SAO PAULO (AP) — Joe Biden will become the first sitting American president to set foot in the Amazon rainforest during a brief stop Sunday in the Brazilian city of Manaus, as the new Trump administration appears ready to scale back America’s commitment to fighting climate change.

The massive Amazon, which is about the size of Australia, stores huge amounts of the world’s carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that causes climate change, even as the world’s largest rainforest wetland of the world is rapidly being deforested.

Biden is expected to take an aerial tour over part of the Amazon, meet with local and indigenous leaders and visit an Amazon museum as he seeks to highlight his commitment to preserving the region.

The Biden administration announced plans last year to contribute $500 million to the Amazon Fundthe largest international cooperative effort to preserve the rainforest, funded mainly by Norway.

So far, the US government has said it has provided $50 million, and the White House announced an additional $50 million contribution to the fund on Sunday.

“It is important for a sitting president to visit the Amazon. …It shows a personal commitment on the part of the president,” said Suely Araújo, former director of Brazil’s environmental protection agency and public policy coordinator for the Climate Observatory, a nonprofit organization. lucrative. “That said, we cannot expect any concrete results from this visit.”

She doubts that “a single cent” will be paid to the Amazon Fund once Donald Trump returns to the White House.

It is highly unlikely that his administration will prioritize the Amazon or anything related to climate change. The Republican president-elect has already declared that he withdraw from the Paris agreement againa global pact forged to avert the threat of catastrophic climate change, after Biden reaffirmed his commitment to the deal.

Trump threw climate change as a “hoax” and said he would eliminate the Biden administration’s energy efficiency regulations.

Still, the Biden White House on Sunday announced a series of new efforts aimed at strengthening the Amazon and stemming the impact of climate change.

Actions include the launch of a financial coalition that aims to spur at least $10 billion in public and private investment for land restoration and bioeconomy-related projects by 2030, as well as a loan of $37.5 million to the Mombak Gestora de Recursos Ltda organization. to support large-scale planting of native tree species in Brazil’s degraded grasslands.

Biden is also expected to sign a US proclamation designating November 17 as International Conservation Day, and will highlight in his remarks during his visit that the US is on track to reach $11 billion in spending on international climate finance in 2024, or six times more. increase since the start of his mandate.

The Amazon is home to indigenous communities and 10% of terrestrial biodiversity. It is also regulates humidity throughout South America. About two-thirds of the Amazon is in Brazil and scientists say its devastation poses a catastrophic threat to the planet.

The forest is suffering from two years of historic drought which dry rivers, thousands of isolated riverside communities and embarrassed the ability of local residents to fish. It is also a place for forest fires who burned an area larger than Switzerland and suffocated cities near and far with smoke.

When Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva took office last year, he signaled a environmental policy change of his predecessor, the far-right Jair Bolsonaro. Bolsonaro priority agro-industry expansion on the protection of forests and weakened environmental agenciescausing an acceleration of deforestation a 15-year high.

Lula is committed “zero deforestation” by 2030, although its mandate extends until the end of 2026. Forest loss in the Brazilian Amazon fell 30.6% in the 12 months to July compared to the previous year, bringing deforestation to its lowest level in nine years, according to official data released last week.

During that 12-month period, the Amazon lost 6,288 square kilometers (2,428 square miles), roughly the size of the U.S. state of Delaware. But that data fails to account for this year’s increase in destruction, which will only be included in next year’s figures.

Despite success in combating deforestation in the Amazon, Lula’s government has been criticized by environmentalists for support projects that could harm the regionsuch as paving a highway that cuts through an old area and could encourage logging, oil drilling near the mouth of the Amazon River and building a railway to transport soybeans to Amazonian ports.

Biden is making the Amazon visit as part of a six-day trip to South America, the first to the continent of his presidency.

On Sunday morning, he concluded a visit to Lima, Peru, where he participated in the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit and met with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

After his brief stop in Manaus, he was heading to Rio de Janeiro for this year’s Group of 20 summit.

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Madhani reported from Lima, Peru, and Long from Washington.

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