Society joins search for how to respond to ‘Super El Niño’
Regional Dialogues bring together ministries and and local representatives to debate how to respond to climate events
Adriano Sarmento/SGPR
The federal government wants to engage society in preparing for and preventing climate emergencies, especially with a strong El Niño expected in late 2026 and early 2027.
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To that end, it will hold seven in-person meetings across the country’s five regions. In addition to Rio de Janeiro, which hosted the first meeting of the so-called “El Niño Regional Dialogue” on Thursday (20), meetings are planned in Manaus, Fortaleza, Santarém (Pará), Campo Grande (Mato Grosso do Sul), Petrolina (Pernambuco), and Porto Alegre.
The idea, says Marcelo Fragoso, chief of staff at the Secretariat-General of the Presidency (SGPR), is to combine government accountability with listening sessions for organizations working on the ground. “It’s essential to get information to organized civil society, which is often the first to respond in emergency situations.”
In addition to sharing weather forecasts and presenting the government’s preparedness measures, the meetings will be used to fold local demands into public policy. “There’s no point in a one-way dialogue. We want to listen, work out solutions together, and bring the warnings communities give us back into government decision-making, both for shaping policy and for planning actions in partnership with states and municipalities.”
SGPR technical advisor Denise Forine said the initiative also aims to get ahead of the varied impacts of the phenomenon. “The impacts of El Niño aren’t uniform. Each region will be affected differently, whether by drought or heavy rain. Going out to these areas lets us capture that diversity of problems and build regionalized responses.”
Representatives from federal agencies are taking part in the meetings, including the Office of the Chief of Staff, the Ministry of Agrarian Development and Family Farming, the Ministry of Cities, the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change (MMA), the Ministry of Health, and Civil Defense, among others.
Present at the Rio meeting, Vitor Araripe, the Ministry of Cities’ national secretary for peripheral urban areas, presented prevention measures targeting the most vulnerable urban areas. The strategy combines infrastructure investment with community mobilization.
“The centerpiece of our work is disaster-prevention infrastructure, such as hillside containment and drainage systems, but we understand that prevention isn’t just about infrastructure. We’re also investing in mobilization, information, and training for communities,” he said.
Araripe cited the Cidade Sem Risco (Risk-Free City) campaign, run in partnership with the National Center for Monitoring and Early Warning of Natural Disasters (Cemaden), as well as the production of guidebooks for residents and community leaders in at-risk areas.
The ministry also revived the Municipal Risk Reduction Plans and the Community Risk Reduction and Climate Adaptation Plans. According to Araripe, input from the Regional Dialogues should help refine these policies. “Our role here is to present what’s already been done, but also to listen so we can update and improve these public policies.”
Among the civil society representatives at the Rio meeting were leaders who work directly with populations vulnerable to climate impacts. “I came to learn, to bring back information and some kind of path forward for our Baixada [Fluminense],” said Marilena Matos, known as “mãe Marilena” in São João de Meriti, where she has spent more than five decades running social outreach work that serves about 60 families. “Talking about climate and El Niño is essential. We suffer alongside the families, who often already have almost nothing and end up losing the little they have when it rains hard,” she said.
For Pedro Graça Aranha, a researcher at Fiocruz and the Instituto Alternativa Terra Azul, preparing for El Niño needs to be seen within the broader context of a worsening climate crisis. “The problem isn’t El Niño, the problem is environmental collapse. We need public policies to confront this new reality, with grassroots climate adaptation plans, especially in the favelas, because the people who die in disasters are poor, Black and peripheral populations,” he said.
Ana Lúcia Ribeiro Pardo, a representative of Rio de Janeiro’s Social Participation Forum, stressed the importance of opening permanent channels of dialogue between the government and organizations working in these areas.
“It’s very important for the government to bring in grassroots groups for this kind of listening. The people who live in these areas are the ones who feel it firsthand, who lose their homes, who end up in a shelter after losing everything.”
According to her, the forum brings together representatives from different areas, including the environment, family farming, culture and vulnerable populations, helping channel the demands of those who experience the effects of extreme weather events directly to the government.
