Brazil’s far-right leader, Jair Bolsonaro on Friday met with US president, Joe Biden, pledging that his country could expand agribusiness without harming the Amazon and contributing to climate change.
“We don’t need the Amazon to expand agribusiness,” Bolsonaro was quoted as saying when he met w1ith Biden during the Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles
Reports show that Bolsonaro had been faced with environmentalists who insist that agricultural companies involved in the deforestation of the Amazon were a crucial “sink” for carbon emissions and could be blamed for the planet’s rising temperatures.
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Bolsonaro, who was one of the top international allies of former US President Donald Trump, praised Biden and said that his meeting with Biden was “simply fantastic,”.
In his reaction, US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken spoke highly Of the meeting between the two leaders. He noted that talk between the leaders can best be described as constructive and provides an opportunity to address a lot of issues in the bilateral relationship.
He maintained that the US was particularly concerned about the Amazon as the “lungs of the hemisphere” and that Biden told Bolsonaro that the United States felt a need to help.
“We feel a responsibility to do that because, over many, many, many generations, we were able to take advantage ourselves – for example, clearing forests in order to have agricultural production or industry before anyone understood the impact of climate change,” Blinken was quoted as saying.
He further noted that the US was eternally committed to providing financing and other support to ensure that countries “have the means not to further engage in deforestation or even to engage in reforestation.”
Story was adapted from Punch.
