The Belém Declaration

AAAS: "Brazil's Amazon Summit falls short on charting meaningful goals to protect forest, researchers say." Instead of firm pledges, the Belém Declaration, signed by the countries that make up the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (ACTO)—Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname, and Venezuela—listed 113 general objectives. Some were as vague as stating an aspirational goal of avoiding the 'point of no return' for the Amazon. 'But others were more specific, such as the intention to create a pan-Amazonian deforestation monitoring system and an “Amazon IPCC”.' The lack of specific goals, most critically for halting deforestation, wasted an opportunity for the Amazonian nations to speak with a strong, collective voice at the 20th Conference of the Parties (COP), the United Nations’s climate change meeting slated for November. Brazilian President Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva, pushed for a commitment to end deforestation in the Amazon by 2030, but most Amazonian countries had already agreed to this goal during the 2021 COP meeting in Glasgow, Scotland. The three holdouts, Guyana, Venezuela, and Bolivia, could not be persuaded to take a stronger stand. Indigenous leaders were frustated at the lack of attention for their 10% of the Amazonian population. Colombian President Gustavo Petro was a lone voice at the summit advocating for a ban on exploiting fossil fuels, with no groundswell of support. Political progress, but clearly inadequate to the day.   #belem      #amazon    #climatechange