Leaders of the Group of Seven wealthy nations will release more than $20 million of emergency aid to help countries battle wildfires in the Amazon rainforest, French President Emmanuel Macron said on Monday.
However, it was not immediately clear if the country at the epicentre of the Amazon inferno, Brazil, would accept any help.
A record number of blazes are ravaging the world’s largest rainforest, many of them thought to have been started deliberately in Brazil, drawing international concern because of the Amazon’s importance to the global environment.
“We will straightaway offer Amazonian countries that signal to us their needs, financial support of at least up to 20 million euros (NZ$34 million),” said Macron, who is locked in a war of words with Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro.
US President Donald Trump was absent from the talks on climate change and biodiversity at a G7 session on Monday, and Macron said he had been busy holding bilateral meetings.
SOURCE: NEWSHUB
