As Amazon Deforestation Soars, Celebrities Urge Biden Not to Sign Environment Deal With Bolsonaro

By Mary Anne Webber First Posted: Apr 22, 2021 05:18 AM EDT

Dozens of American and Brazilian celebrities urged President Joe Biden not to sign any environmental deal with Brazil as the deforestation in Amazon, the world's largest rainforest, remains high under Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro.

In a letter, celebrities wrote that an agreement risked legitimizing a government that was encouraging environmental destruction, BBC News reported. Known personalities who signed the letter include Hollywood A-lister Leonardo DiCaprio and singers Katy Perry, Gilberto Gil, and Caetano Veloso.

Since February, the U.S. and Brazil have been in talks on the possibility of collaborating to stop the increasing destruction of the Amazon rainforest. A deal could mean that Brazil would receive financial aid in return for protecting the region.

Amazon's Deforestation

Since 2008, the deforestation rate of the Amazon rainforest in Brazil has surged to its highest level. From August 2019 to July 2020, a total of 11,088 square kilometers of rainforests were destroyed, a 9.5 percent increase from the previous year, according to another BBC report.

Scientists said that Amazon had suffered losses at a fast pace since Bolsonaro took office in January 2019. The rainforest is an important carbon store that slows down global warming.

Bolsonaro has encouraged agriculture and mining activities in the Amazon rainforest, which houses three million species of plants and animals and one million indigenous people.

Brazil had aimed to slow the pace of deforestation to 3,900 square kilometers annually by 2020. However, Bolsonaro had also slashed funding to federal agencies that have the authority to fine and arrest farmers and loggers breaking environmental law.

The Brazilian president also clashed with Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais (INPE) for its deforestation data, claiming that the agency was smearing Brazil's reputation.

President Joe Biden's Climate Summit

Biden will be trying to reassert the U.S. position on its global leadership on climate change. He will welcome 40 leaders for the two-day virtual Earth Day summit in the White House, BBC reported.

Green groups expect that Biden will roughly double U.S. targets for reducing emissions responsible for climate change over the next decade.

Reports said that Biden would unveil a pledge to cut the country's greenhouse gas emissions at least in half by 2030. China confirmed that President Xi Jinping would take part and give "an important speech."

After negotiating the 2015 Paris Agreement, former president Barack Obama pledged that the U.S. would reduce emissions by 26 to 28 percent by 2025 compared with 2005 levels, according to an AFP News report.

A United Nations (UN) study late last year discovered that the world is already warming by three degrees, which would mean many glaciers and ice caps would melt. It would then result in low-lying areas submerging and increasing severe droughts, floods, and disasters that could contribute to a peak in mass migration.

Kate Larsen, a former White House adviser who helped develop Obama's climate action plan, said that Biden opted to set the tone for the level of ambition and the pace of emission reductions over the next decade, NBC News report.

"We can make a better case politically at home if other countries are acting at the same level of ambition as the U.S," Larsen noted.

Jake Schmidt, a climate expert at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said that science demands at least 50 percent in reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.

WATCH: Deforestation in Brazil's Amazon Rainforest Just Hit its Highest Level in 12 Years - From CNBC Television