RIO DE JANEIRO β Brazil pushed for concerted action to alleviate hunger Monday as it hosted a summit of the Group of 20 leading economies amid global uncertainty over two major wars and incoming U.S. President-elect Donald Trump.
Brazilian President Luiz InΓ‘cio Lula da Silva welcomed foreign leaders to Rio de Janeiroβs modern art museum Monday morning and delivered an opening address that focused on fighting food insecurity.
βIt is for those of us here, around this table, to face the undelayable task of ending this stain that shames humanity,β Lula told his colleagues. βThat will be our biggest legacy.β
Heightened global tensions and uncertainty about an incoming Trump administration ahead of the summit already tempered expectations for a strongly worded statement addressing the conflicts in the Middle East and between Russia and Ukraine.
Rio de Janeiro is seen Sunday prior to hosting the G20 Summit on Monday and Tuesday.
Further dimming prospects, G20 officials said Argentinaβs negotiators started challenging some of the draft language.
That left experts anticipating a final document focused on social issues like the eradication of hunger β one of Brazilβs priorities β even if it still aims to include at least a mention of the ongoing wars.
βBrazilian diplomacy has been strongly engaged in this task, but to expect a substantively strong and consensual declaration in a year like 2024 with two serious international conflicts is to set the bar very high,β said Cristiane Lucena Carneiro, an international relations professor at the University of Sao Paulo.
After Lula thwarted far-right former President Jair Bolsonaroβs reelection bid in 2022, there was some excitement in the international community at the prospect of the leftist leader and savvy diplomat hosting the G20.
Bolsonaro had little interest in international summits, let foreign policy be guided by ideology and clashed with several leaders, including French President Emmanuel Macron. Lula took office and often quoted a catchphrase: βBrazil is back.β
In front from left, U.S. President Joe Biden, Indian's Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Brazil's President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva, South Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa and other G20 leaders listen Monday during the G20 Summit at the Museum of Modern Art in Rio de Janeiro.
Under Lula, Brazil reverted to its decades-old principle of nonalignment to carve out a policy that best safeguards its interests in an increasingly multipolar world, even as his administrationβs foreign policy at times raised eyebrows.
Two officials from Brazil and one from another G20 nation who spoke on condition of anonymity said Argentine negotiators are standing in the way of a joint declaration.
Two of them said Argentinaβs negotiators raised several objections to the draft, most vehemently opposing a clause calling for a global tax on the superrich β which they previously accepted, in July β and another promoting gender equality.
Last month, Argentina alone opposed a declaration of the G20 working group on female empowerment, preventing consensus. While Lula received heads of state Monday with smiles and warm embraces, he and Argentinaβs right-wing President Javier Milei stood at armsβ length while briefly shaking hands. Milei is an avid Trump supporter.
U.S. President Joe Biden, center, arrives Monday for a group photo during the G20 Summit in Rio de Janeiro.
Trumpβs win in the U.S. presidential election this month and the imminent return of an βAmerica Firstβ doctrine could also hamper the diplomatic spirit needed for broad agreement on divisive issues, analysts said.
Ambassador Mauricio Lyrio, Brazilβs key negotiator at G20, told reporters this month that Lulaβs launch of a global alliance against hunger and poverty on Monday is just as important as the final statement. As of Monday, 82 nations signed on to the plan, Brazilβs government said. It is also backed by organizations including the Rockefeller Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
A demonstration Sunday on Rioβs Copacabana beach featured 733 empty plates spread across the sand to represent the 733 million people who went hungry in 2023, according to United Nations data, and calling on leaders to take action.
βBrazil wanted a global deal to fight poverty, a project to finance green transition and some consensus over a global tax for the superrich. Only the first one has survived,β said Thomas Traumann, a former government minister and a political consultant based in Rio.
Leaders attending the G20 Summit pose for a group photo Monday in Rio de Janeiro.
Be that as it may, Lula reiterated his call for a tax on billionaires at the start of leadersβ afternoon session.
βTaxation of 2% on the total assets of superrich individuals could generate funds of about $250 billion per year to be invested in facing up to social and environmental challenges all over the world,β Lula said.
U.S. President Joe Biden attended the summit after a stop in Lima for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum. He also traveled over the weekend to Manaus, a city in Brazilβs Amazon rainforest. It was the first time a sitting American president set foot in the Amazon.
The White House announced a $50 million contribution to the Amazon Fund, the most significant international cooperation effort to preserve the rainforest, after a prior $50 million commitment. Bidenβs administration announced plans last year to give $500 million.
White House officials say Biden also would use the summits to press allies to not lose sight of finding an end to the wars in Lebanon and Gaza and to keep up support for Ukraine as it tries to fend off Russiaβs invasion.
20 products you might not know are from the Amazon rainforest
20 products you might not know are from the Amazon rainforest
Updated
Rainforests exist on every continent except Antarctica, but none is bigger, more diverse, more significant, and more threatened thanΒ the Amazon rainforest. Around 60% of the rainforest is located in Brazil, with most of the rest spread between Peru and Colombia, and much smaller sections distributed among six other South American countries. The largest tropical jungle on Earth, the Amazon accounts for more than half of all the remaining rainforest habitats left on the planet.Β
Scientists first coined the term βbiodiversityβ thereβand for good reason. About 10% of all known plant and animal species live in the Amazon, but only one of those species can be blamed for the predicament currentlyΒ facing the most biodiverse region on Earth. About 24 million people live in the Amazon, including hundreds of thousands of indigenous people. Beyond the extraordinary diversity of life, the Amazon sources the raw materials for all kinds of products that people use in their daily lives in the world beyond the jungle. StackerΒ used a variety of sources to compile a list of common products largely sourced from the Amazon rainforestβor from former rainforest land that was cleared for commercial use.Β
Until the 1960s, centuries after the European conquest of South America, most of the Amazonβs interior was inaccessible and cut off to human activity. Over the past 40 years, however, nearly 20% of the Amazon has disappeared because of logging, agriculture, ranching, and mining.Β Wildly destructive fires have also devastatedΒ the Amazon, particularly in the last few years. In 2020, the Amazon Conservation Association and Monitoring the Andean Amazon Project estimates the AmazonΒ lost 5 million acres of primary forest across nine countries.
Continue reading to find out how much you depend on products from the Amazon rainforest.Β
You may also like:Β How communities are dealing with invasive species across the U.S.Β
Soybeans
Updated
The fires currentlyΒ devouring the Amazon started with a hasty rush to plant a massive cash crop in the form of a tiny bean thatβs native to the Far East on the other side of the world. Soybean farming has long been a blight on the Amazon, with farmers destroying massive swaths of pristine jungleβoften with fireβto make room for soybeans, which are used in everything from alternative milk and cooking oil to tofu and soy sauce. The vast majority of soybeans, however, donβt end up on dinner plates in vegan and vegetarian restaurants.
Beef
Updated
Agricultural deforestation causes most of the Amazonβs destruction, mainly from clear-cutting and burning for cattle ranching and soybean farming, two industries that are directly linkedβabout 80% of the worldβs soybean crop goes into livestock feed. Brazil exports more beef than any country in the world and only three countries produce more beef than China. The tariff-driven trade war in 2019 compelled China to cut its U.S. soybean imports in half and instead place massive new soybean orders with Brazil, sparking a frenzied land grab by soy farmers who started hundreds of new fires every day to cash in on the boom.
Chocolate
Updated
Decades of cattle ranching have left the Amazon rainforest with a treeless dead zone the size of Spain, but some of those used up former grazing pastures are being reclaimed by the main ingredient in chocolate. Cocoa, which indigenous people were already stirring into drinks when the first Europeans arrived in the 1500s, is a far less-destructive crop because it enjoys shade and therefore doesnβt require clear-cutting. New re-foresting laws combined with a strong effort from conservationists have led to a massive cocoa-planting initiative that is poised to make the popular bean one of the Amazonβs most important exports.
Vanilla
Updated
Of the worldβs 35,000 orchid species, vanilla comes from the only one that grows an edible fruit. The vining plant is native to Mexico, but Madagascar has been the vanilla capital of the world since a 12-year-old slave discovered how to hand-pollinate the flower on a Madagascar plantation in 1841. The vast majority of common βvanillaβ products contain either no or almost no actual vanilla and instead use synthetic flavoring. The real stuff, however, comes not onlyΒ from Madagascarβit grows and is cultivated in rainforest habitats like those in parts of Mexico, Costa Rica, and the Amazon.
Rubber
Updated
When Charles Goodyear accidentally discovered the process of vulcanization by combining sulfur with heated rubber in 1839, an obscure milky substance called latex became one of the most valuable products on Earth. The new demand was met with a brutal system of colonial forced labor that enslaved and killed millions of indigenous people and decimated huge swaths of rainforest, most notably in the African Congo and the Brazilian Amazon. Although synthetics largely replaced natural rubber in the post-colonial period, tapping rubber trees is now an important vocation for local peopleβmany of whom are descended from rubber slavesβliving in the Amazon.
Gold
Updated
Aerial photos of the Peruvian Amazon reveal tens of thousands of acres of dead, poisoned wastelands where lush rainforests once stood. The earliest European explorers entered the Amazon chasing rumors of gold, and today, thousands of illicit mines prop up Peruβs multibillion-dollar illegal gold-mining industry. Besides clear-cutting and deforestation, mining uses toxic chemicals like liquid mercury that contaminate local rivers and streams, making the effects of mining-based destruction especially hard to reverse.
Golf balls
Updated
With a little poking around on sites like eBay, itβs still possible to track down golf balls made with balata covers, but no known manufacturers still produce them today. From the turn of the 20th century until the 1990s, however, the best golfers in the world prized balata golf balls for their soft, but durable casings, which allowed golfers to put much greater spin on their shots. Those covers were produced from a rubber-like sap tapped from balata trees, which are native to the Amazon.
Food coloring
Updated
Achiote is a spice thatβs common in many Mexican and Caribbean dishes, but in the United States, achiote is used mostly as a dye in food coloring. Made from the seeds of the evergreen Bixa orellana shrub, achiote-based food coloring is used to add a yellow hue to such foodstuffs as margarine, butter, smoked fish, chorizo, and cheese.
Medicine
Updated
Indigenous people knew for thousands of years that the Amazon was bursting with both deadly poisons and healing medicines, and the modern pharmaceutical industry has tapped into the rainforestβs medicinal offerings. Common treatments for Hodgkinβs disease, multiple sclerosis, and lymphocytic leukemia are derived from Amazon-based plants, as are active ingredients in anti-tumor medications and birth-control pills.
Diamonds
Updated
One of the most pristine sections of the Amazon is located in a remote section of Brazil thatβs home to a tribe that wasnβt even discovered until 1969, but like the rubber slaves from colonial times, the tribe found itself in the unfortunate position of living on land that contained something valuable. In 2015, aΒ massive untapped diamond reserveΒ was discovered in the tribeβs jungle reserve, and within just one year, the region experienced a deforestation rate 256% higher than the law allows. Today, the tribeβs ancestral home is the #7 most deforested indigenous area out of 419 that exist in the Brazilian Amazon.
Black pepper
Updated
Black pepper is the most commonly used spice in the world, and Vietnam produces more of it than any other country. On the other side of the world in a different rainforest, however, the Piper nigrum L. climbing plant that produces peppercorns winds its way up the trees in the Brazilian Amazon, as well. Brazil produces about 40,000 tons of black pepper a year, 85% of which is exported.
Coffee
Updated
Like the cocoa beans used for chocolate, the plants that produce coffee beans have evolved to thrive in the shade of the jungle canopy, which makes them a natural fit for the Amazon. Although the large, bushing coffee plant originated in Ethiopia and Sudan, Latin America grows half of the worldβs coffee today. Much of that comes from the Amazon, and as one of the most significant global commodities, coffee is a $30-billion-a-year industry.
Wood
Updated
Trees from the Brazilian rainforest produce some of the finest, most durable, most rot-resistant wood in the world, and exotic hardwoods like tigerwood, purpleheart, ipe, and, most commonly, Brazilian mahogany, have been prized by builders for generations. With some variations fetching thousands of dollars for a single tree, the Amazon represents an endless expanse of dollar signs for people who earn a living by turning trees into lumberβbut the expanse is not endless. Logging, both legal and illegal, has been one of the primary drivers of deforestation for decades, but it takes at least as many decades for a single one of those trees to grow to maturity.
Brazil nuts
Updated
Brazil nuts are more valuable than nearly any other nontimber product to come out of the Amazon. Brazil nut trees are among the tallest in the entire rainforest, towering over 160 feet to the ceiling of the canopy and their dense, hard, nut-containing fruits weigh five pounds and crash to the forest floor like missiles. Despite their massive size, however, Brazil nut trees are highly dependent on ecological stability, as they canβt survive without animals like bees and agoutis, as well as other plants.
Corn
Updated
The global outcry over deforestation pressured many farmers to leave the Amazon rainforest and plant their crops farther south in the region of Brazil known as the Cerrado biome. The largest tropical savanna in South America, the Cerrado is a vital ecological zone thatβs home to 5% of the worldβs species, and just like its Amazonian neighbor to the north, industrial agriculture is wiping it out. Corn has been vital to people of the Amazon for thousands of years, but when large-scale modern farms moved their operations to the Cerrado, one ecological disaster was traded for another.
Sugar
Updated
The Brazilian government is considering lifting a nearly decade-old ban on opening the Amazon to the production of sugarcane for the biofuel industry. Brazilβs sugarcane biofuel industry formed an unlikely alliance with 60 nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) urging the government not to lift the ban, a move they say would hasten destruction of the rainforest to the brink of no return. Large-scale sugar operations are already leading to rapid deforestation in the Bolivian Amazon and destroying massive sections of the Cerrado savanna.
Palm oil
Updated
From food and cosmetics to fuel and cleaning products, palm oilΒ is found in hundreds of commonly used products, and President Jair Bolsonaro is intent on making Brazil a global leader in palm oil production. That, however, would come at the expense of the Amazon rainforest. The amount of Amazon land turned over to palm oil producers in Brazil doubled between 2004 and 2010, and itβs predicted to double again by 2025.
Rice
Updated
Brazil is the #9 largest rice-producing country in the world and the largest anywhere outside of Asia. Like corn, rice has been a critical crop to Amazonian people for thousands of years, but modern agricultural practices have destroyed countless acres of rainforest to make room for massive industrial rice-growing operations.
Bananas
Updated
Bananas are the fourth-largest fruit crop in the world and the single most popular fruit in the United Statesβand many of them are grown in the Amazon. First introduced to South America by the Portuguese in the 16th century, bananas grow in every high-humidity tropical region on the planet.
Pineapples
Updated
Pineapples were a highly prized commodity among the European social elite in the 1700s and 1800s after Spanish conquistadors brought them back from Europe. Their roots in the Amazon, however, date back much earlier. South American Tupi-Guarani Indians grew and ate pineapples for thousands of years before European contact.
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