Presidents Of Brazil, France Announce Green Investment Plan On Amazon Visit

Belém, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 27th Mar, 2024) French President Emmanuel Macron kicked off a visit to Brazil Tuesday with the launch of a billion-euro Amazonian green investment plan alongside his counterpart Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

Their trip to the city of Belem, the host of 2025 UN climate talks, makes Macron the first French president to visit Brazil in 11 years, seeking a fresh start after spats with former president Jair Bolsonaro over environmental destruction and insults directed at his wife, Brigitte Macron.

The investment plan aims to raise "1 billion Euros ($1.08 billion) of public and private investment over the next four years," according to a roadmap published by the French presidency ahead of next year's COP30 summit.

The leaders are seeking to promote "a great public and private global investment plan into the bioeconomy" in the Brazilin and Guyanese Amazon, the announcement said, especially as Brazil presides over the G20 for 2024.

France, the seventh largest economy in the world, and Brazil, the ninth largest, are considered key players in a geopolitical scene marked by rivalry between China and the United States.

Paris sees Brasilia as a bridge to large emerging economies whose voices Brazil is trying to amplify through its presidency of the G20, and membership of the BRICS+ group.

"We are living in a Franco-Brazilian moment," the Elysee presidential palace said earlier, highlighting "many points of convergence" with Lula, particularly on "major global issues."

"France is an essential, unavoidable actor for Brazilian foreign policy," said the head of Brazilian diplomacy for Europe, Maria Luisa Escorel de Moraes.

Tuesday's announcement proposes the creation of a "carbon market," intended to reward countries which invest in natural carbon sinks, such as the Amazon rainforest.

The world's largest tropical forest plays a key role in the fight against climate change by absorbing carbon dioxide emissions.

Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon halved in 2023 after soaring under Bolsonaro, as Lula's government stepped up environmental policing.

The agreement also includes support for "indigenous people and local Amazon communities, which have an essential role in protecting biodiversity through their traditional knowledge and forest management practices," according to the announcement.