{"id":137816,"date":"2019-07-22T12:00:03","date_gmt":"2019-07-22T11:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=137816"},"modified":"2019-07-29T12:07:37","modified_gmt":"2019-07-29T11:07:37","slug":"jair-bolsonaro-wants-to-deforest-the-amazon-what-powers-does-the-un-have-to-stop-him","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2019\/07\/jair-bolsonaro-wants-to-deforest-the-amazon-what-powers-does-the-un-have-to-stop-him\/","title":{"rendered":"Jair Bolsonaro Wants to Deforest the Amazon \u2013 What Powers Does the UN Have to Stop Him?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Tarcisio Schnaider \/ shutterstock<\/p><\/div>\n

12 Jul 2019 – <\/em>Deforestation of the Amazon rainforest in Brazil is at its highest rate in a decade, according to new satellite data<\/a>. This comes after President Jair Bolsonaro has loosened environmental regulations<\/a>, cut enforcement budgets, and supported further development in the region.<\/p>\n

Trees absorb carbon dioxide naturally, and are one of best tools we have to help stave off climate catastrophe<\/a> \u2013 and the Amazon itself is a crucial carbon sink<\/a>. This means responding to deforestation in Brazil has become a matter of international responsibility.<\/p>\n

The primary purpose of the United Nations is to maintain international peace and security<\/a>. With climate breakdown already causing conflict<\/a> and undermining human security<\/a>, it\u2019s hard to argue the UN should not get involved.<\/p>\n

So what could it do about Brazil\u2019s deforestation? My PhD research examines the intersection between environmental governance and the UN Security Council. The council is a legislative body designed to safeguard international peace and security \u2013 it\u2019s made up of five permanent members and ten non-permanent (elected) members. I want to consider three options available to it: the support of international law; intervention through force; and sanctions.<\/p>\n

Option 1: Applying international law?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Brazil was one of the 195 signatories to the 2015 Paris Agreement<\/a> on climate change, which set global targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and keep global warming below 2\u2103 or ideally 1.5\u2103. Article 5 of the Agreement says that parties \u201cshould take action<\/a>\u201d to preserve forests due to their role as carbon sinks. The problem is the word \u201cshould\u201d, which places very little legal obligation on parties.<\/p>\n

TO CONTINUE READING Go to Original \u2013 theconversation.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

12 Jul 2019 – Deforestation of the Amazon rainforest in Brazil is at its highest rate in a decade, according to new satellite data. This comes after President Jair Bolsonaro has loosened environmental regulations, cut enforcement budgets, and supported further development in the region.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":137817,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[61,180,82],"tags":[536,547,239,120,794,331,354,401,267,866,541,234,109,287,103,985,126,172,75],"class_list":["post-137816","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-environment","category-brics","category-united-nations","tag-amazonia","tag-brazil","tag-brics","tag-conflict","tag-deforestation","tag-development","tag-economics","tag-environment","tag-geopolitics","tag-indigenous-rights","tag-latin-america-caribbean","tag-media","tag-politics","tag-power","tag-racism","tag-social-justice","tag-violence","tag-west","tag-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137816","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137816"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137816\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/137817"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}