How Biden could use foreign and trade policy to protect the Amazon rainforest
BOGOTA/RIO DE JANEIRO, (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - As U.S. President Joe Biden develops his climate change agenda for the global stage, foreign and trade policies could also be used to tackle the thorny issue of rising deforestation in the Amazon, researchers and former officials said.
A U.S. executive order issued by Biden in January to address the “profound climate crisis” requested officials to develop a “plan for promoting the protection of the Amazon rainforest and other critical ecosystems that serve as global carbon sinks”.
During his election campaign, Biden also raised the prospect of mobilizing $20 billion toward safeguarding the Amazon.
Academics from 10 U.S. and Brazilian universities, together with environmental groups, backed a report last month on how Biden should deal with Brazil, advising the president to limit commodities imports through an executive order.
They called for U.S. policy to block goods linked to forest destruction - mainly beef, soy and timber - coming in from Brazil, which is home to roughly 60% of the Amazon and where deforestation is on the rise.
“The United States has a responsibility and contributes indirectly to deforestation in Brazil,” said Mariana Mota, public policy coordinator at Greenpeace Brazil.
“So the most important (thing) ... is that these products do not have free access to (the United States),” she said.
Protecting tropical rainforests is regarded as a vital buffer against global warming because of the vast amounts of planet-heating carbon dioxide they absorb.
But clearing of the Amazon for agriculture, mining and other commercial activities is sapping its ability to act as a carbon sink, scientists have warned.
Deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon surged to a 12-year high in 2020, according to government data published in November.
Attaching conditions that would help preserve the Amazon to foreign policy issues of concern to Brazil’s right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro could also be effective, said experts.
U.S. support for Brazil’s bid to join the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, for instance, should be tied to a firmer commitment by Brazil to protect its forests, resources and people, said Nara Baré, coordinator of COIAB, the largest umbrella group for Brazil’s Amazon indigenous tribes.
Spearheaded by funding from Norway, countries including Brazil, Colombia and Peru have been paid hundreds of millions of dollars in recent years for emissions avoided by cracking down on illegal forest-clearing in the Amazon.
Some climate finance experts say the United States could help promote such “results-based payments”.