreign policy and in Brazil-China
relations that has allowed both countries to deepen their political and economic
cooperation, including key areas such as renewable energies and lower carbon
economic models (Abrão & Amineh 2024; Jaguaribe 2018 e 2021).
8 The report on Brazil is available at: https://climatecommunication.yale.edu/publications/climate-change-in-
the-brazilian-mind/. A UNFCCC release on the Yale report on China is available at: https://unfccc.int/sites/
default/files/resource/Press%20Release.pdf (Access on 20 August 2024).
Carlos R. S. Milani
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Between 12 and 15 April 2023, Brazil’s president paid an official visit to
China, following the organization of the Brazil-China Economic Seminar, which
had gathered together more than five hundred business representatives from the
two countries in Beijing, on 29 March. President Lula da Silva’s official visit to
Beijing was an opportunity to strengthen interstate cooperation in the fields of
trade, agriculture and technology. The official communiqué includes a long list
of agreements in several sectors. Lula da Silva and Xi Jinping reaffirmed their
commitment to multilateralism (item 4 of the communiqué), the central role of
the United Nations system and the relevance of plurilateral groupings, such as
the G20, BRICS and BASIC (item 7).
Both countries acknowledged the effects of climate change and decided to
foster cooperation “to speed up the transition to a low-carbon economy” (item
10), including the creation of a Subcommittee on the Environment and Climate
Change within Sino-Brazilian High-Level Commission for Consultation and
Cooperation (COSBAN). Item 29 of the communiqué explained their commitment
to energy transition and the mitigation of GHG emissions “in a fair and equitable
manner”, considering the singularities of each national context, including the
countries’ needs in terms of energy security. Item 30 of the communiqué stressed
“renewable energies, transition and energy efficiency, with an emphasis on
bioenergy, hydrogen and sustainable aviation fuels”.9
However, China’s and Brazil’s climate promises are confronted with some key
challenges, as presented in the previous section. In this connection, I argue that
both countries could seize today’s diplomatic converging interests to integrate
climate-related criteria in their bilateral strategic partnership, signed in 1993 and
strongly rejuvenated in 2023. This rejuvenated strategic partnership could stress
the two countries’ political will and leadership roles in multilateral negotiations
(China in the energy sector, and Brazil in deforestation and low-carbon agriculture
models), despite their different causal responsibilities in historical terms and
in today’s global GHG emissions. In addition, it could emphasize their strong
commitment to energy transition frameworks towards a low-carbon economy
in distinct sectors, including agribusiness.
As a matter of fact, studies show that addressing the climate impacts of
agribusiness and food production is key to avoid catastrophic global warming (Clark
9 The joint communiqué is available at: https://www.gov.br/mre/en/contact-us/press-area/press-releases/
joint-communique-between-the-federative-republic-of-brazil-and-the-people2019s-republic-of-china-on-the-
deepening-of-their-global-strategic-partnership-beijing-14-april-2023 (Access on 19 November 2023).
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et al. 2020; Ivanovich et al. 2023). Given today’s limited potential of technological
innovations attempting to mitigate GHG emissions in this sector, which is so
relevant in Brazil-China bilateral relations, investments in agriculture research,
shifts towards more diversified diets, local practices that are environmentally
and socially sustainable, while at the same time maintaining food security and
nutrition safety, are critical tools to meaningfully lower emissions required to limit
global warming to 2°C (Heinrich Böll Foundation, 2015; Santos and Glass, 2018).
In this connection, at a workshop organized at Getulio Vargas Foundation in
Sao Paulo in April 2024, a group of businesspeople, researchers, rural producers,
and representatives of agribusiness associations gathered to discuss trade relations
between Brazil and China. The focus of the debate was soybean and meat exports
to the Asian giant and the possible sustainability parameters to be adopted. The
director of the China International Center for Agricultural and Rural Development,
Kevin Chen, kicked off the conversations by firmly stating that “we know that
climate change has already led to a reduction in soybean production in Brazil and
to a decrease in soybean exports. China, as Brazil’s main importer, has already
noticed this reduction” (sic). He then declared that “we need to end deforestation
in Brazil due to the expansion of soybean and beef production. We hope that
this will happen without harming production and livelihoods” (Borges, 2024).
Would China, whose diplomacy traditionally defends non-interference in other
sovereign country’s domestic issues (for instance, in environmental legislation
and monitoring of deforestation), be shifting from a key importer that puts
more pressure on deforestation to a profile that facilitates the development
of deforestation-free value chains? Would Brazilian agribusiness be open and
willing to invest in this changing scenario in order to keep selling to its largest
international client? These are trends and questions that scholars and independent
analysts must monitor in the coming years to understand whether new practices
are emerging, if promised become practices in the bilateral relations between
Brazil and China. From the Brazilian perspective, even of the Lula administration
has been committed to reducing deforestation in the Amazon and decided
to give priority to energy transition and climate policies, particularly through
the Interministerial Committee on Climate Change, substantial obstacles to
climate-change mitigation and adaptation persist, including a Congress dominated
by fossil fuel lobby and actors advocating environmentally destructive development.
Another key challenge for both countries is related to the potentially negative
effects of the expansion of the BRICS group, now including newcomers that are
Carlos R. S. Milani
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major fossil economies, such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates
(Pereira and Viola 2024).
Concluding Remarks
In this article, I have shown that China’s accelerated growth and double
participation in the world’s economy as a major demander of commodities
and a large producer of manufactured products have resulted in important
changes on its bilateral trade with Brazil since the beginning of the 2000s. Such
trade relations have interacted with a series of domestic variables in Brazil,
wherein the development of agribusiness and mining sectors fostered growing
deforestation rates and affected the country’s land-use and GHG emissions.
I have also explained that when considering China’s investments, it is important
to understand their potential impact on the further development of renewable
energies and the national market of electric vehicles and batteries in Brazil and
South America. Due to the scale of its economy and its geopolitical projection,
China’s investments and technological drivers have environmental and climate-
related consequences for the future of China-Brazil strategic partnership.
Brazil and China must jointly defend solutions to anthropogenic climate
change based on the assumption that they have their own right to a development
model that should be socially and environmentally sustainable. The adoption of
the climate emergency agenda in Brazil-China strategic partnership could be part
of a new phase in their bilateral relations. In times of a “risen China” (Breslin
2021), and considering the much-needed (energy, socioeconomic, ecological,
technological) transitions due to the climate emergency, this article suggests
that Brazil and China must seize the opportunity if they want to play a more
positive role in reconfiguring their development strategies while respecting the
new constraints of the Anthropocene.
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