Copenhagen is over and everyone has their opinion about how it went- we have heard the U.S. media tout it as a spectacle of Obama swooping in to save the proceedings, and we have China saying it was their leader who did the most to get the agreement together. Regardless, most people both countries and groups, are saying that much more could have been done. And there were no legally binding agreements on emissions cuts.

Brazil, whether there are global and international targets, will reduce their emissions by up to 39%, equivalent to 20% reduction on the 2005 levels. They have said that they will attempt to make those cuts, global agreement or no.
"We will fully comply with the targets. It doesn't matter that Copenhagen didn't go as well as we had hoped. The targets were maintained, which is the most important. Brazil will have a strong climate change policy," said Environment Minister Carlos Minc.
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil is set to sign a bill into law this week that will make those targets both “quantifiable and verifiable” according to Reuters.
Brazil’s large emissions are largely due to their deforestation in the Amazon rain forest. They have made huge strides in recent years, cutting the deforestation of the Amazon by significant and meaningful levels.
This, in my opinion, is kind of a big deal.
If there are to be drops in the worldwide emissions levels it will be from individual country efforts, not from an international agreement. We have the pledges of the Maldives and Costa Rica to do just that, and now Brazil is making perhaps the biggest commitment to do so on their own.
It is remarkable. Brazil is leading by example, not by agreement. How will the other large emitters like the U.S. and China respond to this? Probably much the same way that they responded to the EU’s proposed cuts that were big and more than desired- with limited praise, no official agreement that it is what should have been or should be done, and some kind of sweeping statement that this is the kind of example that we should all strive for.
And we should. This is a huge thing that Brazil is doing- stepping out on the ledge that is and must be the future for everyone. There is nothing that can be done but to cut emissions, and to cut them aggressively- this is what Brazil understands. And they are acting on it, which is more than I can say for the rest of us who are cowering behind economic growth and the financial crisis as if they were sacred and the Earth was standing in our way- standing in the way of natural order. Economic growth is not the natural order of things, my friends- this we will all find out soon enough. Whether the U.S. and China can agree to anything- which I still maintain we need for any kind of global agreement- , it is the actions of individual people and individual nations that will truly pave the way- or, more accurately, - unpave the way, for the future.

Photo Credit: Michel Schettert (via Flickr under CCL)