Since day one of the Biden-Harris Administration, the fight against climate change has been a defining cause of President Biden’s leadership and presidency. Over the past four years, the Administration has created a bold new playbook that has turned confronting the climate crisis into a massive economic opportunity – both at home and abroad. After leading the most significant domestic climate and conservation action in history and leading global efforts to tackle the climate crisis, President Biden traveled to Manaus, Brazil, where he met with Indigenous leaders and others, becoming the first sitting U.S. president to visit the Amazon rainforest.
The President has leveraged the nation’s leadership on domestic climate and conservation actions to help accelerate global efforts to combat and reverse deforestation and implement nature-based solutions that reduce emissions, increase biodiversity, and build resilience to a changing climate. As part of advancing this ambitious climate and conservation agenda, the Administration is investing in Amazon conservation efforts, sustainable land management, and wildfire prevention, while strengthening the country’s collaboration with Brazil, supporting Indigenous communities, and efforts to combat illegal deforestation in the Amazon and around the world.
As part of his historic trip to the Amazon, President Biden announced that the United States has fulfilled its historic promise to increase U.S. international climate finance to over $11 billion per year by 2024 – making the United States the largest bilateral provider of climate finance in the world. This represents an increase of more than six times compared to the $1.5 billion in climate finance provided by the U.S. in FY21, underscoring the success of President Biden’s whole-of-government effort to scale up U.S. climate finance over the past four years. This also includes achieving, for the second consecutive year, his promise to scale up U.S. adaptation finance sixfold to over $3 billion per year, to help vulnerable countries around the world build resilience to the impacts of climate change, as part of implementing the President’s Emergency Plan for Adaptation and Resilience (PREPARE). This also included achieving record levels of climate investments through the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) and the U.S. Export-Import Bank (EXIM) – with DFC reaching $3.71 billion in FY24 and EXIM increasing its investments to a record $1.6 billion in FY24.
November 17, International Conservation Day
President Biden also signed a U.S. proclamation designating November 17 as International Conservation Day. The proclamation recognizes that conservation is critical to protecting the livelihoods of people who depend on the natural wonders of our world, conserving our ecosystems and wildlife, ensuring that our lands and waters can be enjoyed by future generations, and helping to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.
Central to the trip is President Biden’s commitment to conserve forests and combat global deforestation. Over the past four years, the Administration has led efforts to conserve more than 45 million acres of land and water; protect mature and old-growth forests on federal lands at home; strengthen reforestation partnerships across the country to support local economies; combat global deforestation; and implement nature-based solutions that reduce emissions, increase biodiversity, and build resilience in the face of growing climate threats. The Biden-Harris Administration announced new efforts to accelerate global action to conserve land and water, protect biodiversity, and tackle the climate crisis, including:
• Announcing $50 million for the Amazon Fund. The United States is announcing $50 million for the Amazon Fund, which will raise total U.S. contributions to the Amazon Fund to $100 million, subject to notification to Congress.
• Launching the Brazil Restoration & Bioeconomy Finance Coalition. The United States, BTG Pactual, and more than 12 partners are announcing the launch of the Brazil Restoration and Bioeconomy Finance Coalition. This Coalition aims to mobilize at least $10 billion in public and private investments for land restoration and bioeconomy-related projects by 2030, supporting the conservation and restoration of at least 5.5 million hectares during that period, and contributing to 1.5 gigatons of emission reductions and removals by 2050. At least $500 million is expected to be invested in projects that support Indigenous peoples and local communities in the Brazilian Amazon.
• Announcing a New DFC Investment in Major Reforestation Projects in the Amazon. The DFC is providing a $37.5 million loan to Mombak Gestora de Recursos Ltda., to support large-scale planting of native tree species on degraded pastures in Brazil, which will sequester carbon and enable biodiversity conservation. Mombak has designed an innovative and large-scale approach to generate high-quality “Verified Emission Reduction (VER)” credits by acquiring large areas of degraded pastures in the Brazilian state of Pará and neighboring regions, which will be planted with native tree species. This activity is expected to sequester approximately 5 million metric tons of CO2 over 50 years, while preserving biodiversity in the Amazon region.
• Announcing Support for the Tropical Forest Forever Facility. The United States today announced its support for President Lula’s bold vision to create the TFFF – a new innovative $125 billion fund that reflects both the urgency and scale of the challenge to conserve the world’s most important forests. The TFFF will attract substantial private capital and make a significant contribution to tropical forest conservation. The United States is announcing support to help finalize the technical and analytical work needed to design and set up the Facility.
Source: U.S. Embassy