Greenpeace protests outside presidential palace for solar energy

Activists from the NGO Greenpeace staged on Thursday (Apr 23) a demonstration outside the Palácio do Planalto, Brazil's presidential palace, to urge the government to encourage the use of solar energy. On a truck parked in front of the building, they put up a banner with the slogan “Dilma, Brazil needs positive energy. Solar s on the palace: we can do it,” in an attempt to offer President Dilma Rousseff to have solar s installed on the palace free of cost. Protesters stood near the entrance ramp holding up small solar s.

“We've come here to see if the president takes our offer, and to make the government realize solar energy is the solution that Brazil needs to get out of the crisis and choose to grant incentives that the source needs to serve the homes of every Brazilian,” explained Bárbara Rubim, coordinator of Greenpeace Brazil's Climate and Energy Campaign. She believes this encouragement could be made possible by changing the way the Tax on the Circulation of Goods and Services (ICMS, in its Portuguese acronym) works, in an effort to make this sort of energy more competitive.

The coordinator went on to mention the benefits of solar energy. “It's a complement to hydroelectric  power plants. This is when energy generation from a photovoltaic system is potentialized: during a dry spell such as the one we're facing. Besides, solar energy does not pollute the environment, and create a lot more jobs than the sources we've been using in Brazil,” she argued.

of Greenpeace were welcomed by a representative from the Secretariat General of the Presidency, to whom demonstrators handed a solar and a letter for the president. The Presidency's Secretariat for Communication announced they are not to make any comments on the protest.

Translated by Fabrício Ferreira

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