At a summit in Brazil on Tuesday, eight South American countries decided to form an alliance to combat deforestation in the Amazon, vowing to prevent the world’s largest rainforest from reaching “a point of no return.”
The Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (ACTO) meeting in Brazil established a “new and ambitious shared agenda” to maintain the rainforest, a critical buffer against climate change that experts fear is being pushed to the brink of collapse.
Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname, and Venezuela signed a joint declaration in Belem, at the mouth of the Amazon River, outlining a nearly 10,000-word roadmap to promote sustainable development, end deforestation, and combat organized crime, which fuels it.
However, the summit fell short of the most audacious requests of environmentalists and Indigenous organizations, such as requiring all member countries to embrace Brazil’s vow to cease illegal deforestation by 2030 and Colombia’s pledge to prohibit new oil exploration.
“It’s a first step, but there isn’t a concrete decision, just a list of promises,” said Marcio Astrini, head of the Brazil-based Climate Observatory coalition.
“The planet is melting, temperature records are being broken every day… it is not possible for eight Amazonian leaders to fail to put in a declaration in bold letters that deforestation must be zero,” he added.
In his opening speech of the two-day summit, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva emphasized that the “severe worsening of the climate crisis” required action “in unison.”
“It has never been so urgent,” he said in remarks just hours after the European Union’s climate observatory confirmed July had been the hottest month ever recorded.
Meanwhile, Colombian President Gustavo Petro advocated for a huge initiative to wipe developing countries’ debt in exchange for climate action, comparing the notion to the post-World War II “Marshall Plan.”
“If we’re on the verge of extinction and this is the decade when the big decisions have to be made… then what are we doing, besides giving speeches?” he said.
