During a historic visit to the Amazon rainforest on Sunday, President Joe Biden highlighted his climate legacy and declared that no one can reverse America’s green transition as newly elected President Donald Trump’s fossil-friendly policies loom large.
Biden is the first sitting US president to visit the world’s largest tropical rainforest, which plays a crucial role in removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere but is increasingly threatened by climate change.
During an aerial flight from his Marine One helicopter, Biden saw dried riverbeds, eroded coastlines and plumes of smoke from the Amazon’s worst wildfires in two decades, which have burned millions of hectares this year and massively disrupted the lives of indigenous communities.
Speaking at the Museum of the Amazon in Manaus, Brazil, Biden said the fight against climate change had been a “defining cause” of his presidency. He cited the Inflation Reduction Act he signed in 2022, which along with other legislation will provide $450 billion in clean energy funding, he said, creating hundreds of thousands of jobs and positioning the United States to halve its carbon emissions by 2030 to push back. .
Biden also said on Sunday that the US has surpassed his goal of providing $11 billion a year in climate financing to developing countries by 2024, a more than sixfold increase from when Biden took power from Trump in 2021. This makes the US one of the largest bilateral developing countries. supplier of climate finance in the world, the White House said.
Biden began his term by re-engaging the US in the Paris Agreement, an international treaty on climate change that his predecessor, Trump, withdrew from. Trump, a climate change skeptic, has said he will again withdraw from the deal and ease restrictions on oil and gas exploration.
Without mentioning Trump by name, Biden said he had left his successor and country a “strong foundation to build on, if they choose.”
While some may try to delay the country’s green transition, “no one can undo it, no one,” Biden said, “not when so many people, regardless of party or politics, are enjoying its benefits.”
President Joe Biden on Sunday at the Museum of the Amazon in Manaus, Brazil.
The Amazon rainforest, which spans nine countries and is home to more than 10% of the world’s known species, is on the front lines of the battle against climate change and biodiversity loss. According to the World Wide Fund, by 2022, 17% of forests had been completely lost, while another 17% had been degraded.
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has pledged to end illegal deforestation by 2030.
Biden announced $50 million for the Amazon Fund, a Brazilian government initiative to combat deforestation, bringing total U.S. contributions to $100 million from the $500 million Biden promised last year.
He also met with indigenous and other leaders and signed a U.S. proclamation declaring November 17 as International Conservation Day.
Biden’s visit to Amazon is part of a six-day trip to South America, his first visit to the continent as president. Before arriving in Brazil, he attended the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Peru, where he had a final meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping. He will then go to Rio de Janeiro for a summit of the Group of Twenty Economies.
His trip to South America comes as the 29th United Nations Climate Change Conference, known as COP29, is being held in Azerbaijan. The conference, which focuses on climate finance, was marked by the absence of leaders from some major economies – which are also among the world’s biggest polluters – including the US, China, India and Japan. Brazil will host the conference next year.
US climate envoy John Podesta told the conference last week that Trump could slow, but not stop, the US transition away from fossil fuels.
“The work to mitigate climate change will continue in the United States,” he said.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
