Under fire for his environmental policies, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro will skip climate talks in Glasgow next week and instead visit an Italian town awarding him honorary citizenship, Rome said Thursday.

The president's provisional itinerary shows Bolsonaro will attend the G20 summit in Rome this weekend before heading to Anguillara Veneta in northeast Italy on Monday.

Other world leaders will be in Glasgow Monday for the start of the UN COP26 climate talks.

Bolsonaro and his government have faced biting criticism on the environment, especially in the wake of massive deforestation in Brazil — and associated greenhouse gas emissions.

He's also under fire for his Covid policy.

On Tuesday, a Brazilian Senate commission endorsed a report that seeks to indict Bolsonaro for nine crimes, including crimes against humanity, over his Covid response.

Some 606,000 Brazilians have died from Covid-19, second only to the United States.

The citizenship decision by Anguillara Veneta, approved by the city council, has caused a stir in Italy.

The spokesman for the regional opposition, Arturo Lorenzoni, called it "a slap in the face for the values of the Constitution".

But mayor Alessandra Buoso, a member of the far-right League party, told AFP that the honorary citizenship was "to reward the welcome that migrants from Anguillara Veneta have received in Brazil".

About a thousand inhabitants of the town fled poverty to emigrate to Brazil at the end of the 19th century, among them Bolsonaro's ancestors.

Bolsonaro is suffering low approval ratings at home, one year ahead of an election that polls predict him to lose.

Earlier this month, he was accused of crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court for his alleged role in the destruction of the Amazon.

The complaint brought by Austrian environmental justice campaigners AllRise accused Bolsonaro of waging a widespread campaign resulting in the murder of environmental defenders and of endangering the global population through emissions caused by deforestation.

Earlier this week, Brazil's Vice President Hamilton Mourao suggested the country would continue a confrontational negotiating strategy at COP26, renewing calls for other countries to pay Brazil to preserve the Amazon.

Brazi's Environment Minister Joaquim Leite will lead the coutnry's COP26 delegation.

Brazil emissions rose in 2020 despite pandemic: study
Rio De Janeiro (AFP) Oct 28, 2021 –

Brazil's greenhouse gas emissions rose by 9.5 percent last year, mostly because of deforestation, a report said Thursday, making it one of the only major economies not to cut pollution as the pandemic hit.

Even as worldwide emissions fell seven percent in 2020 — a silver lining of Covid-19 stay-at-home measures that paralyzed the global economy — Brazil released the equivalent of 2.16 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide, its highest since 2006, said the report from the Climate Observatory, a coalition of environmental groups.

"The increase in deforestation in Brazil, particularly in the Amazon rainforest, put the country at odds with the trend seen in the rest of the planet," it said.

Deforestation in Brazil has surged since far-right President Jair Bolsonaro took office in 2019 with a push to open protected lands to agribusiness and mining.

Like most countries, Brazil, Latin America's largest economy, reduced pollution from the energy sector last year as the pandemic brought industry and aviation to a standstill.

Emissions there fell by 4.6 percent, to levels not seen since 2011.

But that gain was more than offset by increases of 2.5 percent for the agricultural sector and 23.7 percent for "land use changes," which includes the cutting and burning of trees.

Driven largely by farming and cattle ranching, such land clearing releases carbon into the atmosphere — a major problem for the world's biggest producer and exporter of soy and beef.

Under Bolsonaro, the Brazilian Amazon has lost more than 10,000 square kilometers (3,860 square miles) a year of forest cover, an area the size of Lebanon, up from 6,500 square kilometers a year over the previous decade.

Climate Observatory executive secretary Marcio Astrini blamed Bolsonaro's "anti-policies" on the environment for the emissions increase.

"Brazil managed the feat of being perhaps the only major carbon emitter to pollute more in the first year of the pandemic," he said in a statement.

"This is one more blow to the international image of the country, which arrives completely discredited to the COP26" — the upcoming UN climate summit.

Opening Sunday in Glasgow, it is the biggest climate conference since the 2015 Paris talks produced a landmark accord on curbing global warming, and is seen as crucial for setting global emissions-cutting targets.