Bolsonaro's far‐right populist environmental and climate diplomacy

Abstract

AbstractBrazilian diplomacy has historically used the environmental agenda as a soft‐power tool, particularly regarding climate change, but this situation has drastically changed under Jair Bolsonaro's administration. Imitating other far‐right populists and their antienvironmental rhetoric, especially Donald Trump's, Bolsonaro attempted to use the topic to inflame his domestic supporters against international players. On the one hand, this strategy weakened Brazilian influence in bilateral and multilateral forums; on the other, dismantling environmental policies and governance structures had substantial consequences, especially in deforestation rates and attacks on traditional communities. This article analyzes the Bolsonaro administration's stand on the environment and climate issues and the repercussions of its policies and rhetoric in Brazil's domestic and foreign scenarios. We conclude that changes in the international context, especially after Trump's electoral defeat in the United States, led to a softening of Bolsonaro's international environmental and climate discourse, with no substantial policy changes internally. Although climate denialism is a centerpiece of the discourse of far‐right populists, this empirical analysis indicates that, in the case of Brazil, this narrative did not bring significant results to Bolsonaro in terms of support or international relevance.