May 15th – Session I – Setting the Stage
My city, the fifth biggest metropolis in the world, with 12 million inhabitants and my country Brazil, can now be a good reflection of the importance of this meeting promoted here in Rome at the Vatican. Rio Grande do Sul, which is a state amongst the 27 states from the South of my country, today has a dozen cities that are flooded, suffering due to climate change. Therefore, the threats to the environment that sensitize the people and mobilize the governments of the whole world, require vigorous, planned and urgent actions. They start from the data the scientific community presents, as Professor (Hoesung) Lee has presented today, and they involve efforts from all of society, the public sector, private initiative, civil entities, local and religious leaderships, families and the population as a whole.
But before I speak about my impressions of this meeting and the actions of the city of São Paulo, it is very important to register the relevant and vital work of this summit and the work of the Church along the decades for the people, putting the ecological problems in a more profound, human and supportive perspective, as well as to make a record to our Pope Francis, faithful to this tradition and to his personal trajectory as a religious leader, which has emphasized in his writings and dedications the intrinsic relations between nature and society, exercising an ever more important political role in the articulation of the global initiatives capable of bringing a response to the great socio-environmental questions of the present day.
The City of São Paulo thanks the Pontiff and the Vatican for the zeal which they have been dedicating to the protection of life, the planet, and the construction of a more fraternal and just world.
I would like to very objectively shed light on some fundamental points of this mega city, fifth biggest metropolis in the world, on the theme of climate change. First, I wish to share with you, in this select meeting, with government leaders from all around the world, that São Paulo is one of the few cities, which I believe there are only three in the world, that has a Department of Climate Change. Therefore, a department that specifically cares for this theme and articulates with the other departments, and, as such, the results have been coming out. We know from the impeccable work that has been presented here that the scholars, the scientists, the people from the academy have been bringing about this theme of climate change and SDGs. However, it is up to us, the governments, to implement public policies.
Four years ago, we intended to reach 50% of vegetation coverage area in our city of São Paulo and now, four years later, we have achieved 54% of vegetation coverage area. We have our municipal climate plan, PlanClima, which gives us all the guidance and guidelines of what we must do, with responsibility and in an articulated manner with all the departments.
We have now arrived at 114 parks. I inaugurated five in these past years I have been in the city hall and this year I will inaugurate five more. But there is some very important data, we have been working hard to maintain our forests, remembering that São Paulo is an Atlantic Forest area, and we have 15% of forest area which are the municipal parks, state parks and the indigenous areas. I made a decree, and I am expropriating 11% of the city territory, which represents 175km², bigger than Paris, and we will go, therefore, to 26% of all the territory of the city of São Paulo, which is a preserved forest area, evidently a public area, consequently being permanent. This has been giving us a condition in these meetings we have been doing all around the world, in which discussing climate change questions is having effective and positive results.
I have spoken about the real actions of the municipal plan for climate change, the Department of Climate Change, the vegetation coverage area, but from everything we could hear in this conference I would like to share a very important piece of data, which is the carbon dioxide question. In the city of São Paulo, 64% of the carbon dioxide emissions originate from the 7 million vehicles that circulate per day in the city. Half of these emissions come from diesel vehicles, especially buses. We have twelve thousand buses in the city of São Paulo. Thus, what would be fundamental? To replace these diesel buses, which greatly contribute to the carbon dioxide emissions, for non-polluting buses. What do we have as an option today? The electric buses. Maybe, in some time, we will have hydrogen buses, but now we have the electric ones. I am currently replacing this fleet from diesel buses to electric buses. A diesel bus costs 700,000 reais (approximately 130,000 dollars in current quotation) and an electric 2.5 million reais (approx. 470,000 dollars), in other words, four times more than a diesel bus.
Thus, I think it is up to us that have spoken about the financing questions to make a front against climate change, so that we may talk about it. Governor Maura (Healey) has spoken a lot about financing; therefore, we also need to address this for the replacement of bus or truck fleets and that really have a big impact in the global warming issues.
I would like to thank you for the opportunity of being here. Every time we reunite, we learn a lot. I thank you for all the learning that was provided to us. This commitment remains with us, that together all the world, all the continents, and now in this special moment of our meeting, with the support of Pope Francis, of the Vatican, the importance of the participation of the Church, so we may transform ever more in front of this necessity of facing the climate change issues, take care of our environment and our sustainability.
May 16th – Session VII – In the Front Lines: Climate Hotspots
I would like to initiate my speech remembering what we have heard just now from the Holy Father, Pope Francis, that 80% of the emissions of greenhouse gases come from the 20 countries from the G20 and 1% from the forty-six poorest countries of the world. I think it’s some data for us to reflect upon, because if we have more than 80% of the greenhouse gases from the richest countries that integrate the G20 and 1% is from the 46 poorest ones, all our efforts need to be put into this context of each one having their responsibilities.
Before I talk about the actions from the city of São Paulo, it is also important to recall some data with relation to the climatic migration. In 2022, of the 60.9 million displacements around the world, 32.6 million, in other words 53%, were related to natural disasters according to the World Migration Report of 2024 from the International Organization for Migration. International organisms, such as C40 affirm that climate change already is the main cause of migrations in the planet. The IOM, International Organization for Migration, predicts that until 2050, 1 billion people are going to migrate inside their countries or will cross borders due to the consequences of the global warming, such as droughts, floods and the rising of the sea level.
My country, Brazil, accounted today in Rio Grande do Sul the death of 148 people to the floods in that state. I have taken to the Holy Father, Pope Francis, a flag from Rio Grande do Sul for his blessing, which I will be returning to Brazil and give it to those brothers of ours. Therefore, for each one of us that are here present and through the presentations from yesterday and today, we are already very conscious of the climate change issues and of our role. Now, it is very relevant for us to have the context of the applicability of the actions. In the city of São Paulo, where we have twelve thousand buses, as I commented yesterday, we are replacing them with electric buses. The garbage trucks that use diesel are being changed to the ones moved by methane gas, incoming from the garbage landfills. We have reestablished OIDA (IOWD – Integrated Operation for Water Defense) which is fundamental in the control and supervision to maintain the forests from the spring areas preserved. In my city, the city of São Paulo, we have various springs and two big dams, the Billings Dam and the Guarapiranga Dam, and departing from the data of the migration issue, since it is the richest city in Brazil, in a country of much social inequality, it is very common for us to receive a lot of migration and pressure due to the housing deficit, which ends up leading to irregular constructions in the areas for environmental protection, in the spring areas. And this instrument, OIDA, brings together the Civil Metropolitan Guard, the Military Police of the State of São Paulo, the Environment Company, ultimately various municipal and state bodies to supervise and maintain these environmental protection areas preserved. We are also developing the biggest housing program of the history of the city, which helps in a way not to pressure the housing in the environmental protection areas.
From the data that the Pope highlights today, which I have emphasized here, the countries from the G20, the richest ones, generate a pollution of 80% of the greenhouse gas emissions. There is also data that we all know of that the poorest ones suffer the most with climate change. In parallel to all the actions we have been developing in the city of São Paulo in relation to the diesel buses and trucks replacement, the vegetation coverage areas, enlargement of preserved forest areas, the rain gardens, which is something very cheap and simple, where we get cemented areas, take out the cement and a pit of one and a half meters is made, crushed and a garden is built on top, which ends up being something quite fundamental for drainage and to have more green areas. We have now arrived at 337 rain gardens. Thus, there are many actions focused with relation to the environmental questions and the expansion of parks, which I have inaugurated 5 of, now we have 114, and we will inaugurate 5 more this year, and we also have the Director Plan, that is a law that gives us the urbanistic guidelines from the cities.
Another question of relevance are the actions for the poorest people, and we have a great job connected to food security. We distribute seven thousand basic food baskets every day, we have many actions in relation to the provision of free meals inside the School Kitchen and Solidary Kitchen projects, we have the distribution of more than 2 million free meals per day in the city of São Paulo. For the people in street condition, we have the distribution of 86 thousand meals, which is a situation that has affected all the big cities in the world, including Rome with 22 thousand people in street condition, in this city that welcomes so well.
I think a very important message is left for us here in the Vatican from the meeting with the Pope today, from the invitation that was extended to each one of us, leaders of our states and cities, of two factors that greatly concern the Pope and all of us. The line of taking care of the environment and climate change, but parallel to that the questions aimed at the poorest and more vulnerable people. On the day I arrived at Rome, I visited the work of the Cardinal who takes care of the questions of the poor people here in Rome, Cardinal Dom Konrad, and he told me that here in Rome there was no bathroom for the people living on the streets, and that he and the Pope opened up a bathroom for them. He also told me there was no medical care and they opened a clinic close to here with 80 volunteer doctors. May this example stay with each one of us here at such an important and sacred place, in this very relevant event which will leave a mark on all of us, but may it also leave a mark for each one of the people that live in our cities and in our states, to take care of the resilience factor, the environmental and climate change factors, without leaving behind the most humble and poorest people, who are the main victims of all this process.