<
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/aug/09/lula-brazil-amazon-rainforests-money>
"The Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has told developed
countries to put their money where their mouth is when it comes to protecting
the world’s remaining tropical forests, as major rainforest nations demanded
hundreds of billions of dollars of climate financing and a greater role in how
those resources are spent.
“It’s not Brazil that needs money. It’s not Colombia that needs money. It’s not
Venezuela. It’s nature,” Lula told journalists on the second day of a major
environmental summit in the Amazon city of Belém.
For two centuries, industrialized nations filled the world’s atmosphere with
pollution, Lula declared, “and they now need to pay their bit to restore part
of that which was wrecked”.
“It’s nature that needs money. It’s nature that needs financing,” added the
77-year-old leftist.
Lula’s appeal came after hours of meetings between the leaders of the Amazon’s
eight nations and representatives of fellow rainforest nations, the Republic of
the Congo, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Indonesia. Brazil,
Indonesia and the DRC are home to 52% of the world’s remaining primary tropical
forests, vast carbon sinks which play a critical role in efforts to control
climate change.
In a declaration entitled “United For Our Forests”, the governments of those
countries reaffirmed their commitment to reducing deforestation and finding
ways to reconcile economic prosperity with environmental protection. They also
voiced concern at the developed world’s failure to meet mitigation targets and
fulfill a pledge to provide $100bn a year in climate financing, calling for
that to rise to $200bn by 2030.
Lula said the fledgling rainforest bloc had a simple message to those “rich
countries” in the lead up to November’s Cop28 summit in Dubai: “If they want to
effectively preserve what is left of the forests, they must spend money – not
just to take care of the canopy of the trees but to take care of the people who
live beneath that canopy and who want to work, to study and to eat and … to
live decently.”
“It’s by taking care of these people that we will take care of the forest,”
Lula added."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
