(Bloomberg) — Belem, a city in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest region, will host the annual United Nations climate change summit in 2025, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva announced Friday.
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The UN’s decision to bring COP30, as the summit is known, to Brazil is the latest boost to the left-wing leader’s efforts to assert global leadership on environmental issues.
“It will be an honor to receive representatives from all over the world in a state in our Amazon,” Lula said on Twitter when announcing the UN selection. He originally featured the city in the northern state of Para as the host during last year’s COP27 summit in Egypt.
“This choice increases our responsibility to show that Brazil is prepared and has the environmental agenda in mind,” Helder Barbalho, the governor of Para, said in a video accompanying the announcement.
Lula’s promises to reverse years of rising deforestation rates have won him praise on the world stage, a stark contrast to former President Jair Bolsonaro, who became the target of international disapproval for easing restrictions. forest protection. Since taking office in January, the US and UK have pledged to begin contributing to the Amazon Fund, a Brazil-led initiative created in 2008, with other countries in talks for join.
Read more: UK pledges $100m to Brazilian fund Amazon, joining US
That program is now facing growing challenges in Brazil, after a congressional committee decided to strip some powers from the environment ministry and its head, Marina Silva, this week. The decision received tacit support from Lula, according to local press, as part of wider legislative negotiations over the structure of his cabinet and the approval of his new budget plan.
The COP30 summit will take place in November 2025. The event brings together world leaders to discuss climate action and efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and last year’s event generated agreement for create a fund to help the poorest countries that have been harmed by the impacts. of climate change.
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