Promise to protect amazon

SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt - Brazil’s Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva received a superstar welcome at the COP27 summit in Egypt on Wednesday as he pledged to recommit the rainforest nation to tackling the climate crisis and offered to hold future UN climate talks.

“I’m here today to say that Brazil is ready to come back,” Mr Lula said, drawing cheers from the crowd of delegates at the international climate summit in the seaside resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh.

Mr Lula won the presidential election last month against right-wing

President Jair Bolsonaro, who presided over mounting destruction of the Amazon rainforest and refused to hold the 2019 climate summit originally planned for Brazil.

Mr Lula, a former president who is due to start his third term in January, told delegates he would seek to make Brazil the host of COP30 in 2025 and would aim to put the venue in the Amazon rainforest, rather than the more populous coastal region.

The Amazon, the world’s largest rainforest spanning more than 6 million square kilometres, absorbs vast amounts of greenhouse gas, which if released would blow global climate targets.

“There is no climate security for the world without a protected Amazon,” he said, explaining he wanted people to see the region. “We will spare no efforts to have zero deforestation and the degradation of our biomes by 2030.”

The standing-room-only crowd included two former Brazilian environment ministers, legislators, state governors, activists and indigenous in traditional headdress. ■