The climate disaster in Rio Grande do Sul is on capital’s account
With a state government that has promoted a series of fiscal adjustments, authorised the deforestation of environmental protected areas, dismantled the state law against pesticides, privatised public services and adopted austerity policies for its people, Rio Grande do Sul is facing a climate crisis that is unprecedented in its history. We need to reflect on the totality of the problem and remember that the rains and the flooding of the cities are the consequences of a series of factors that have been denounced by popular movements and organisations in Rio Grande do Sul for half a century.
This time, almost all of the state’s 497 municipalities were affected by the floods. At least one and a half million people have been affected, and the return of torrential rain over the weekend has further reinforced this picture. However, these figures do not explain why the environmental impacts are not distributed equally. Women, black bodies, peripheral communities, people living in the streets, unemployed workers and people in precarious housing situations suffer the most from the impacts of the floods. It is always the most vulnerable who suffer the most, despite being the least responsible for the problem. This structural inequality of capitalism, built on patriarchy and colonial genocide, as well as class struggle, must be considered from the perspective of Environmental Justice, as well as in the fight against Environmental Racism.
What the population of Rio Grande do Sul is experiencing reflects the bankruptcy of an economic system that centres its interests on making a profit for a small portion of the population. And all the exploitation of the riches is sustained by an intense and disorganised extraction of goods and natural resources. In recent decades, this system has destroyed exponentially, failing to keep up with the regeneration cycles of the land and waters. We continue to reproduce a mentality of domination over nature, rather than harmony with it, as the native peoples teach us. The scenes we see in Porto Alegre, the capital of Rio Grande do Sul, show that there are no boundaries for the waters and, at the same time, that we have already exceeded the planet’s limits for sustaining in capitalist society.
One of the results of pushing the boundaries of the human-nature relationship is the production of a new kind of people: climate refugees. While many people in the world today are obligated to leave their homeland because of wars, in search of better living conditions and forced to migrate to other countries, the number of people migrating because of droughts, floods and hurricanes is no less growing. The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) estimates that 30.7 million people were displaced by climate-related disasters by 2020. The World Bank estimates that 17 million people in Latin America will have to leave their homes because of environmental issues. The Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) states that 708,000 Brazilians migrated as a result of natural disasters in 2012. The sole cause of this reality is the predatory exploitation of nature, which is therefore product of political decisions.
But what makes the climate tragedy in Rio Grande do Sul so shocking and media-friendly is not the extent of the damage or the number of people affected. What is shocking is to see the force of the water resuming its course and invading homes, neighbourhoods and municipalities that, according to the law of financial capital, should be safe from the hardships reserved only for the subaltern classes. The perplexity of the disaster is the realisation on the part of the petty, middle and big bourgeoisie that, no matter how hard they try to ignore the climate emergency, it won’t go away.
Although today the suffering is disproportionately affecting communities crossed by class, gender and race markers, the disaster in RS heralds a devastating future for society as a whole, with entire cities lost and more than 230,000 climate refugees who will no longer be able to return to their homes. This demands that we identify who is to blame and why the so-called “business as usual” will not be able to provide the fair, democratic and supportive responses that are required on a large scale. The list is long and historical; we need to collect the climate debt and change the system. But we have to start with those most closely and directly involved.
In 2019, Eduardo Leite (PSDB), the current governor of the state of Rio Grande do Sul, destroyed the State Environmental Code initiative, which was technically and democratically developed nine years ago through debates, public hearings and various improvements. The original text of the Code, from 2000, had the contribution and mobilisation of pioneering ecological organisations in the state and Brazil, such as Agapan (Local Agency for Environmental Protection) and Amigas da Terra (Friends of the Earth). The most relevant proposals for tackling the climate crisis were completely destroyed by his government’s initiative, which altered at least 480 central themes. Loyal to corporate and business rationality, Leite did everything he could to make vital requirements more flexible in order to make environmental licensing easier for mega-businesses. And when the waters of the climate emergency “hit him in the arse”, he thanked Elon Musk and the business community for their “humanitarian aid S.A.”.
In Porto Alegre, Mayor Sebastião Melo (MDB), successor to the also right-winger Nelson Marchezan Jr., who left him the legacy of the extinction of the Municipal Department of Wastewater Sewers (DEP), went through the floods of 2023 and, now in 2024, with 19 of the 23 pumps of the flood containment systems turned off, with unpreparedness, precariousness and lack of water as the hallmarks of his administration. Far from the chaos, the fascists are calling for the climate debate not to be politicised, and Melo is telling the capital’s rich to go to their beach houses. The municipalities on the coast, not affected by the floods, declare an emergency and ask the federal government for help in receiving VIP climate refugees, while the state government informs them of their PIX number. It’s a municipal election year all over Brazil, and less than 70 municipalities out of the 445 affected by the climate disaster in Rio Grande do Sul had, by Sunday (12 May), requested emergency aid from the federal government, available for the purchase of water, fuel, items for community kitchens, equipping shelters, among other things. It can only be for political reasons, because humanitarian reasons don’t move them. Even so, the corporate media publishes a survey of the perception of responsibility and response of the federal, state and municipal governments to the tragedy in Rio Grande do Sul, showing support for the Bolsonaro-allied mayors who are selling out the cities to the business community.
Since last week, the federal government has provided police from the National Force and the Army to help with rescues and maintaining security. It has also created a task force, with the participation of various ministries and public bodies, to re-establish access routes to marooned towns and rebuild roads, resume commercial flights using the Canoas Air Base and other airports in the interior of Rio Grande do Sul, help clean up and rebuild towns, and address other aspects of the crisis, such as education and, especially, health. Last Thursday (9/05), it issued a provisional measure (MP 1216/24) that provides for 12 initiatives, including the anticipation of social and workers’ benefits, a discount on interest on support and financing programmes for individual micro-entrepreneurs (MEIs), small and medium-sized businesses, family farming and agribusiness, R$ 200 million to finance infrastructure reconstruction projects at public banks and to rebalance companies. On Monday (13 May), the Lula government announced the suspension of the payment of Rio Grande do Sul’s debt to the Federal Government for three years. This measure will be included in a supplementary bill, which still has to be approved by the Congress before being sanctioned by the president. More measures are expected to be taken. Governor Eduardo Leite estimates that it will cost R$19 billion to rebuild the state, but some estimate it will be much more.
Many of those who are crying today in the face of the disaster in Rio Grande do Sul are the same people who are fuelling the predatory rationality that is at the root of what is happening in that state. Agribusiness and its bankers, the transnational corporations that invade and plunder countries, real estate speculation, environmental deregulation and scientific denialism all serve as ingredients for what is happening. And it’s not crocodile tears that will be able to reverse this scenario. It’s not the false solutions sold by the capital that will be able to solve the crisis that these same agents are causing.
Despite all this, the greater the scale of the disaster, the greater the demonstrations of solidarity from below. They pave the way for real solutions. In extreme situations, the impotence of the state, captured by corporations, and the power of communities, groups and collectives organised in popular social movements become visible. This strength of class solidarity is vital, and needs to be recognised, empowered and encouraged to perpetuate itself beyond specific crisis situations and build popular power capable of changing the system. The gestation of a new world begins with overcoming the determinants of the climate emergency and recognising that the solution will not come from above.
All we have is us!
* Article originally published in Portuguese on the Brasil de Fato newspaper website at this link https://www.brasildefato.com.br/2024/05/14/desastre-climatico-no-rio-grande-do-sul-esta-na-conta-do-capital
Photo: Deriva Jornalismo e Fotografia