MANAUS, Brazil - US President Joe Biden paid a historic trip to the Amazon rainforest on Nov 17 to promote his record on fighting climate change, insisting it would survive Donald Trump’s return to the White House.
Mr Biden flew over the jungle by helicopter and met indigenous leaders in the Brazilian city of Manaus on the penultimate leg of a valedictory South American tour which has been overshadowed by Trump’s election win.
The 81-year-old Democrat is the first sitting US president to visit the Amazon.
“Folks, we don’t have to choose between an environment and the economy. We can do both. We’ve proven it back home,” Mr Biden said in a short speech at a nature reserve, framed by vivid green forest cover.
Without referring to Trump by name, he said he would leave his Republican successor and his country “a strong foundation to build on, if they choose to do so”.
“It’s true – some may seek to deny or delay the clean energy revolution that’s under way in America. But nobody – nobody – can reverse it,” he declared.
On Nov 17, the White House announced that the US had hit its target of increasing bilateral climate financing to US$11 billion (S$14.8 billion) a year.
It said that the figure reached in 2024 was six times what the US was providing when Mr Biden took over from Trump in 2021.
The money, which helps developing countries adapt to climate change, has made “the United States the largest bilateral provider of climate finance in the world”, the White House said.
The European Union, however, remains the biggest global contributor to climate financing.
Trump’s return to the White House looms large over Mr Biden’s last major foreign tour as president, which began with a gathering of Asian-Pacific partners in Lima and ends with a Group of 20 (G-20) summit in Rio de Janeiro starting Nov 18.
Climate financing for developing nations is one of the topics on the G-20 table, with calls for the world’s richest countries to rescue stalled United Nations climate talks taking place at the same time in Azerbaijan.
While striking a defiant note about Trump, Mr Biden has cut an at-times forlorn figure on his farewell tour of a region the US views as its backyard.
All eyes in Lima were on Chinese President Xi Jinping, who was received with greater fanfare than the US leader.
At a meeting with Mr Biden, the Chinese leader was already looking to the new Trump era, saying he was ready to work with the “America First” leader and hoped for a “smooth transition” in relations.
America’s allies fear Trump could again pull the US, the world’s second-biggest polluter, out of the landmark 2015 Paris Agreement on combating carbon emissions, as he did during his first term.
On Nov 16, he nominated fracking magnate and noted climate change sceptic Chris Wright as his energy secretary.
In another ominous sign, Argentina’s right-wing President Javier Milei, a major fan of Trump’s, this week pulled his country out of the UN climate talks.
The Amazon, spanning nine countries, is crucial to the fight against climate change due to its ability to absorb planet-warming carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
But it is also one of the areas most vulnerable to climate change and environmental degradation.
A recent study showed that the Amazon rainforest had lost an area about the size of Germany and France combined to deforestation in four decades.
In 2024, it experienced the worst wildfires in nearly two decades, fuelled by a severe drought blamed in part by climate experts on global warming.
Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has pledged to put a stop to illegal Amazon deforestation by 2030.
Mr Biden on Nov 17 announced an additional US$50 million towards a Brazilian fund aimed at protecting the world’s biggest jungle.
Experts have warned that the second Trump presidency could undo progress on the transition to green energy made under Mr Biden, giving heavy polluters like China and India an excuse to scale back their own efforts. AFP