Brazil has already played a leading role in the international environmental regime. Since the
emergence of the environment as an important and definitive agenda in the global political
agenda, Brazil participated, proposed and sometimes led the international negotiations on the
theme. A few years ago, however, environmental policy was clearly subordinated to the
dominant economic interests in national politics, as evidenced by the construction of the Belo
Monte plant, major infrastructure works, indigenous politics, legislation, taxation, and various
mining activities, and many other cases. Within this context, the Brazilian external and internal
positioning for the environment is studied based on the UN international environmental
conventions, in the period of 1972 to 2012. The objective of this work is to indicate if the
concept of sustainable development is applied in domestic politics with the same intensity in
which it is defended in its foreign policy for the environment. Through the research it is possible
to conclude that there are different positions in domestic and external environmental policies.
To answer the research question a bibliographic review of the topics of sustainable development
and foreign policy analysis is done, in addition to presenting a case study of the construction of
the Belo Monte Power Plant.
|
