President Bolsonaro has ducked out of Cop26 to tour Italy where he has been criticised by politicians and snubbed by Franciscan friars over claims that he is destroying the Amazon.
The leader visited Rome at the weekend for the G20 summit, posing for selfies with supporters in the city centre as well as facing cries of “Bolsonaro out!”
Instead of heading on to Glasgow for the climate conference with other leaders, Bolsonaro is visiting Anguillara Veneta, a small town near Venice from where his ancestors migrated to Brazil in the 19th century.
He is to be awarded honorary citizenship today from the mayor, an ally of Matteo Salvini, the League party leader who is a committed supporter of Bolsonaro. Salvini is to meet the president tomorrow. Bolsonaro, 66, would have been given a rough ride at Glasgow over accusations that he increased Brazil’s greenhouse emissions by 9.5 per cent last year.
The rise is mostly due to deforestation, which has caused the Amazon to shrink by more than 10,000 sq km a year on his watch because he favours farming over the future of the planet.
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Bolsonaro also risks being prosecuted for crimes against humanity over his handling of the Covid crisis, which has killed 606,000 people in Brazil.
A senate commission accused him last week of failing to buy vaccine doses that were offered while he played down the pandemic and promoted treatment with hydroxychloroquine, the antimalarial drug.
Before his visit to his ancestors’ town, protesters dumped manure outside the town hall and daubed the walls with insults. Alessandra Buoso, the mayor, said that the decision to grant him honorary citizenship was “to reward the welcome that migrants from Anguillara Veneta have received in Brazil”.
Vanessa Camani, a left-wing member of the regional council, said that any award to Bolsonaro was in poor taste. “He is known for . . . offending women and homosexuals,” she said. “How could you be proud of such a person?”
Church officials in nearby Padua went further, saying that the ceremony was “extremely embarrassing”.
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Franciscan friars at the Basilica of Saint Anthony of Padua said that he would not be given a ceremony if he came to the popular church. A source said: “The friars have closed the discussion on this topic.”