This text was published as part of a series for the Wilson Center's “Latin America’s Environmental Policies in Global Perspective” project, you can download the full pdf here.
To examine the role of the international community in shaping Latin America’s environmental agenda, the Wilson Center’s Latin American Program and its Brazil Institute, Environmental Change and Security Program, China Environment Forum, and Global Europe Program launched a collaborative research project last year, Latin America’s Environmental Policies in Global Perspective. Through a series of papers written by experts representing diverse perspectives, the project explores how environmental challenges in Latin America increasingly condition the region’s most important diplomatic and economic relationships, and how those relationships in turn impact conditions on the ground.
Detlef Nolte examines rising trade tensions between the European Union and Mercosur. In 2019, the European Union and Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay agreed on the principles of a free trade agreement. However, shifting attitudes in Europe and Brazil’s controversial environmental policies have jeopardized the deal. In The EU’s Beef with Mercosur: Geo-economics versus Climate Diplomacy, he writes: “The reorientation (or rather dismantling) of the Brazilian government’s environmental policy and the 2019 and 2020 wildfires in the Amazon rainforest have fueled European mobilization against the EU-Mercosur agreement.”
