Lula warning over no deal at Copenhagen

President Lula of Brazil tells Jon Snow that if the Copenhagen climate change conference fails to reach a binding agreement, “we will send a very negative signal to the world”.

Speaking ahead of the Copenhagen conference as part of the Channel 4 News week in Brazil, President Lula told Jon Snow: “In Brazil you can see climate change very easily.”

“From the scientific viewpoint, what is of my concern is that it was not taken seriously in the Kyoto protocol.”

“I believe we should not have a simplistic discussion (about) a divide between north and south.”

“Every time you present to me a severe situation, instead of putting the blame on somebody, I want to look for someone that is willing to find a solution.

“It’s useless to put the blame on the UK because that’s where the industrial revolution started, so the UK would have much more responsibility.

“I believe that all of us, we have to pay according to our responsibility. Now, no-one will be able to pay a debt that has accumulated for 200 years.

“And so I prefer to have the good sense (to) start discussing what each country can do from now onwards so that a set of countries can take responsibility for the preservation, for the conservation, of the quality of life that we live on the planet earth.”

President Lula went on to say that he would not be happy if the Copenhagen conference produced merely a political agreement on climate change, with no legally binding agreement.

“In politics, when you don’t manage to do everything that you want, you stay happy for what it’s possible to get done.

“If we manage to reach a political matrix that makes it possible to establish goals for the next years, I believe that if we reach that deal we get an important step forward.

“What cannot happen… is for us to do absolutely nothing.

Responding to Gordon Brown’s assertion that it would be a catastrophe if no deal were reached at Copenhagen, President Lula said: “I don’t know if it would be a catastrophe, because when we have a catastrophe then everybody will be concerned and take care of the issue.”

And he went on: “The truth of the matter is that if we do not reach in Copenhagen an agreement, we will send a very negative signal to the world – that is to say, the rulers are acting with the lack of responsibility vis a vis the future of the world.”

“Everybody will be the victim of global warming.

“I believe that we will have to have the courage to do what our rulers did not do in the 20th century.”