UN: Macron warns against empty rhetoric on Amazon conservation

W/S UN meeting on Amazon deforestation, UN headquarters in New York City
SOT, Emmanuel Macron, President of France (French): "Let's be honest, what are the risks? The first one is the elephant in the room – or rather the one who isn’t here – Brazil. Everyone says, 'What are you going to do without Brazil?' Brazil is welcome, and I think everyone wants to work with Brazil. Two states in the room are committed, and I think you've done a tremendous job; I'd like to thank the presidents of the region, to convince all the countries in the region. I think it'll come, I think we need an extremely inclusive approach like the one we’re having today. That's the spirit in which we started all of this. I'm hopeful that in the coming weeks and months we will find the political solutions that would enable us to move forward. The second risk is that we meet and say words and numbers that aren't followed by results."
W/S Meeting *CUTAWAY*
SOT, Antonio Guterres, UN Secretary General: "Forests will also figure prominently at today's climate action summit as part of our discussion on nature-based solutions. As the ferocity of this summer's wildfires and heatwaves shows, we need to protect and grow our forests now, before fires consume our future. Thank you very much."
W/S World leaders gathering for family photo
M/S World leaders family photo
W/S Meeting
SOT, Harrison Ford, Vice-Chair of Conservation International: "We've been talking about saving the Amazon for 30 years. Almost 30 years ago, Sting held a concert to save the Amazon, right here in New York, and we're still talking about it. The world's largest rainforest, the Amazon, is crucial to any climate change solution, for its capacity to sequester carbon, for its biodiversity, for its fresh water, for the air we breathe, for our morality, and it is on fire. When a room in your house is on fire, you don't say there's a fire in a room in my house; you say my house is on fire. And we only have one house."
W/S Meeting *CUTAWAY*
SOT, Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany (German): "We welcome [this conference] as the German Federal Republic because we have been active for centuries in the protection of rainforests and especially in the Amazon countries. It is clear to everybody that it is the living area of the indigenous population. It is very nice that we can also hear them today. It is the wealth of the diversity of our earth and a big storage of CO2, because of this and for other reasons we have to preserve Amazonas and rainforests."
W/S Meeting ends
SCRIPT
French President Emmanuel Macron warned about the risk of saying "words and numbers that aren’t followed by results," during a meeting on deforestation in the Amazon at the United Nations headquarters in New York City on Monday.
"Let's be honest, what are the risks? The first one is the elephant in the room – or rather the one who isn’t here – Brazil. Everyone says, 'What are you going to do without Brazil?' Brazil is welcome, and I think everyone wants to work with Brazil," he said, adding that "the second risk is that we meet and say words and numbers that aren't followed by results."
Actor Harrison Ford, who attended the meeting as vice-chair of Conservation International, said, "We've been talking about saving the Amazon for 30 years. Almost 30 years ago, Sting held a concert to save the Amazon, right here in New York, and we're still talking about it."
"When a room in your house is on fire, you don't say there's a fire in a room in my house; you say my house is on fire. And we only have one house," he added.
In response to the widespread wildfires in the Amazon, the G-7 announced a fund of $22 million (around €20 million) per country affected in August. Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro rejected the offer and did not attend this week’s UN climate summit in New York City.
Courtesy: UNTV