France hails US, Chinese climate proposals
Posted: 27 November 2009 1345 hrs

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MANAUS, Brazil: French President Nicolas Sarkozy, in Brazil Thursday for a one-day meeting on climate change and Amazon forest conservation, hailed new US and Chinese proposals on combating global warming as "extremely encouraging."

At a press conference, Sarkozy praised US President Barack Obama's "courage" for setting goals that would reduce US carbon emissions by 17 per cent by 2020, while also offering positive words for China's proposed moves to reduce carbon emissions.

"The latest statements by Barack Obama and China's leaders are extremely encouraging in making Copenhagen a success," said Sarkozy, who is attending the meeting because France's overseas department of French Guiana is in the region.

The other governments in attendance were Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Venezuela and Surinam, all nations that straddle the ecologically-imperilled Amazon river basin.

The meeting was called by Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to draw up a "common stance" on saving the Amazon jungle.

Officials said the meeting aims to adopt tough measures to combat global warming and preserve rainforests, ahead of the December 7-18 climate change conference in the Danish capital Copenhagen.

"We are determined to protect the Amazon and use its resources in a sustainable way," participant nations said in a final declaration Thursday as the meeting concluded.

Beijing has vowed to cut carbon intensity, measured per unit of GDP, by 40 to 45 per cent from 2005 levels within a decade, putting its first-ever emissions targets on the table.

The new proposals by the world's two biggest carbon emitters for curbing pollution may have breathed life into UN climate talks, but fall short of what scientists say is needed to avert serious global warming.

And the impact of Thursday's Amazon meeting was thrown into doubt by the notable absence of two of the region's big hitters - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and his Colombian counterpart Alvaro Uribe, at loggerheads over an agreement granting US access to Colombian military bases.

Beyond Lula and Sarkozy, the only other head of state was Guyana President Bharrat Jagdeo, with other countries dispatching senior officials to what had been billed as a leaders summit.

The centerpiece of the meeting was a Brazilian proposal to fight rampant deforestation throughout the Amazon basin with financial help from rich nations.

"Let no gringo (foreigner) ask us to let an Amazonian starve to death under a tree," Lula said in a speech before the countries met in the planet's largest rainforest.

"We want to preserve (the forest), but they (other countries) have to pay for that preservation."

Lula's chief adviser Marco Aurelio Garcia explained that Brazil was seeking an agreement from Amazon basin countries "because in Europe, everyone thinks the Amazon is a zoo, a botanical garden and does not realise that it is more complex, there are 30 million people living here."

Greenpeace's Amazon official Paulo Adario told AFP that the Lula-Sarkozy alliance was significant "because France has an important leadership role in the European Union and Brazil is also showing growing leadership on the international stage."

The two leaders met two weeks ago in Paris to plan for the summit.

The clearing of wide swathes of jungle for farming and livestock, especially in Brazil, is reducing the planet's capacity to absorb greenhouse gases - chiefly carbon dioxide - that contribute largely to global warming and climate change, Greenpeace warned ahead of the summit.

As the fourth-largest greenhouse gas producer, Brazil has promised to cut its CO2 emissions by 36 to 39 per cent by 2020. Half that effort will come from reducing deforestation in the Amazon jungle by 80 per cent.

Brazil this year has managed to curb deforestation to its lowest level in 20 years, but 7,000 square kilometres (2,700 square miles) of rainforest still disappeared.

Unusually, non-Commonwealth leaders Sarkozy, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and Danish Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen are to address a Commonwealth summit Friday as part of an effort to influence the Copenhagen climate talks.

The 192-nation talks backed by the United Nations aim to craft a post-2012 pact for curbing the heat-trapping gases that drive global warming.

- AFP/yb