As world leaders were sitting down in Paris to talk about climate finance, Brazilian senators were voting on a new decree that would hand the oil and gas industry hundreds of billions in tax cuts.
Our community came together both in Brazil and globally to fight the proposal. The vote was super close, something rare in senate votes. Senators passed the measure by 27 to 20 votes. In part, thanks to our efforts we made this a big issue in Brazil. We should be proud of what we were able to achieve.
The new law means that Brazil effectively ignores its commitments made 2 years ago in the Paris agreement and would result in a 75 billion tons of CO2 being released into our atmosphere, greatly accelerating climate change.
This is obviously a setback, but what we can be sure our community helped make a difference. Thanks to our efforts we raised this vote to the top of the political and media agenda. We delivered a big people-powered petition to the Brazilian senate, had lots of coverage across the media, and also we sent our messages of hope directly to those senators who were wavering in a big global tweet action.
(Example of tweets sent to senators)
The Brazilian Senate could pass a measure that would hand some of the biggest oil companies in the world a giant tax break worth $300 billion. Please send tweets to the Brazilian swing-vote Senators: https://t.co/TkHNG3pFdB #MPdoTrilhãoNão #ZeroFósseis
— 350 dot org (@350) December 12, 2017
Brazilian senators aren’t always used to hearing from global voices and our collective efforts, both in Brazil and globally had an effect on how close the vote was. Let’s be proud of the solidarity in action we’ve demonstrated. No matter where the fossil fuel industry is active, we will be too.
Our fight isn’t over as well. The new law may in fact prove to be questionable constitutionally, so we are also challenging this decision through the courts. We may just stop this dangerous tax subsidy yet, and as a global community will fight until the end until we have a #fossilfree future.