Countries that border the Amazon rainforest need to have a bigger voice in the international climate debate and greater representation on global environmental forums, Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said.
Organizations such as the Global Environment Facility, for instance, make Brazil, Colombia and Ecuador share a single seat on its council while developed economies like the U.S., Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Sweden each have their own seats, he said.
“It is inexplicable that international mechanisms of financing reproduce a logic of exclusion,” Lula said Saturday at an environmental conference in Leticia, Colombia, where he also met with the nation’s president, Gustavo Petro.
Authorities from eight member countries of the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization: Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname and Venezuela held meetings in Leticia ahead of their regional summit next month in Brazil.
Petro criticized countries that pollute the most, like the U.S. and China, for not investing enough to combat climate change. “Overcoming the climate crisis requires an investment of $3.3 trillion a year,” he said.
Lula also defended the creation of a panel of specialists inspired by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to focus on science-based recommendations for the Amazon. Countries in the region must also cooperate to increase regional security and fight crime, he said.
