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Native people hold spears during a protest in Bagua province, a remote Amazon region of northern Peru, - Source: ONE Sport
The presidents of France and Brazil said that rich countries
must immediately boost aid for developing nations to fight global
warming if they want to reach a climate accord in Copenhagen next
month.
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who hosted a climate
summit of leaders from the Amazon region in Manaus, said progress
had been made with pledges by China and the United States this week
to curb greenhouse gas emissions.
But he said poor countries needed more aid to cope with climate
change and help meet their own targets.
"The poor need to be supported without any country giving up its
sovereignty," Lula said.
Brazil has opened an investment fund to help conservation in the
Amazon rainforest but insisted donor countries would have no say in
it. So far, Norway has donated the largest amount.
Climate negotiators have made little visible progress in sorting
out the thorny issue of how rich countries should help poorer ones
fight global warming.
"We need numbers, not only to reduce the temperature. Copenhagen
also needs to provide funds from developed countries for developing
countries," said French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who was invited
because French Guyana forms part of the Amazon basin.
"That needs to happen now," he said through a translator.
Sarkozy welcomed the target Washington announced this week to
reduce emissions 17% by 2020.
The European Union says the cost to help developing nations fight
global warming is about $141 billion annually.
But developing countries say rich countries should pay between
0.5% and one percent of their gross domestic product.
Brazil, which has pledged to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by
between 36.1 and 38.9 percent from projected 2020 levels, has been
seeking a growing role in climate talks and wanted to forge a
common position of Amazon countries to take to Copenhagen.
But only one other South American president took part at the Manaus
summit - Bharrat Jagdeo of Guyana.
