Regional meeting to discuss how to address Amazon rainforest at forthcoming Copenhagen climate summit fails to draw in several Latin American leaders.
It was billed as a summit of presidents of Amazon countries. But most of the presidents didn’t bother to show up, making the ‘summit of presidents’ in Manaus one with few actual presidents in attendance.
About half of the mysterious place called "the Amazon" is in Brazil. The other half is divided between 8 other countries - Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana.
So Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Brazil's president, organised Thursday's one-day summit of Amazon countries as a chance for them to come together a forge a common agenda ahead of the all important Copenhagen climate change summit starting on December 7 - which is being billed as the biggest climate change meeting in generations.
Credit goes to Lula da Silva for hosting and organising the Amazon summit. And a hat-tip goes to Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, for attending as a representative of French Guyana, which is a department of French territory. Bharrat Jagdeo of Guiana also showed up.
But all the other key heads of state from the Amazon failed to turn up.
Hugo Chavez had a good excuse, as he was hosting Mahmoud Abbas back at home.
Colombia’s Alvaro Uribe apparently injured his leg on his farm, so his people said he couldn’t travel.
Ecuador’s Rafael Correa was travelling.
Bolivia’s Evo Morales, Peru’s Alan Garcia and Suriname’s Ronald Venetiaan apparently couldn’t change their schedules.
So let me see if I get this straight?
Nicolas Sarkozy can find the time to come 5,100 miles from Paris to Manaus? But Peru’s president Alan Garcia – whose country has about 11 per cent of the total Amazon territory inside its borders – can’t find the time to do a short day-trip flight from Lima to Manaus?
Most environmentalists will tell you Garcia has the most unfriendly environmental policies in South America. He has not hidden his feelings that the Amazon is a new frontier for economic development. But he couldn’t at least come to Manaus to give his view?
If actions speak louder than words, as they say, what this seems to indicate is that the Amazon is not very high up on the political or environmental agenda of Amazon presidents – the exception apparently going to Lula.
We are about a week away from the Copenhagen summit, where world leaders will be hashing out a new framework on climate change. The Amazon will be a key element in those discussions, given the fact that most everyone agrees that preserving the world’s largest rainforest is a good thing all round.
Yes, I know there is some debate about climate change and heated discussion about whether the science has been exaggerated. But I would venture to guess we all agree a healthy tree standing in the Amazon is probably better for the environment – and all of us - that a chopped down or burning tree, no?
So you talk about climate change, in any way, talk will certainly circle back to the Amazon at some point.
Going into Copenhagen, it’s now clear when it comes to the Amazon there will be only three voices that matter: Lula da Silva, Barack Obama, the US president, and Sarkozy. Those three men, for better or for worse, will dominate the agenda in Copenhagen from the Americas.
Because at the ‘fizzled’ Amazon summit here in Manaus, the presidents failed to even show up to discuss the issue in their own backyard.
And if you don't think the world took notice of what happened in Manaus, just look at this on the COP15 (Copenhagen climate summit) web site.
With the exception of Lula, how can the rest of the world take Amazon presidents seriously in Copenhagen?
If actions speak louder than words, maybe they shouldn’t.
