Biarritz, August 27: Prominent world leaders at the Group of Seven (G7) summit in the French city of Biarritz have on Monday vowed to allocate USD 22 million in total to fight the Amazon fires in Brazil, a threat to the world’s largest rainforest.
France’s President Emmanuel Macron, who is presently hosting the G7 summit in Biarritz, along with Chilean President Sebastian Pinera, who attended the summit, stated the Amazon rainforest being ravaged by wildfires depicts the lungs of the planet for its vital role in generating oxygen through absorbing carbon dioxide, according to Voice of America (VOA) news.
Macron also added France would provide military assistance within hours to the region to fight the raging fires in Amazon, according to ANI.
After concluding the meeting on Climate Change, Al-Jazeera quoted Macron as saying, “We must respond to the call of the forest which is burning today in the Amazon.”
Pinera and Macron said the G7 member nations that include the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Germany, Italy, Japan, and France, were examing the potential of such similar financial aid to support Africa to fight wildfires Amazon rainforest.
Ahead of the summit, the French president had threatened to block a trade deal of the European Union (EU) with Latin American nation unless Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro took stern actions to fight the rainforest wildfires,
In the midst of the universal pressure to safeguard the world’s largest rainforests, Bolsonaro has on Sunday directed two C-130 Hercules warplanes to dump water over the blazes in the Amazon rainforests.
Macron has said the US has backed the financial aid provided to South American nations, though President Donald Trump missed Monday’s G7 session on the environment.