Amazon nations seek common voice on climate change, urge developed world to help protect rainforest – The Denver Post

By FABIANO MAISONNAVE and DAVID BILLER (Associated Press)

BELEM, Brazil (AP) — Leaders from South American nations that are home to the Amazon challenged the developed world on Tuesday to do more to help stop massive destruction of the world’s largest rainforest, a task they said can’t fall to just a handful of countries when the crisis has been spurred by so many.

Assembling Tuesday and Wednesday in the Brazilian city of Belem, the members of the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization, or ACTO, also sought to chart a common course on how to combat climate change, hoping a united front could give them a major voice in global talks.

The calls from the presidents of Brazil, Colombia and Bolivia came as the leaders aim to fuel much-needed economic development in their regions while preventing the Amazon’s ongoing demise from reaching a “point of no return:” Some scientists say that when 20% to 25% of the forest is destroyed, rainfall would dramatically decline, transforming more than half of the rainforest to tropical savannah, with immense biodiversity loss.

“The forest unites us. It is time to look at the heart of our continent and consolidate, once and for all, our Amazon identity,” said Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. “In addition to dealing with the challenges of our region, that will enable us to confront an increasingly uncertain global order.”

The summit reinforces Lula’s strategy to leverage global concern for the Amazon’s preservation. Emboldened by a 42% drop in deforestation during his first seven months in office, he has sought international financial support for forest protection. The leaders of Norway and Germany, the largest contributors to Brazil’s Amazon Fund for sustainable development, were invited, as were counterparts from other crucial rainforest regions: Indonesia, Republic of Congo, and Democratic Republic of Congo.

Aside from a general consensus on the need for shared global responsibility, however, members of ACTO — convening for only the third time in the organization’s existence — demonstrated Tuesday that they still remain apart regarding their own actions.

The Amazon stretches across an area twice the size of India. Two-thirds of it lie in Brazil, with seven other countries and one territory share the remaining third. Governments have historically viewed it as an area to be colonized and exploited, with little regard for sustainability or the rights of its Indigenous peoples.

All the countries at the summit have ratified the Paris climate accord, which requires signatories to set targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. But cross-border cooperation has historically been scant, undermined by low trust, ideological differences and the lack of government presence.

Thus far, forest protection commitments have been uneven. Brazil and Colombia have pledged to stop deforestation completely by 2030, but other countries have been reluctant to follow. Although ACTO is a 45-year-old organization, this week marks its first meeting in 14 years.

A key topic dividing them on Tuesday was oil. Notably, leftist Colombian President Gustavo Petro called for an end to oil exploration in the Amazon — an allusion to the ambivalent approach of Brazil and other oil-producing nations in the region.

Lula, who has presented himself as an environmental leader on the international stage, has refrained from taking a definitive stance on oil, citing the decision as a technical matter. Meanwhile, Brazil’s state-run Petrobras company is seeking to explore for oil near the mouth of the Amazon River.

But there have been encouraging signs of increased regional cooperation amid growing global recognition of the Amazon’s importance in arresting climate change. Sharing a united voice — along with funneling more money into ACTO — could help it serve as a representative for their nations on the global stage ahead of the COP 28 climate conference in Dubai, leaders said.

Lula added that an international system imposed upon South America has historically limited the region to being a provider of raw materials — but he said that can be changed with a “fair ecological transition.”

“The Amazon is our passport to a new relationship with the world, a more symmetric relationship, in which our resources are not exploited to benefit few, but rather valued and put in the service of everyone.”

Bolivian President Luis Arce said the Amazon has been the victim of capitalism, reflected by runaway expansion of agricultural borders and natural resource exploitation. And he noted that industrialized nations are responsible for most historic greenhouse gas emissions.

“The fact that the Amazon is such an important territory doesn’t imply that all of the responsibilities, consequences and effects of the climate crisis should fall to us, to our towns and to our economies,” Arce said.

Colombia’s Petro argued that affluent nations should swap foreign debt owed by Amazon countries for climate action, saying that would create enough investment to power the Amazon region’s economy.

Petro also called for the formation of a military alliance akin to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, saying such a group could be tasked not only with protecting the Amazon, but tackling another major problem for the region: organized crime.

Few border areas are policed seriously and there has been scant international cooperation as rival organized crime groups compete for drug-trafficking routes. Drug seizures have increased in Colombia, Brazil, Bolivia and Peru over the past decade, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) reported in June.

In 2018, Latin American nations signed the Escazu Agreement, which established the public’s right to environmental information and participation in decision-making, and protected environmentalists. However, several countries, including Brazil, have not yet ratified it. The following year, they signed the Leticia Pact to better coordinate environmental protection.

Lula said he hopes a “Belem Declaration” from this week’s summit will become the nations’ shared call to arms at the COP conference in November.

Also attending the summit Tuesday were Guyana’s prime minister, Venezuela’s vice president, the foreign ministers of Suriname and Ecuador, and France’s ambassador to Brazil, representing the Amazonian territory of French Guiana.

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