US President Joe Biden and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva at the White House on Friday said that the two biggest countries in the Americas would work together on fighting the climate crisis after both fended off attacks on their legislative bodies.
Meeting in the Oval Office, Biden and Lula stressed their mutual commitment to saving the Amazon rainforest and fighting global warming — efforts that were sidelined by their predecessors, former US president Donald Trump and former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro.
Biden said that “shared values ... put us on the same page, particularly, especially, when it comes to the climate crisis.”
Photo: Reuters
Brazil is seeking US participation in the Amazon Fund, an international scheme to finance anti-deforestation efforts in Brazil, and Lula after the meeting voiced moderate confidence that it would happen.
“I not only think [the US] will, but I think that it’s necessary they participate,” Lula told reporters.
He added that while the meeting had not specifically addressed the Amazon Fund, he had brought up “the responsibility of rich countries to assume responsibility to fund countries with rainforests and not only in Brazil.”
In a joint statement that followed the meeting, the White House said it hoped to “work with Congress to provide funds for programs to protect and conserve the Brazilian Amazon, including initial support for the Amazon Fund.”
Lula told Biden at the White House that during his term as president from 2003 to 2010, he had committed Brazil to drastic reductions in the deforestation of the world’s largest rainforest, which is often described as the “lungs of the world” for its massive greenhouse gas absorption.
However, “in the last few years, the rainforest in the Amazon was invaded by political irrationality, human irrationality, because we had a president who sent people to deforest, sent gold diggers into the indigenous areas,” he said, referring to Bolsonaro.
Biden has made US leadership on fighting climate change one of his main priorities, starting by putting the US back into the Paris climate accord after Trump exited the historic deal, which aims to slow global warming.
In the Oval Office, the two leaders also expressed solidarity over their similar paths in confronting challenges to their democratic institutions.
“Both our nations’ strong democracies have been tested,” Biden told Lula, and “both in the United States and Brazil, democracy prevailed.”
Biden defeated Trump in 2020, but two months later, a mob of Trump supporters stormed the US Congress on his urgings that the electoral process in some areas was not legitimate.
Lula defeated Bolsonaro and took office last month, and a mob of Bolsonaro supporters stormed government buildings shortly after with similar claims of election illegitimacy.
“We have some issues on which we can work together,” Lula told Biden. “First is to never again allow” attacks on their legislative bodies.
Touting Brazil’s return to the international arena, Lula said his predecessor’s “world started and ended with fake news — in the morning, afternoon and at night. It seemed that he despised international relations.”
Biden, referring to Trump, quickly answered: “Sounds familiar.”
One area where Biden and Lula sharply disagree is over Ukraine, and the subject of Russia’s invasion did not come up during their introductory remarks, before reporters were ushered from the Oval Office.
Biden has spearheaded an unprecedented Western effort to rally behind Ukraine, providing aid, weaponry, military training and diplomatic support as the country struggles to repel the Russian war machine.
However, several major democratic countries — notably India, South Africa and Brazil — have largely remained on the sidelines, refusing to help Ukraine militarily and calling for a diplomatic resolution.
After the meeting was over, Lula told reporters that he wanted to assemble an international “group of countries that aren’t directly or indirectly involved in the war of Russia against Ukraine so that we can have a possibility to build peace.”
“I’m convinced that we need to find a way out to end this war. I found Biden shared the same concern,” he said. “The first thing is to stop the war.”
In a sign of rekindled chemistry between the two leaders, Lula invited Biden to visit Brazil, the joint statement said, “and President Biden accepted the invitation.”
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
RSS