Governor defends action of states against climate change

The governor of Espírito Santo, Renato Casagrande, defended today (2) that the states should act together to create climate change programs that adapt the country to face extreme natural events, which may become more frequent with global warming. He participated, in Rio de Janeiro, in the seventh meeting of the South and Southeast Integration Consortium, with governors and representatives of the seven states of the two regions. “That means adaptation works, works that can prevent, remedy and reduce impacts on property and loss of human life. And actions in the area of ​​mitigation [redução] so that we can reduce greenhouse gas emissions. We cannot just charge the federal government for actions. We also have a task to encourage renewable energies, to carry out works”, said Casagrande, when commenting on the relationship between sanitation and tragedies such as the storm on the north coast of the state of São Paulo. dozens of victims, the governor of São Paulo, Tarcísio de Freitas, was represented at the event by the secretary of Finance and Planning, Samuel Kinoshita. They were also unable to attend and the governors of Rio Grande do Sul and Santa Catarina sent representatives. Paraná, Carlos Massa Ratinho Júnior, said that nothing is more harmful to nature than the lack of basic sanitation and said that the area suffers from a strategic error in Brazil, where there has been a lack of planning for the sector “for decades”. stated that Paraná is building a program with the support of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) to raise 85 million dollars for the prevention of tragedies and it split the performance of the private initiative in the sanitation sector. “Our mission as governors is not to let a political speech influence a technical issue. Where is it written that there can’t be private initiative providing service? It’s nonsense. What matters is the water reaching people’s faucets with quality and the sewer being treated in an environmentally correct way and at a fair price. The needy population pays what is possible, and the population that can pay a little more pays what is fair”, he opined. Sanitation was the topic discussed today at the meeting of governors, who are also going to discuss the federative pact and tax reform until the end of the event, which will end on Saturday (4). The governor of Rio de Janeiro, Cláudio Castro, said that, for the states in the South and Southeast regions, these last two themes are inseparable. “For the South and Southeast, one discussion without the other is lame, it does not solve the problem, especially because of debts, ICMS situations [Imposto Sobre Circulação de Mercadorias e Serviços]“, he said. governor of Rio stressed that he also wants the consortium to advance in integration, making joint purchases and reducing costs. “Now we have the challenge of making Cosud [Consórcio de Integração Sul e Sudeste] something regulated. We are thinking of a physical structure that will make these works advance. Several states already have joint purchasing experiences. At the time of the vaccine, we shared a lot of suppliers of inputs and the logistical issue”, he recalled. The governor of Minas Gerais, Romeu Zema, also pointed out the need to formalize the South-Southeast consortium and highlighted that the region concentrates more than 50% of the Brazilian population and more than 70% of the economy. “It’s a part [do Brasil] that contributes much more than it receives back”, he said. For him, governance problems affect investments in the country. “The lack of predictability is huge, and where there is no predictability there are no investments and nobody works aiming at the future”, he concluded. * Article amended at 6:53 pm for title change

Agência Brasil