UN talks on climate change under way in Mexico "won't result in anything" because no major leaders turned up, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said Wednesday.
The get-together in Cancun "won't result in anything. No big leader is going, only environment ministers at best. We don't even know if foreign ministers are going. So there won't be any progress," said Lula, who himself decided last week not to travel to Mexico.
The Brazilian president told reporters he thought pledges to finance the fight against deforestation in Latin America, Asia and Africa were "nebulous".
He stressed that last year, at a Copenhagen climate change conference that descended into a near-fiasco, he had pushed for the world's wealthy countries to foot the bill for environmental preservation but found them unwilling.
Brazil though, he said, would maintain its goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 39 percent over the next decade, and Amazon deforestation by 80 percent.
He highlighted the fact that deforestation of the Amazon had fallen to its lowest rate on record, down 14 percent between August 2009 and July 2010 compared to the previous 12 months.
Cutting and burning of the Amazon forest is calculated to cause 20 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions, making Brazil the fourth-biggest greenhouse gas polluter.
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