Joe Biden This Sunday he toured the waters of the largest tributary of the Amazon Riverreduced by drought, as the first sitting US president to set foot in the fabled rainforest, while the incoming Trump administration appears set to scale back America’s commitment to fighting climate change.
The huge Amazon region, which is about the size of Australia, stores huge amounts of the world’s carbon dioxidea greenhouse gas that causes climate change when released into the atmosphere. But development is rapidly depleting the world’s largest rainforest and rivers are drying up.
accompanied by Carlos Nobrea Nobel Prize-winning scientist and expert on how climate change is damaging the Amazon, and Biden’s climate advisor, John Podestathe president flew his helicopter over a stretch of rainforest. Erosion along the route was severe as it flew over stranded boats on the Black River, fire damage, and a wildlife refuge. The helicopter flew over the vast meeting place of the Amazon River and the Negro River, its main tributary.
Biden will then meet with local and indigenous leaders and visit an Amazonian museum as he seeks to highlight his commitment to preserving the region.
His administration announced plans last year for a contribution of 500 million dollars to the Amazon Fund, the largest international cooperative effort to preserve the rainforest, funded primarily by Norway.
So far, the U.S. government said it has provided $50 million, and the White House announced Sunday an additional $50 million contribution to the fund.
“It is important for a sitting president to visit the Amazon… This demonstrates the president’s personal commitment,” he said. Suely Araújoformer director of the Brazilian environmental protection agency and public policy coordinator of the Climate Observatory, a non-profit organization. “That said, we cannot expect concrete results from this visit.”
She doubts “a single cent” will go to the Amazon Fund once Donald Trump return to the White House.
It is highly unlikely that the incoming Trump administration will prioritize the Amazon or any issues related to climate change. The Republican president-elect already said he would again withdraw from the Paris agreement, a global pact forged to avert the threat of catastrophic climate change, after Biden recommitted to the deal.
Trump has called climate change a “hoax” and has said he will eliminate the Biden administration’s energy efficiency regulations.
Still, the Biden White House on Sunday announced a series of new efforts aimed at strengthening the Amazon and curbing the impact of climate change.
Among the actions is the launch of a financial coalition that seeks to stimulate at least USD 10 billion in public and private investments for land restoration and green economic projects by 2030, and a USD loan 37.5 million to the organization Mombak Gestora de SERVICIOS Ltda. to support large-scale planting of native tree species in degraded grasslands in Brazil.
Biden also plans to sign a US proclamation designating November 17 as International Conservation Day, and will highlight in his comments during the visit that the United States is on track to achieve the 11 billion dollars in spending on international climate finance in 2024, a six-fold increase since he began his term.
The Amazonia is home to indigenous communities and 10% of the Earth’s biodiversity. It also regulates humidity in South America. About two-thirds of the Amazon is located in Brazil and scientists say its devastation represents a catastrophic threat to the planet.
The forest has suffered two years of historic drought that has dried up waterways, isolated thousands of riverside communities and hampered the ability of riverside residents to fish. It has also given way to forest fires that have burned an area larger than Switzerland and drowned cities near and far in smoke.
When the Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva took office last year, signaling a shift in environmental policy from his predecessor, the far-right Jair Bolsonaro. Bolsonaro prioritized agribusiness expansion over forest protection and weakened environmental agencies, causing deforestation to rise to a 15-year high.
Lula has committed to achieving a “zero deforestation” by 2030, although his mandate extends until the end of 2026. Forest loss in the Brazilian Amazon fell 30.6% in the 12 months to July from a year earlier, bringing deforestation to its lowest level in nine years, according to official data published last week.
In that 12-month period, the Amazon lost 6,288 square kilometersapproximately the size of the American state of Delaware. But those data do not reflect this year’s increase in destruction, which will only be included in next year’s reading.
Despite success in curbing Amazon deforestation, Lula’s government has been criticized by environmentalists for backing projects that could harm the region, such as paving a highway that cuts through an area of old growth and could spur logging, oil drilling near the mouth of the Amazon River and the construction of a railroad to transport soybeans to Amazonian ports.
Although Biden is the first acting president in the Amazon, the former president Theodore Roosevelt traveled to the region with the help of the American Museum of Natural History after its 1912 defeat by Woodrow Wilson. The former president was accompanied by his son and naturalists and traveled approximately 15,000 miles during which the former president became ill with malaria and suffered a serious leg infection after a boating accident.
Biden is making the visit to the Amazon as part of a six-day trip to South America, his first to the continent since his presidency. He traveled from Lima, Peru, where he participated in the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit and met with the Chinese president, Xi Jinping.
After his stop in Manaus, he headed to Rio de Janeiro for this year’s Group of 20 leaders’ summit.
(With information from AP)
