A “moral failure and deadly negligence” is on the horizon, UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned world leaders, as he opened a climate gathering in Brazil with a blistering speech. His warning about exceeding the 1.5-degree Celsius warming limit was made all the more poignant by the absence of the leaders of the planet’s three biggest polluters.
The non-attendance of the heads of China, the US, and India at the preliminary Belem talks highlights a stark global division. Guterres blamed this inaction on world powers being “captive to fossil fuel interests.”
In the face of this political vacuum, Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is attempting to rally the world around a new financial solution. He has proposed the “Tropical Forests Forever Facility,” a plan to pay 74 developing nations to protect their rainforests.
This $5.5 billion fund, supported by a $3 billion pledge from Norway, uses a novel loan-based system to make preservation profitable. It aims to counter the economic forces of deforestation.
The fund also dedicates 20 percent of its resources to Indigenous communities, acknowledging their role as forest guardians. The summit is now a test of whether finance-based solutions can succeed amid deep political fractures.
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