The Amazon is not just Brazil's to protect. The G20 must step up

Carlos Nobre is an earth system scientist and coauthored the 2007 IPCC report which won the Nobel Peace Prize.

Leaders from the world’s largest economies today gather in Brazil, the world’s most biodiverse country, for the G20. The Amazon is dangerously close to an irreversible tipping point, beyond which the forest could turn into a self-drying, highly degraded tropical savanna.

If we exceed 20-25% deforestation and global warming reaches 2 to 2.5 degrees Celsius, we’ll see a shift that would have profound consequences for biodiversity, climate regulation and the livelihoods of 33 million people and 420 Indigenous communities who live in the Amazon.

The task of protecting and restoring forests, Earth’s most critical life support systems, isn’t just Brazil’s to solve alone. More than half of the world's forests are in only five countries, with four being G20 members. Many of the world’s largest economies are also major importers of commodities linked to deforestation.

Analysis launched today from Nature4Climate reveals that G20 nations could reduce emissions by 3,370 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent annually - comparable to India's total emissions - by investing in natural climate solutions. Actions such as climate-smart forestry and coastal wetland restoration can help to mitigate climate change and deliver additional benefits to biodiversity, ecosystem and human well-being.

All G20 leaders except Turkey have pledged to halt and reverse forest loss and land degradation by the end of this decade. President Joe Biden’s attendance marks the first-ever U.S. president to visit the Amazon.

Just yesterday, I stood behind Biden as he announced the Brazil Restoration & Bioeconomy Finance Coalition (BRB Finance Coalition) to accelerate the conservation and restoration of Brazil’s forests, with an investment of at least $10 billion by 2030 among all Coalition members.

This leadership from the United States is significant and necessary to preserve the integrity of the Amazon’s biodiversity and ecosystems to ensure it can continue to regulate the global climate. Moreover, it is a bold signal to the rest of the G20 that this is the year to shift from ambitious target setting to rapid delivery.

Never has a head of state had the opportunity to lead the global community at a G20 and COP in the same year, as Brazil President Luís Inácio Lula da Silva also prepares to host COP30 next November. Lula sits in a unique position to fundamentally reshape how the world values forests, and the participation of Indigenous Peoples and local communities in decision-making.

I joined over 70 leaders in signing an open letter to Lula and President Gustavo Petro of Colombia - who hosted the COP16 biodiversity summit - recognising their potential to champion the urgent transformation of our food systems for aligned nature and climate action.

Brazil’s government has already demonstrated that it is possible - Amazon deforestation rates dropped by 22% from 2022 to 2023 and continued to drop in 2024, now sitting at the lowest level in 15 years. In addition, the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples is advancing the process of demarcating Indigenous lands.

Just last week at COP29, Brazil's new NDC set an ambitious emission target to reduce emissions by between 59% and 67% by 2035 - the most ambitious of any other South American country. Through investment and action in nature, the country has the opportunity to meet almost half (45%) of its total new national climate plan (NDC). This brings important progress and points the way forward, but a global crisis requires a collective global response.

Progress will not happen at scale while our financial systems incentivise environmental destruction over protection. Finance flows to ‘nature-based solutions’ of $200 billion are massively outweighed by finance flows with direct negative impacts on nature of almost US$7 trillion. The world’s most powerful nations must match Brazil’s ambition with radical reform of our economic and financial systems.

Half of the G20 countries are nature-rich. The other half have the public and private budgets required to contribute to closing the nature finance gap.

Nature can deliver one third of cost-effective climate mitigation needed by 2030. But to unlock this potential, investments need to triple. Furthermore, at least 20% of all public and private climate finance for nature-based projects should be directed towards Indigenous Peoples and local communities - the original stewards of the land, safeguarding biodiversity and carbon sinks.

This week, a good outcome of the G20 would see the world’s largest economies mobilising public finance together to reach zero deforestation and degradation. When public funding starts flowing and the right regulatory reforms are in place, private finance will soon follow. Currently for every four dollars of public funding for nature, we only see one dollar of private finance.

We may reach the Amazon tipping point by 2050 if we continue with business as usual. As climate change discussions stall in Baku at COP29, the G20 can collectively advance a new era of restoration action to stabilise the climate, protect the world’s ecosystems and build resilient economies that value nature.