U.S. President Joe Biden delivers remarks at the Museu da Amazonia, in Manaus, Brazil, November 17, 2024. REUTERS/Leah Millis
MANAUS: Joe Biden announced new conservation efforts and funding as he became the first sitting US president to visit the Amazon region, touring part of a rainforest nature preserve and meeting with local environmental activists.
With his time in the White House ending in January, Biden said he’s leaving President-elect Donald Trump and the United States a “strong foundation to build on, if they choose to do so”.
“It’s true, some may seek to deny or delay the clean-energy revolution that is underway in America,” he said in Manaus, Brazil, last Sunday. “But nobody, nobody can reverse it.”
New initiatives announced by Biden included US$50mil for the Amazon Fund, doubling the US contribution, and a US$37.5mil loan from the Development Finance Corp to support the planting of native trees on degraded grasslands in Brazil.
The president is touting the delivery of more than US$11bil in climate finance, making good on his pledge to hit at least that level annually by 2024, up from US$1.5bil in fiscal 2021.
That includes US$3bil to help poor countries adapt to rising seas, more intense storms and other consequences of climate change – adaptation funding that has generally lagged behind money for green-energy projects in developing nations.
Biden’s trip underscores “his personal commitment and America’s continuing commitment at all levels of government and across our private sector and civil society to combat climate change at home and abroad”, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said last week.
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who has championed fighting climate change and protection of the world’s largest rainforest, didn’t join Biden as he focuses on the Group of 20 summit in Rio de Janeiro that started yesterday.
The visit caps Biden’s efforts to spur international funding for rainforest protection.
In 2023, he pledged to work with the US Congress to provide US$500mil through 2028 for the Amazon Fund, an initiative by the Brazilian Development Bank that underwrites protection projects such as indigenous forest management and small-scale farms.
The US president made that pledge after meeting Lula at the White House, when the Brazilian leader promised to restart conservation efforts that languished under his predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro. — Bloomberg
