According to Federal Environment Minister Steffi Lemke, further deforestation of the Amazon rainforest would also have negative consequences for the climate in Germany. “We have to save the Amazon if we want to stop the climate crisis, if we want to stop the extinction of species,” said the Green politician during her trip to Brazil with Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
With the new Brazilian government, the international community has the chance to stop one of the most important tipping points in the climate catastrophe. “If the Amazon tipping point is reached, one of the most important climate regulators for our globe, for our planet, would fail,” Lemke warned. “This would result in severe disturbances in the climate system that we cannot predict precisely, but which would affect the entire planet.”
Rainforest numbers
The Amazon rainforest is spread across nine South American countries, with Brazil having the largest share. According to the nature conservation organization WWF, the largest rainforest in the world with an area of ??seven million square kilometers binds twelve percent of the freshwater on earth and is home to ten percent of all species in the world. The WWF warns that around 20 percent of the Amazon rainforest has already been destroyed. A tipping point would be reached at 25 percent of the forest destroyed, and the system would then no longer be salvageable.
Lemke said it was important to get the first projects off the ground quickly. It is therefore good that the federal government has now pledged 35 million euros for the Amazon Fund. “I am sure that if there is a problem with the question of further funds, we will also find ways, as an international community, to make more money available.”
The 35 million euros is a deposit in the Amazon fund that Germany had frozen during the time of right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro. Under him, the destruction of the rainforest had increased significantly. Now the money is released again.
Steinmeier and Lemke want to visit the ATTO research station in the rainforest and the monitoring center for deforestation in Manaus this Monday. The station is operated jointly by German and Brazilian scientists. They research the complicated interactions between rainforest and climate.
