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Nature’s climate solution
Nature’s climate solutionBy: John Ainger
Brazil will push for more funding to reverse deforestation when it hosts United Nations climate talks later this year, arguing natural carbon sinks can provide a buffer against the sluggish fight to curb global warming.
“Forests can buy us time in climate action in our rapidly closing window of opportunity,” Andre Correa do Lago, president-designate of the summit, known as COP30, wrote in an open letter published Monday. “Tapping into such an outstanding potential requires enhanced global support and investment.”
Negotiators are gathering in the Amazonian city of Belém in November, ten years on from the landmark Paris Agreement, in which countries agreed for the first time to limit global warming. The future of international climate diplomacy has been put into doubt by President Donald Trump’s decision to leave the pact for the second time.
As it outlines plans for its COP30 presidency, Brazil is setting out to not only counter deforestation but also scale up climate finance and elevate indigenous voices in a bid to show that multilateralism can still work amid the US retreat.
Do Lago acknowledged the “sadness and indignation” felt by those who fear a backslide on climate action and called on world leaders to honor their commitments to keep the rise in global temperatures to ideally 1.5C — and well below 2C — above pre-industrial levels. Countries are expected to submit their updated plans for how to reach that goal before the summit, after most nations missed a February deadline set under the Paris accord.
Already Earth’s warming exceeded 1.5C on an annual basis for the first time last year, and temperatures will continue to rise unless drastic action is taken to curb greenhouse gas emissions.
Forests, which absorb billions of tons of carbon dioxide each year, are seen as essential in the effort to combat climate change.
COP30 will “take place at the epicenter of the climate crisis, and the first to be hosted in the Amazon,” do Lago said, noting the vital ecosystem is now at risk of reaching an irreversible tipping point.
Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva made tackling destruction of the Amazon a priority when he took office at the beginning of 2023. The country cut the rate of deforestation 50% in that year and made further gains in 2024, Marina Silva, the country’s environment minister, said last year, citing government data.
Still, deforestation has been on the rise globally as trees are cleared for agriculture and mining or burned through intensifying wildfires.
“In coming to terms with reality when countering doom, cynicism, and denial, COP30 must be the moment of hope and possibilities through action – never paralysis and fragmentation,” do Lago said.
Last year climate negotiators agreed that developed countries would provide developing nations with $300 billion annually by 2035 to help them transition and adapt to climate change. Yet the credibility of that promise is already coming into question with Trump leaving the Paris Agreement and slashing international aid. In Europe, countries are choosing to massively boost spending to bolster defense, at the expense of international development programs.
One of the key challenges will be to show there is still money available for developing countries’ climate plans. Alongside COP29 host Azerbaijan, Brazil will produce a report outlining how to realize another commitment made last year to mobilize $1.3 trillion in climate finance from private sources for poor nations, according to the letter.
Image: Andre Correa do Lago - Photographer Manjunath Kiran - AFP Getty Images
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