2025-11-07
35 分钟Who would chop down the Amazon rainforest as global temperatures surge?
It is a fallacy that the Amazon is a heritage of humanity,
and it is also a mistake to say it is the lungs of the world.
That's former Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, speaking to the UN in 2019.
He was elected that year on a promise to exploit the Amazon,
and he delighted his supporters by saying that too much of the forest was protected.
Take, for instance, the Yanomami Reserve.
9,000 natives live there.
Here, we are in the state of Rio and their reserve is twice the size of the state of Rio.
Don't tell me there isn't something wrong with this.
But in 2023, Bolsonaro lost out to his rival, Luis Inácio Lula de Silva.
And Lula took power, promising to tackle the deforestation which had surged under his predecessor.
Mainly because of the Amazon rainforest.
Brazil is largely responsible for the world's climate balance.
That is why stopping deforestation in the Amazon is also a way to reduce global warming.
I'm aware of the scope of the challenge of ending deforestation by 2030,
but this is a challenge we're determined to achieve.
The Amazon is a huge global resource, but it's also a domestic political football in Brazil.
Its destruction could be a huge boon for local cattle ranchers,
but a catastrophe for the rest of the world.