Brazil and China are in
talks to create a fund for financing the development of green
industry and renewable energy in both countries, two senior
Brazilian officials have said.
The proposal could be announced during President Luiz Inacio
Lula da Silva’s visit to Beijing next week, although government
officials said there were still some details to work out.
“I don’t know if it will be possible to announce, because
these things are complex, but the idea is to have a bilateral
fund … for investment in this area,” Lula’s top foreign policy
advisor Celso Amorim told the Reuters news agency.
Amorim said he expects an agreement on renewable energy
during Lula’s visit, which includes a meeting with Chinese
President Xi Jinping on Tuesday.
Brazilian Environment Minister Marina Silva, who will be
part of Lula’s delegation, said the new fund under discussion
would be used to recover forests and develop a more sustainable
economy, including the production of green hydrogen.
“Our expectation is that we can have a climate change agenda
that is strategic for the world because it is undoubtedly one of
humanity’s greatest challenges today,” Silva told Reuters.
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Amazon Fund
Brazil already received a commitment from the administration
of US President Joe Biden on climate policy and forest
protection when Lula visited the White House last month, she
said.
In the case of China, the world’s biggest emitter of
greenhouse gases, Silva expects there to be “an increasingly
strong agenda on the issue of climate, the protection of
forests, and biodiversity.”
Silva said, however, that China will not join the billion-dollar Amazon Fund started by Norway to finance sustainable development and protect the world’s largest tropical rainforest, which Spain, France and Britain are looking at joining, and the US has committed to supporting.
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