Statement by President Lula during visit to Germany

It is a great pleasure to return to Germany—a country with which I have established bonds of friendship and respect throughout my career as a union leader and politician, since 1975. 

I came to Berlin directly from COP28 in Dubai, to chair—alongside my friend Olaf Scholz—this second High-Level Intergovernmental Consultation Meeting.

This consultation mechanism has not been carried out since 2015.

We have adopted the Partnership for an Ecological and Socially Fair Transformation.

We are going to strengthen our already robust cooperation in the environmental field—including the Amazon Fund and a number of other projects.

We want to work together to promote green industrialization, low-carbon agriculture and bioeconomy.

I explained to Chancellor Scholz the measures we are taking to meet the zero-deforestation goal by 2030 and combat environmental crime.

This year, we reduced deforestation in the Amazon by almost 50%.

We also talked about threats to democracy and the rule of law.

We agreed to work together to combat anti-democratic forces that move in an internationally coordinated way, encouraging extremism.

This is the spirit of the Joint Declaration on Information Integrity and Combating Disinformation.

Thanks to the intense preparatory work of our ministers, other statements concerning the environment, climate change, agriculture, bioeconomy, energy, health, science, technology and innovation have been signed during this visit.

Germany is Brazil's most traditional partner in terms of technical and financial cooperation.

BNDES and the German development bank will further strengthen their partnership, which has lasted almost 60 years.

Today, we will take part in a business seminar to discuss opportunities presented by Brazil's new Growth Acceleration Program (PAC).

Tomorrow, December 5, “Brazilian Innovation Day” will be held here in Berlin, connecting Brazilians and Germans around startups, digital government and artificial intelligence.

In 2024, we will celebrate the bicentenary of German immigration to Brazil with activities in both countries.

I talked to Chancellor Scholz about the efforts we are making to conclude the Agreement between MERCOSUR and the European Union.

It's been almost 23 years of negotiations.

Next Thursday, at the MERCOSUR Summit, there will be a decisive moment in this negotiation.

I reiterated to the Chancellor my expectation that the European Union will decide whether or not it is interested in concluding a balanced agreement.

In a context marked by geopolitical fragmentation, the coming together of our regions is crucial to building a multipolar world and strengthening multilateralism.

We also had the opportunity to take stock of the high-level segment of Dubai's COP28,

in which we both participated. 

I once again invited Chancellor Scholz to take part of COP30—to be held in the state of Pará, in the city of Belém, in the heart of the Brazilian Amazon—in 2025.

Germany is the first G20 country I visit after taking on the group's presidency.

I reaffirmed the priorities of the Brazilian presidency in combating inequality, poverty, hunger, climate change—and in discussing the reform of global governance structures.

Before thanking President Scholz, I would like to say that I deeply regret that—at a time when humanity needs peace and tranquility so much, to allow us to take care of the people who are starving in the world—there are 735 million human beings who go to sleep every night not knowing if they will have anything to eat the next day. Millions of children die from malnutrition due to lack of necessary calories and protein. And it is not due to a lack of food production capacity, because the world produces enough food. Genetics has already solved this problem. However, there is a lack of resources for people to buy the necessary food.

And I want to say to you that, beyond the issue of hunger, the conflicts we are seeing in Russia and Ukraine, the conflicts we are seeing between Israel and Gaza Strip are nothing more, nothing less, than the irrationality of human beings. I want to say to you that all of this happens because the UN is not fulfilling the historical role for which it was created.

The UN Security Council includes five countries. The United States, Russia, China, France and the United Kingdom are part of it. And these countries should be working towards maintaining peace in the world. However, these are the countries that produce the most weapons, that sell the most weapons and that wage war without having to face the Security Council's decisions. And when an important decision passes that doesn't matter, they have the right to veto.

Therefore, at the G20 we are going to address the need and importance of re-discussing global governance, so that we can make decisions, especially on environmental issues, and we can be sure that the decisions will be put into practice—so that what happened with the Kyoto Protocol, which has not yet been adopted, and with the Paris Agreement, which has not yet been adopted, does not happen again. And I hope that Dubai's decisions are adopted, because otherwise we are playing tricks on Planet Earth. And Planet Earth is telling us: don't play with me. I have endured a lot of adversity. I've endured so many explosions. I have endured so many meteors. I've endured a lot of extreme weather—but I can no longer bear the shamelessness and lack of intelligence of human beings that do not take care of the natural habitat in which they exist so well.

Thus, addressing the climate is a very serious issue, and I want to say to you that, in Brazil, and in my government, we are going to take it very seriously. In 2030, I want to deliver zero deforestation in the Amazon to the world, so that people know that it is possible for us to take care of the planet and of all life—that give us water, food and pleasure in God's greatest gift: human life.

Thank you very much.