Sat 16-09-2023 12:33 PM
SANTIAGO DE COMPOSTELA, Spain, 16th September, 2023 (WAM) — The European Union on Friday threw its weight behind a plan to protect the Amazon rainforest, pledging to coordinate financial contributions from EU members and making sure the money was spent as intended under its Global Gateway investment scheme.
According to Reuters, Team Europe, which includes EU member states and institutions such as the European Investment Bank, will coordinate €260 million (US$277 million) already pledged by Spain, Italy, Sweden, France, Germany and the Netherlands to curb deforestation in the Amazon.
On top of that, the EU will add an undisclosed amount to protect the forest from logging from the EU’s Global Gateway scheme of investment in Latin America, where Amazon rainforest protection is one of the flagship projects.
Under the Global Gateway project, the EU pledged in July to invest €45 billion in Latin America by 2027 and the scheme will be discussed in more detail on Friday among EU and Latin American finance ministers in Santiago de Compostela, Spain.
More than half of the global destruction of old-growth tropical rainforests has taken place in the Amazon and bordering forests since 2002. Rainforests, in particular the Amazon, absorb vast amounts of carbon dioxide and are key in shaping the Earth’s climate, making them vital to prevent climate change.
Amjad Saleh