The Amazon's Future Will Be Decided in 2025
Global climate talks have produced plenty of lofty promises and high-profile partnerships, but far too little real action. Without urgent, collaborative efforts to slash emissions and increase funding for climate-change adaptation and ecosystem conservation, the world risks losing an indispensable natural asset.
SíO PAULO/WAGENINGEN – Between November 2023 and October 2024, the Amazon rainforest faced yearly average temperature increases above 2° Celsius. Record-breaking heat waves, droughts, and fires have ravaged the region; deforestation is still too high; and indigenous peoples and local communities have faced proliferating threats against their livelihoods and well-being.
The threat these trends represent can hardly be overstated. The Amazon is rapidly approaching a tipping point, beyond which forest dieback could cause permanent degradation. The region's transformation into self-drying areas of open vegetation would wreak havoc on the biome's unmatched biodiversity, its food systems, and the livelihoods of its 47 million inhabitants. It would also destroy a vital carbon sink and a powerful source of moisture for South America – the 'flying rivers' that sustain rainfall systems far south of the Amazon Basin.
Despite ample opportunity for multilateral efforts to protect and restore the Amazon, the outcomes so far have been woefully inadequate. Just last October, leaders gathered in Cali, Colombia, for the 16th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP16). A few weeks later, they headed to Baku, Azerbaijan, for the 29th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP29). But neither gathering yielded the necessary results.
To be sure, COP16 brought the adoption of a new 'program of work,' which should enhance the ability of indigenous peoples and local communities to contribute to biodiversity conservation. It also featured the launch of the Cali Fund, which facilitates the equitable distribution of profits from the use of sequenced genetic information that has been collected from the natural world. But only 44 of the 196 parties at the event managed to produce new national biodiversity plans.
Likewise, while COP29 brought the launch of the Baku Forest Declaration, climate-financing commitments fell far short of developing economies' needs, and negotiators failed to reach a new agreement on cutting greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions. Neither deforestation nor land use were so much as mentioned in the COP29 Presidential Action Agenda.
Despite these disappointments, some countries showed initiative and leadership in 2024. At COP29, Brazil – home to about 60% of the Amazon rainforest – became the second country to launch its new Nationally Determined Contribution under the 2015 Paris climate agreement. The plan includes a reduction of net GHG emissions to about 60% below 2005 levels by 2035 – a target that is critical to halting deforestation.
Moreover, as host of the G20 2024 Leaders' Summit in Rio de Janeiro in November, Brazil secured backing for the Tropical Forest Forever Facility, an innovative new fund – expected to attract $125 billion in initial investment – that will reward countries for conserving tropical forests, including areas from the Amazon to Borneo to the Congo Basin.
Another Brazilian vision was realized at the G20 Summit. The G20 Initiative on Bioeconomy aims to unleash the bioeconomy's potential to advance a sustainable future and foster inclusive economic growth. In Rio, the initiative's members agreed on ten High-Level Principles to guide bioeconomy development.
Brazil also collaborated with G20 member countries to launch, in November, the Brazil Restoration & Bioeconomy Finance Coalition to bolster the conservation and restoration of the country's forests. And Brazil is a member, along with the other seven Amazonian countries, of the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization, which reached an agreement with the Pan American Health Organization in October to promote health and sustainable development in the region.
Brazil has matched its global leadership with a push to reduce deforestation at home. In 2024, its deforestation rate reached a nine-year low. Some other Amazonian countries are following suit. Colombia, for example, reduced deforestation to a 23-year low in 2023, halving primary forest loss compared to the previous year. But others are moving in the opposite direction: in Bolivia, primary forest loss increased by 27% in 2023.
This year's UN Climate Change Conference (COP30) in Belém, Brazil – the first such conference to be held in the Amazon – offers a chance to build on recent progress and bridge important gaps. A top priority for the conference – for which countries should already be preparing – should be to secure a global commitment to achieving zero deforestation in the Amazon by 2030 and net-zero global GHG emissions before 2050. During the G20 Summit, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva challenged member countries to reach net-zero by 2040 or 2045 – essential targets to combat the climate emergency.
Targeted funding and support will be needed to restore ecosystems, enhance resilience, conserve biodiversity, and protect the rights and livelihoods of the indigenous peoples and local communities who depend on the Amazon and are its stewards and protectors. Increased climate finance and the expansion of protected areas and indigenous territories are essential. Action must also be taken to protect and strengthen the Amazonian socio-bioeconomies, both by promoting the sustainable use and restoration of 'healthy standing forests and flowing rivers' and by investing in relevant science, technology, and innovation.
Global climate talks have produced no shortage of lofty promises and high-profile partnerships, but when it comes to real action, they have consistently fallen short. Now, with the Amazon's survival in the balance, we need immediate, concrete, collaborative efforts to slash emissions and channel more resources toward climate-change adaptation and ecosystem conservation. If COP30 fails to deliver, we risk losing the Amazon altogether. www.project-syndicate.org
*Carlos Nobre, a professor at the University of São Paulo, is Co-Chair of the Science Panel for the Amazon.
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