US President Joe Biden toured the drought-shrunken waters of the Amazon River’s greatest tributary on Sunday as the first sitting American president to set foot in the legendary rainforest, while the incoming Trump administration seems poised to scale back the US commitment to combating climate change.
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The massive Amazon region, which is about the size of Australia, stores huge amounts of the world’s carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that drives climate change when it is released into the atmosphere. But development is rapidly depleting the world’s largest tropical rainforest, and rivers are drying up.
Joined by Carlos Nobre, a Nobel Prize-winning scientist and expert on how climate change is harming the Amazon, and Biden climate adviser John Podesta, the president lifted in his helicopter over a stretch of the rainforest. Erosion along the route was severe as he flew over grounded ships in the Rio Negro River, fire damage and a wildlife refuge. The helicopter travelled over the expansive meeting place of the Amazon River and the Negro, its main tributary.
Biden will then meet local and indigenous leaders and visit an Amazonian museum as he looks to highlight his commitment to the preservation of the region.
Biden is making the Amazon visit as part of a six-day trip to South America, the first to the continent of his presidency. He travelled from Lima, Peru, where he took part in the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit and met Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Biden’s administration announced plans last year for a US$500 million contribution to the Amazon Fund, the most significant international cooperation effort to preserve the rainforest, primarily financed by Norway.
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So far, the US government said it has provided US$50 million, and the White House announced on Sunday an additional US$50 million contribution to the fund.
“It’s significant for a sitting president to visit the Amazon. … This shows a personal commitment from the president,” said Suely Araújo, former head of the Brazilian environmental protection agency and public policy coordinator with the non-profit Climate Observatory. “That said, we can’t expect concrete results from this visit.”