The world’s “captivity to fossil fuel interests” is threatening the planet’s future, UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned at the Brazil climate summit. His stark message was amplified by the troubling absence of the leaders of the world’s top three polluters—China, the United States, and India.
This “reduced participation” at the Belem gathering reveals a fundamental global division. Guterres warned that this failure to act, particularly on the 1.5-degree Celsius warming limit, constitutes “moral failure and deadly negligence.”
While political divisions dominate the headlines, the summit’s host, Brazil’s President Lula da Silva, is attempting to build a financial solution. He has proposed the “Tropical Forests Forever Facility,” a new mechanism to pay 74 developing nations to halt deforestation.
Lula’s plan, which has already secured $5.5 billion in pledges, is not based on aid but on interest-bearing loans. This model is designed to make preservation an economically superior choice to destruction.
The fund, backed by a $3 billion pledge from Norway, also allocates 20 percent of its resources to Indigenous communities, aiming to build a more just and effective conservation model.
